Jose Roca, the Chief Curator and Artistic Director for Philagrafika will be HERE this coming Tuesday and Wednesday, February 9th + 10th.

Tuesday, February 9th he, along with Eve Laramee, will be critiquing a selection of Printmaking Majors in Dolphin, beginning at 2 PM.

Students are encouraged to attend and join in the discussion in these critiques. And even if you do not have anything to contribute, you will be in the presence of two excellent critics. Rest assured these will be very exciting.

Critiques will run from 2PM until about 5PM, beginning in Silkscreen and finishing in the 3rd Floor Computer Room. Please attend, even if you can only attend part of the event.

THEN:

Jose Roca is lecturing on Wednesday at 12:30 PM in Brown 320.
This is a mandatory lecture for all Printmaking Majors and Concentrators.

This is an Art at Lunch event. Please contact the faculty for your Wednesday classes and tell them you will be late returning from lunch because of this lecture. He will be speaking on his role organizing Philagrafika, which kicked off last week.

This is the ideal start to the 3-month long Philagrafika festival, and a perfect primer for all of you to attend the Philly festivities!

You have no reason to miss this, we’ll see you there!

Boy, if you missed out on the NYC IFPDA and E/AB Print Fairs this weekend, you really missed out. The weather was fantastic, the crowds were easily managed, the print work was far reaching, numerous, and completely accessible.  I genuinely hope you made it up.

Our friends at Printeresting, who had their own event this weekend, wrote up a really fabulous review of the two fairs – and rather than me repeating them, I’ll just send you there.

The photo above was taken during the department’s private tour of the Dieu Donne Papermill. Thanks again Kat!

Ok, so this is just great.

Abigail Uhteg, MICA Printmaking alumna, former Undergraduate Dolphin Press Coordinator, and first webmistress of the micaprintmaking.com site, compiled 3000 photographs in a fabulous stop-motion video documenting the making of The Complex of All These, her artist book, made during her residency at The Women’s Studio Workshop this past summer. It involves intaglio, letterpress, bookbinding, papermaking, and a hell of a lot of craft. There’s something for everyone! 3000 photographs of artist’s book goodness.

Here it is in HQ, but click the full-screen button to enjoy it even more!

EDIT: The MICA Library bought one  - you should request to see it in person!

For anyone in Gail’s book class, or anyone who’d like to see the video, here’s a quick slideshow/video of Flat Back binding. It should open in any browser – if not track down the necessary plugin here.

After the engaging conversation that took place at the department meeting yesterday, you will be pleased to know that the building hours will remain the same unless we are directed by MICA Operations. 

The faculty invites you to help make decisions on ways that we can better distribute our resources in the department. In the next department meeting, we can include a short discussion of your ideas and suggestions. 

Please help to adopt the new procedures that we have laid out for studio practice and lead the way to a healthier safer studio practice. Below are some of the new procedures.

-Gail Deery

Departmental Meeting Minutes:

We covered the following points in the Meeting yesterday:

The Bathrooms have been rehabbed… New sinks/toilets, repaired walls, floors, repainted. People spent a lot of time working on this, please take care of it.

We talked at length about the department Going Green.  We need to cut back on wasted materials, make the shop a healthier environment, and still keep everyone happy and productive in the shop.

Bullet points included:

- Safer cleaning materials for tabletops / palettes (vinegar, vegetable oil).  You will find more bottles of Vegetable Oil present, and far fewer bottles of solvent (Gamsol, Denatured Alcohol).

-Recycling all scrap and mis-printed rag paper (arches, rives) for the paper studio

-Conserving electricity when possible

-Orange-scrub soap will no longer be available – Lava Bar soap will be available at every sink. (we forgot to mention this in the meeting).  The bookstore also sells small bottles of Pumice Soap that will fit in your drawer if you so desire.

-Our crummy blotters are being replaced with a new system using Pellons and Bounty paper towels, as was demonstrated by Gail.  If you prefer, you may use your own bath towels, but they must be taken home when you are finished.  Any left behind will be thrown away, no questions asked.

-the shop used its entire YEAR’S supply of newsprint last semester. Unfortunately you must now purchase your own pads and keep them in your drawers.

Finally, there was MUCH discussion over attempting to limit shop access for safety and energy – conservation reasons.  After much consideration, we’ve decided NOT to limit hours this semester (see Gail’s letter above).

If you haven’t yet signed up for our mailing list, please do so on the lower-right side of this page.

Tuesday, Jan. 27th at 3 PM, there is a Printmaking Department Meeting.

All Majors and Concentrators should attend! 

We have many new policies and procedures to cover and demonstrate with you, most importantly, the fact that THE SHOP IS GOING GREEN!

The meeting starts at 3 and will end before 4pm classes.

Please don’t miss the meeting, we have much to cover… Miss the meeting and you’ll miss a lot.

Questions, contact Kyle, kvanhorn@mica.edu.

This 12th Edition of the Talas catalog comes at a very exciting time in the history of our company. We continue in our tradition of providing the finest quality products to Conservators, Artists and the Concerned Collector. Talas moves forward into the future knowing that the conservation industry is always seeking new and innovative products. 

The Salik family has been the proud owners of Talas for fourteen years. In the 90’s we launched our e-commerce website and greatly expanded our product line supported by an ever increasing inventory. Our biggest leap is now in progress as we renovate and relocate our facilities to a 19th Century feather factory in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. This new and larger space will offer us the opportunity to manufacture a large array of custom boxes, presentation enclosures as well as to expand our current inventory. 

We are thankful to you, our loyal customers. We welcome your suggestions and ideas so that we can continue to provide you with the highest quality products. As always, we welcome you to our showroom where you can see our complete line of products. 

See you in Brooklyn and let us continue to service your needs. 

…or look at the catalog or download it here.

Students, only students, either majors or in classes, please sign up on the lower right side of this web page.  This will put you on our mailing list for upcoming events, meetings, news, announcements, et al, within the department.  Enter your name, e-mail address, and click GO, fill out the security check, and you’re done.  When you’re tired of hearing from us you can delete yourself from the list.

The Artists’ Books Online project was designed to prototype an online collection of artists’ books to make these difficult to access, rare, and often out of print materials available through full page scans of entire books, enhanced metadata, and other bibliographical information. It was begun in 2004 at the University of Virginia by Johanna Drucker, and has been supported by faculty research grants from the Provost and Dean, as well as funds from Delmas Foundation and the NEH. The collection contains about 300 items.