On visiting Bath, England, again

Poulteney Bridge, Bath Spa, UK

I'm in England for a few days, accompanying my wife Patty as she attends a conference for writers in education. After we arrived at Heathrow, we took the train to Bath, where Patty lived for five months at the end of 2008 while she was teaching at Bath Spa University. She was living in an apartment in a street that is mentioned in one of Jane Austen's novels. La Austen didn't like Bath much, but then what did she know? Most of the town really does look like the above photo, and I got a kick out of flying across the Atlantic to visit my American wife while she was living in this splendid Georgian city in England.

I used to live in a town called Reading, about halfway between here and London, and I would come here a lot for day trips at the weekend. I still can't get over the irony of the fact that in order to experience this city at the high end of the market, as it were, I had to first go to live in the USA and marry an American woman.

There is a good art museum here, the Holburne, but it's currently closed for renovations. We don't have much time to do anything other than to see old friends at the university, and to consume as much great Indian food as we can before moving on to the conference. And then on Monday, it's back to Chicago to brace ourselves for the onslaught of winter.

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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:

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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.

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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

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