Skip to main content

On workshop 5 for the community memoir project

Lanark Public Library, Illinois
On Friday evening, I drove out to Lanark, Illinois, to conduct the fifth workshop for the Carroll County Community Memoir Project. Patty couldn't come with me due to the death of her brother this week, so I had to do this one solo. Shown above is the library, taken in dramatic light due to the combination of high heat and humidity, a huge thunderstorm, and even a tornado warning. Nine people attended, including a lady who will soon be 91 years old, and who brought along these incredible photos from the early 1920s. That means she was born in 1919, people, about nine months after the end of WWI. Other things that happened in 1919:

  • The League of Nations was founded.
  • Theodore Roosevelt died at the age of 50.
  • Afghanistan gained independence from the UK.
  • Pancho Villa was still on the warpath in Mexico.
  • Einstein's theory of relativity was confirmed.
  • Women got the vote for the first time in the USA.
  • The Bauhaus movement was founded in Weimar, Germany, and the forerunners of the Green Bay Packers were also founded.

Here are a few more piccies of the workshop, including one of the brooding sky after the workshop ended.
 Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Restoring my Printing Press

I've just finished restoring and assembling my large etching press -- a six week process involving lots of rust removal, scrubbing with steel wool, and repainting. Here is a photo of the same kind of press from the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative: And here is a short YouTube video of me testing the press, making sure the motor still works after nearly seven years of lying in storage:
Click here to read more

Brancusi in Plastic

Artist Mary Ellen Croteau is showing these columns made from recycled plastic cartons and lids in the window of the Columbia College bookstore on Michigan Avenue. They are a playful homage to Brancusi's "Endless Columns", with a serious environmental message for our times: Image copyright Inhabitat.com and Mary Ellen Croteau Mary Ellen also runs a wonderful experimental art gallery in a window space in west Chicago, called Art on Armitage . I will be exhibiting a mixed media piece there during August 2012.
Click here to read more

How to etch a linoleum block

Linoleum as a material for printmaking has been used for nearly a hundred years now. Normally, you cut an image out using special gouges similar to woodcut tools, cutting away the lino around the image you want to print. This is called relief printmaking, because if you look at the block from the side, the material that remains stands up in relief from the backing material. You then roll ink with a brayer over the surface of the block, place paper over it, and either print by hand or run it through a press. You can do complex things this way (for example, reduction linocuts), but the beauty of the process is that it is quick, simple, and direct. Incised lino block, from me.redith.com Etched lino block, from Steve Edwards A few years ago, I saw some prints that were classified as coming from etched linoleum blocks, and I loved the textures I saw in them. In the last few months, I've been trying to use this technique in my own studio, learning about it as one does these d
Click here to read more