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Things have been very busy recently for me and for most of us here at MECA. Midterm critiques within the majors were the past couple of weeks. In printmaking, midterm critiques are usually 30 minutes long, you put up your work and come to the critique with three questions that you have for your peers. It’s a nice chance for you to more formally present your work to your professors and to your fellow students. This round of midterm critiques we had guest critique-ers, both of them familiar with printmaking, from outside of our department.

At MECA you can sign walls out throughout the school on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th floors. It is recommended in printmaking that you get your work up on the walls by noon the day before your critique so that everyone gets a chance to spend time with the work.

For my midterm critique I put up a timeline that I have been working on and that was somewhat in a in-between place. In the timeline I am trying to think about agriculture through old photographs by Marion Post Wolcott and Walker Evans that were taken during the great depression, and images of the huge industrial farms that we have today. I was able to use the midterm to see how people reacted to it without a lot of background information about the piece. Some of the feedback I got was that there was a disconnect between the viewer and the work and that there needed to be a better entrance point for the audience. I think this shows a good example of how beneficial the critiquing process is because I would have never have known that if I was just sitting alone with my work. I’ll post some pictures of what I put up for midterm but it has already changed a lot from that state. I will keep you posted!

The overall view of the work, I printed off photos from artstor.org of the photographs by Wolcott and Weston, and then was able to find some images of contemporary farms from flickr and google images.

This is a photograph from flickr painted on with acrylic.

Google image with acrylic.

This is an example of one of the photographs that I sourced from artstor.org by Marion Post Wolcott

It’s been such a busy time around MECA that I’ve barely had time to sit down. With book projects, print series, bookmaking, getting involved in the student senate, and trying to make a new community zine I have barely had a moment to take a step back and see how things are going. Even if this all seems like a lot of stuff to do, I could never be happier because I get to work on all these exciting projects. As all this whirlwind of work surrounds me, there has been a small break in this storm of inspiring work in the form of a visiting artist lecture and workshop that I participated in.

The visiting artist who swung through was Elliot Earls, a graphic designer who is… out of the ordinary and owns it completely. I truthfully have no way to describe this guy’s work, but I think he does a good job explaining it himself. Give his website a look to see some of his work.

So Elliot sent us a brief a few weeks ago asking us to create charged imagery based on three things that we are passionate about. It was quite an open project and I think we all understandably struggled on it. Little did I know when I came into art school that sometimes the hardest thing to make is something without restrictions. So this time was particularly open, and through this workshop we were shown things… well… by ourselves. Elliot presented us with a project that was both to create something interesting and to find something out about how we work and about our process in the studio. I personally realized that you can overthink something when you make it, and got to see the power in making many versions of one project.

As you can see, a crazy wall of envelope patterns emerged from my picking of “collection, color, and pattern” for my subjects. Although it may be a kind of zany and odd result, I had some very interesting moments of liking these mash-ups of color and imagery I had been collecting for a few years. I encourage everyone, no matter what discipline you are in, to look at your studio practice every once and a while and see what you are doing. Sometimes you can work out a problem in a completely different way and arrive at a totally unexpected end result. I certainly did in this project, and I’m glad that I took the time to really think about what Elliott Earls was talking about with process.

This semester I have a class called Pixels to Ink; it explores different techniques of bringing photographic and digital imagery into traditional printmaking media. Currently we are learning about Cyanotypes, a process where you paint a light sensitive liquid onto any porous surface and then using an ultraviolet light, expose the images. This process was originally used to created blueprints.
Some students in my class have been making masks out of paper to stop the light, others are using plants, fabric, film negatives, and drawings on clear mylar.

I did some tests using photographs that I turned into negatives and printed on UV paper.

This is a test. The cyanotype process is very much like developing a photograph in that you have to make tests until you get the exposure time right.

Another test; I tested my negative on old shopping bags that I had. This is an example of what the Cyanotype looks like over images or type that is already on the paper.

Below there are pictures of what I am working towards in Pixels to Ink using cyanotypes. I made a film negative on the computer, from a photograph of the candy isle at the grocery store, that I then exposed onto the shopping bag. I still don’t have the exposure time perfect because the image is a little dark, but it’s close!

Below are some images of what other print majors who are in Pixels to Ink have done with the Cyanotype process. It’s exciting to be able to take a class where we can experiment with different techniques that we might be able to incorporate into what we are doing in our studios.

Kayla Denoncourt ‘11, made using different combinations of fabric, shapes cut out of paper, and films.

Kayla Denoncourt ‘11, detail

Hannah Godbey ‘11, Cyanotype on a dyed t-shirt and silkscreen

Hannah Godbey ‘11, detail of cyanotype on cloth with silkscreen.

These past few weeks have been filled with busy nights of homework and exciting days of new projects in class. I am feeling like I am really in the thick of everything, and I am shocked that we are only about a month or more into the semester.

Working on so many book projects has me very happy with my classes right now. I have been making altered books, accordion fold books, as well as creating a compilation of essays from my Design Topics class that will be made into a book I am calling “Layers” (at least for now, It’s a working title). The fact that I am getting to make objects that I have a great appreciation for is so energizing, and I am realizing how many things can be said with books. It is a powerful tool for communicating in many forms, whether it be a heartfelt story or a sculptural object…

With all these projects going on, I have had an endless source of projects to sink my “creative teeth” into. Even on top of this, I am looking forward to starting a new personal project relating to book. I have had an ambitious thought to make something that the community can look at and be inspired and interested in — some sort of collection of work so that people in our great city of Portland can see what people are thinking and interested in. So with those thoughts in mind, I created a zine project called “MANY-ANY-ALL”. If you want to find out more about how this collaborative piece is coming along, check out the blog here.

Another tidbit about what’s going on around MECA, we also just had the first of our Open Studio days. This is an action packed event that isn’t to be missed if you are in your first two years of MECA. All of the studios open up their doors to let you learn more about what may be going on and why you might want to major in a certain area, as well as see some of the work being produced there. For example, here’s a nice example of what was on display in the metals studio:

There is everything from demos to food that you can watch, as well as a little friendly competition for fun. You can be watching a forging demo one minute…

… and be competing in a bowl-throwing competition the next.

Not to mention everyone comes out and serves some delicious food (even our president comes out to serve some soup and bread!)

This is just part one, and there are even more majors that will be doing presentations in a week or so. I love being able to talk to everyone and see what kind of fun things that people present about their major. Everyone is proud to show off what they are about and what you can do, and you get a sense of spirit in each department. I hope that the future classes to come will have just as much fun as I do, because it translates to really enjoying and excelling in what we do well as artists.

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I cannot believe that it is already February, this semester has been going by so fast!
Quick studio update! In one week my studio went from this:

to this!

What I have learned in the past couple of weeks is that, for me, making art comes with a good deal of messiness. In my studio this semester I decided that I wanted to try to make something every day, or at least be in my studio working towards a finished piece each day.

For the beginning of the semester all the juniors were supposed to make a limited edition of 100 double sided trading cards. We plan on compiling the prints and giving them out, as small portfolios, during the printmaking open studio on February 16th. The cards are supposed to be examples of our work. Everyone is printing them differently, some of the juniors have hand printed all 100 and others have printed them digitally.

For my card, I chose to make a woodblock of the phrase OMG-GMO (which stands for Oh My God, Genetically Modified Organism) and print it on one side. On the other side, I made a print by rolling a corn cob in relief ink and then transferring the ink from the cob onto the paper.

Awesome, R. Hoe and Co. press.

Me lifting a print off of the woodblock after I printed it on the press.

These are only a few of the 100 woodblock prints, drying on the rack.

Here is an example of what it looked like when I printed from the corn cob onto the paper!

The corn cob that I printed with!

It’s always wondertful to get back into the swing of things in a new semester. My excitement for class has been met with equally enthusiastic teachers and projects. Everyone has a semester under their belt at this point, so it feels like I have a better handle on how to pace myself and work. I am surprised by the fact that I am now getting to projects that I have marveled at since freshman year. Book projects that I have seen upperclassman do are now landing on my studio desk…

In one project, the “This I Believe” book, we take the writing prompt from the This I Believe Website and with our whole class doing it, we construct a book of our own design from all the stories that are written. We act as the designer, author, editor, and create every aspect of the book. To be able to make something and give it a feeling, a rhythm, and impart a designed idea onto the pages. Although this is something that is very difficult to do, the hard work shows when you have a beautifully designed book in the end. I hope in the upcoming weeks to be able to show you all the wonderful work our class does with these books, and I hope you take a chance to read some of the This I Believe stories on the website (http://thisibelieve.org/). It’s worth taking a peek, there are a multitude of credos that will both move you and inspire you.

As this is my first blog entry I think it would be appropriate for me to introduce myself. I am a printmaking major at MECA, in my junior year, and my current interests are:

1. The romance of food and the beauty of cookbooks.

2. The seed packets that I most recently procured from a super snazzy eBay transaction.

3. Cooking. I just taught myself how to cook poached eggs in simmering water, so I have been poaching eggs left and right.

This was my dinner a couple nights ago: poached eggs, kale, and cheese on some toast. Delicious.

4. CORN! I am fascinated by American Corn, its beautiful and destructive qualities. Last semester a lot of the work I made was centered around the imagery of corn. By the end of the semester I had finished a 72″ x 72″ print. It is a sugar lift etching with hand coloring done in gouache.

Sugar lift is a process in printmaking in which you paint directly onto a copper plate with a water soluble mixture of corn syrup, black india ink, and some soap. After it is dry, you cover the whole plate with an acid resistant coating. You then can dissolve the sugar lift by placing it in hot water and the acid resistant coating will stay intact. After all that is complete you are ready to etch the plate! You put it in a tray of acid and it etches where ever the sugar lift has been dissolved. It creates a beautiful line that is more expressive and like a brush stroke than typical hard ground etchings.

The images below show the plates with the sugar lift drawn on them, before they were coated with the acid resistant coating.

It has been a little while now since I have been back at MECA, and the time spent at home was relaxing. Upon returning to my apartment in the fantastic city of Portland, I found myself getting a little restless and the itch to create and make something was impossible to ignore. Having a month long break is good for recharging the proverbial batteries of your mind and body, but as time goes on while you sit and relax you start to think about all the exciting things that you were doing in your studio…

As soon as I got back to Portland and into my studio space, the mental gears were turning trying to think of something to create. I found myself in the Print studio before classes began. To get the creative juices flowing and start thinking about my own studio practice, I decided to pull a quick edition of posters.

These were a blast to make, and if you’d like to see more about the little project I have it posted on my Flickr account (there are full views and an explanation of the project as well).

I think the great thing about this break is you come back rejuvenated and ready to go in a new set of classes. Even though at the end of the last semester I had found myself drudging along in the last few days of class, I feel excited now expecting what might be on the horizon. I hope that everyone else at MECA who is arriving back had a good break, and are just as excited about their upcoming classes. I know there are a lot of amazing things on the way, whether it be a project or a show, or just some interesting event here in the city. My first class couldn’t come soon enough.

When the last week of the semester finally arrives, its time to be thoughtful and reflect on our work from the semester.

I’m happy to be done with so many big projects, and on the topic of reflection and culmination I have a perfect chance to stand back and look at my body of work as a whole. The department critique for Graphic Design was this past Thursday, and it gave everyone a chance to put up everything and anything that they felt was part of their work and design practice. It is quite a sobering thing to see a huge wall of your work and be able to think about it as a whole. We don’t often see something like this with all projects often split apart by time and due dates, so relishing in some of the connections in your work can be a real treat.


The fantastic thing about these critiques is that you get the chance to hear both opinions of people who have been around your work a lot and people from outside our school setting. We had guest designers and artists come in for some periods of the critique and let them have some input as a totally unbiased opinion, as well as one of experience different from anything else we are exposed to. I for one loved all the things that were said about my own display and everyone else’s. This feedback informs my own work, so hearing everyone’s crit was very valuable.

The holiday seasons are always busy for everyone at MECA. As soon as that coma-enducing Thanksgiving meal is a memory, things kick into high gear for the last few weeks of the semester. The impending winter break adds a sense of finality and I have had a few “all-nighters” in the last few days just to make sure everything is done to the best of my ability.

Another thing that I have been excited about is the two-day Holiday Sale at MECA that everyone has been scrambling around to get ready for. On December 4th and 5th there is a crowd that descends on the Porteous building, all looking for beautiful works of art to buy and take home. It’s quite a bustling scene even during the set-up, and seeing some tables putting out work is making me nervous for not spending my own hard-earned money on everything that I want to hang up on my walls.

One very exciting thing is the GD department’s table this time around for the Holiday Sale. We happened upon a huge collection of sign-letters that were going to be thrown away, and couldn’t pass them up. These were imported from a company in Paris, and we have so many that we don’t know what to do with them (nearly over a million letters. No joke!). We hope to be able to let people who want them to take some home, so we’ve been sorting and setting up a display so they can be looked at and go to a good home if someone wants to buy some.

Since it’s the city wide First Friday event, not just MECA but the whole city, will be full of people enjoying this holiday season and all the wonderful happenings in Portland. It can be overwhelming to find places to go and to see in the city, so I thought just as a little side comment I’d offer up a project I have been working on for a bit. I’ve created a Student MECA Portland Map for people to be able to find interesting/important things around town, and I wanted to share the link with you here.

Click here to jump to the Map!