Baltimore!

Baltimore!

This is going to be a short, photo-heavy post since I’m traveling. I had a whirlwind of a day at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art), where I’ll be lecturing and teaching a workshop tomorrow. It started with breakfast with Yoojin Kim, a senior here who specializes in pop-ups and was so highly recommended by colleagues that I invited her to do a project for my upcoming book Playing With Pop-Ups. She is in her final semester of school, so I’ll cut her a bit of slack if she can’t pull this off… but I really hope that she can! Check out this amazing 8 foot tall collapsible tree that she made when she was still in high school.

Emerging, by Yoojin Kim

Emerging, by Yoojin Kim


Gail Deery, printmaking faculty and hostess extraordinaire hooked me up, and I got to see the work of several students working in print, books and paper, and I toured Globe Press, which houses a huge collection of wood type. MICA acquired type and posters from Globe Poster Printing Corporation, historically one of the nation’s largest showcard printers, has been telling the story of American music and entertainment through bright and iconic posters since 1929.
wood type from Globe

wood type from Globe


After lunch I met Tony White, head librarian of Special Collections in MICA’s library. We had a lovely conversation – talking about our colleagues and friends, our educations at about the same at two different liberal arts colleges, and of course, artists’ books.
On the way back to the print and paper building, I stopped by a school gallery with a show of Lenore Tawney’s work. I hadn’t heard of Tawney until about 8 years ago, but her string pieces and drawings are influential to my own work. What a treat to see this work in person!
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Drawing in Air by Lenore Tawney

Drawing in Air by Lenore Tawney


Thread installation by Lenore Tawney

Thread installation by Lenore Tawney


Back in the print and paper building, I toured Dolphin Press & Print. The press is a professional printmaking and letterpress shop housed in the Printmaking Department, which was designed to promote collaboration between visual artists, writers and students in order to produce limited-edition letterpress books and broadsides. Students actually get to work on projects with artists and get credit at the same time!
Yoojin Kim's work bench

Silk screened and letterpressed print by Trenton Hancock


The rest of the day was spent preparing pulp and setting up for tomorrow’s workshop. More on that soon!
 

3 Comments

  1. wonderful to see such grand student work! and tawney was one of our icons when i was a fiber student in the 70’s. she was always making amazing NEW work…

  2. daria says:

    OH MY! absolutely fantastic art!

  3. Pa says:

    Sounds like a great trip. I am jealous that you saw an exhibit of Lenore Tawney’s work. She has been an inspiration for me too.