Melissa Stern at Firecat Projects, Chicago

DUTCH SHOES, 27 inches high. Clay, wood, objects, charcoal, graphite

Melissa Stern is a New York-based artist and writer who is exhibiting work at Firecat Projects in Chicago, in a solo show titled Does She or Doesn't She? The art consists of paintings, drawings, ceramic sculptures and found object assemblages, in all of which we see a common feature: hair. Specifically, a female face or head or form with the hair styled in every imaginable fashion (and probably some beyond imagining). The theme is both playful and serious. Serious, because the idea underpinning the subject matter is the way in which a woman's hair has, since time immemorial, been one of the key ways in which female identity is determined. The title of the show derives from an old advert for hair products, and the unsubtle message that when a woman "fixes" her hair, her personality is completed, which comes with the opposite corollary that "unfixed" hair leads to a socially incomplete woman.

Playful, because the visual style of the pieces, whether in two dimensions or three, is very much immersed in the language of cartoons, graffiti, art brut, the finding of meaning in the loosely drawn and the haphazardly collected. But don't be fooled: there is clearly a strong and decisive hand driving the oil stick and the paintbrush into such bold outlines and shapes, just as there is an enquiring mind embodying these ideas in visual form.

NEW DOO, 12" x 9". Oil stick, pastel, graphite, paint.

As the artist herself states: "Drawn, painted, collaged, and sculpted, “Does She or Doesn’t She” looks at how we define ourselves with our most primal adornment: our hair. We measure age, professionalism, and politics by hair condition and styling. Our hair is dead cells manipulated to connote life, youth, potential. Hair is a locus of both agency and restraint for women, empowering and constricting, allowing us to feel a focus-group-tested version of freedom and an untamed, passionate version of control."

There is also an excellent video to accompany the show, which you can watch here.

Does She or Doesn't She continues at Firecat Projects, 2019 N. Damen Avenue, Chicago, through January 23, 2021.

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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