RIP Mary Ellen Croteau

I was shocked to learn last week of the death of Chicago artist Mary Ellen Croteau. For the last decade, she worked with recycled plastics to create sculptures and sculptural portraits that combined an ingenious use of found elements with a natural sense of colour and design. In fact, something I wrote about one of her earliest pieces in this style, Brancusi in Plastic, is still the most popular post on this blog.

Mary Ellen also ran a small gallery on the west side of Chicago, Art on Armitage, which I showed at in 2007 and 2012. The gallery space was just a shopfront window facing a busy street in a predominantly working-class and Latino neighbourhood. The art was usually experimental, and Mary Ellen received deserved credit for connecting art to a so-called underserved population, and for running the gallery for so long and for such little personal gain.

I also spent a lot of time with Mary Ellen when I accompanied her to the Bridge Art Fair, a branch of Art Basel Miami, and found her just to be a very nice and very funny person.

She was not by any means advanced in years, so her death is a deep loss above all for her family, but also for a Chicago art community that will be poorer for her absence.

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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Praeterita

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