Skip to main content

Work by One of My Students


I teach several versions of the Journal and Sketchbook class: the weekend or one day workshop version, and the 15 week semester-long version at Columbia College Chicago. Part of the extra academic requirement of the latter is that the students must create a piece of visual art that is in conversation with their final piece of writing. The final presentations of those paired pieces, writing + visual art, ended last week.

So many good things were submitted, and I'll post images of some of them soon. I'm going to start with this piece by student Sulejman Karic, because it combines a reading and a visual equivalent in the same video. He was born in the USA to parents who were refugees from the Bosnian war in the 1990s. The memoir he began working on is, I believe, the first time he has explored that material at such length. The video still needs some work, but it's so impressive already that I want to share it as widely as possible.
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