POSTED, Printmaking Center of New Jersey

Hello friends! It has been a little while. We were on vacation in Colorado in Rocky Mountain National Park for some family R&R…We had lovely weather and the girls did wonderfully on hikes. I'll post some photos once I get through all the photo downloads! Anyway, I don't know if you know about this side of ThePCPress, but I frequently enter exhibitions. I'm trying to remember my first exhibition and it might have been a Grad School/Art School show of map-making. Last fall I had a solo show and workshop at Viterbo University in LaCrosse, Wisconsin and a fun summer show about bicycles. Most recently I was juried into some shows for the fall. This is the first installment of a blog post about new exhibitions… My work was juried into: "POSTED" (below is some info about the show) On July 4, 1776, a handwritten document was delivered to John Dunlop's print shop in Philadelphia. Approximately twenty-four hours later, 200 letterpress printed copies of this document, The Declaration of Independence, were ready to distribute to the thirteen colonies. In 1776, letterpress printing was the most immediate way to spread important news. Since 1776, many artists have continued to use letterpress printing to respond to situations around them in serial print form, without delay. Letterpress printing allows for unusual access to the publishing: once an idea for book or broadside is conceived and paper in acquired, production can begin immediately, and a printed response to an event can be distributed that day (not unlike what happened in 1776). From the protests for democracy in Egypt and Syria, to the Occupy movement; from the tsunami in Japan; to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; and the battle for reproductive and gay rights, we live in a time of constant “event”. Because of the increasing saturation of media via the internet, we know about events happening on the other side of the world almost instantaneously. How have artists used letterpress printing to respond to events that have affected them? “Posted” is a juried exhibit of letterpress printed work, which was created in direct response to the myriad of events happening around the world. EXHIBITION DATES:  August 18 – October 13, 2012 This show is right up my alley since I spent much of my thesis work depicting news events through collage and flash media. Here are a few pieces that were selected: [caption id="attachment_1907" align="alignnone" width="540"] Tattered Liberty, after an article written by mark steyn on the passing of the new healthcare laws…[/caption]   [caption id="attachment_1908" align="alignnone" width="540"] Artist Book, "Two Five Hundred in Fifteen" (two massive 500 year floods in Iowa within 15 years)[/caption]     [caption id="attachment_1909" align="alignnone" width="540"] Artist Book, "Hello America, Hello Poland"[/caption]