NSW Deadline next Wednesday!

NSW 2010 winning print “Mandala” by Kiyomi Baird.

You have just under a week to apply for the 16th Annual National Small Works Exhibition.  Remember, we extended the deadline from the 17th to the 22nd.  Eligible works must be:

• hand-pulled prints (sorry, no digital prints or photographs)
• under 170 square inches (this is the print size , not paper or frame size)
• created within the past two years

This year’s juror is Philippa Hughes of the Pinkline Project.  In addition to founding this calendar/blog, she hosts the very popular Cherry Blast party every year and serves as a DC Commissioner for the Arts.  Ms. Hughes will be picking the 50 prints that comprise the exhibition, and then the winners from those 50.  First prize is a solo show in August of 2014.

You can see all the details about the exhibition and the call for entries here.  Have some other questions? Check out our FAQ.  Good luck!

Press Room Mini Solos 2014

“Entanglements” by Robin Gibson

We’ve had (and have scheduled) some great Press Room shows for 2013, including the current exhibition, In My Nature by Robin Gibson.  Are you a printmaker interested in having a show in the Press Room this year?  It’s great for a student (or student group) just starting to build a resume of solo shows, for an artist wishing to exhibit a smaller body of work or a specific suite of prints, or for someone who wants to try out something that’s a little more experimental–we’re really looking forward to the multi-media installation by Refugee Art Project next month!  As long as the work is 75% related to paper-making, print arts, or book arts, we’ll consider it.  There is NO FEE to apply!  Deadline is August 17, and notifications go out in mid-September.  Want more information? Check out the full prospectus on our website.

Noesis

Pyramid Atlantic founder Helen Frederick has curated the exhibition Noesis: 12 Printmakers Looking Intuitively at the World at the Cosmos Club.  The Cosmos Club is a private club, but we did want to mention the exhibition because we saw so many familiar names, including current members Rosemary Cooley, Jenny Freestone, Trudi Y. Ludwig and Margaret Adams Parker.  Additionally, we’re pleased to see former member Fleming Jeffries and WPG friends Elzbieta Sikorska as exhibitors.  If you are a member of the Cosmos Club (or friends with one!), this exhibition will be up May 16-September 8.

NSW Deadline EXTENDED

NSW 2012 Grand Prize Winner: “Not the Center of the Universe” by Cianna Valley (California), etching, aquatint, and spitbite.

Director Annie Newman will be out of town on the original deadline–which just didn’t seem fair for anyone having any last-minute registration problems.   So, we’ve extended the deadline to Wednesday, May 22 for National Small Works Entries. Remember, this year’s juror is Philippa Hughes of the Pinkline Project and the grand prize is a solo show in August of 2014.  You can read about our other prizes, as well as how to apply, at our website.

Artist Update: Matina Marki Tillman

“Arabesque” by Matina Marki Tillman

Artist member Matina Marki Tillman will be participating in the New York Society of Etchers 3^rd National Exhibition of Intaglio Prints at the National Arts Club in New York. Matina will be exhibiting a representative work from her new series of direct etchings of charcoal drawings onto solarplates as part of this show. The exhibition will run from May 20^th to June 7^th, 2013.

For whoever hasn’t already visited, the National Arts Club is a beautiful, historic gallery in one of New York City’s most elegant neighborhoods. For artists and visitors alike, National Arts Club exhibitions are experiences well worth attending. The opening and artists’ reception will be Wednesday, May 23^rd from 6:30-8:30 pm at the National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, New York City.

Show Pics: Signs and Seasons and In My Nature

Our opening reception is tomorrow, along with Peggy’s talk at 2 pm!  We hope to see you there to check out some of this great work in person!

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Saturday Slideshow: Robin Gibson

Exclusively on DCimPRINT: a sneak peek of Robin Gibson’s prints that will be up in the Press Room in May.  These prints aren’t even on the website!  Come by to see In My Nature next week.

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Sneak Peek: Signs and Seasons

Next week is the opening of Margaret Adams Parker’s solo exhibition, Signs and Seasons (and also the Press Room Mini Solo In My Nature by Robin Gibson).  Saturday is the opening reception as well as the artist talk by Margaret Adams Parker.  In case you missed it in the Spring Newsletter, here’s a reprint of part of the article on this upcoming show:

As I write this in early February I am lamenting – through two complex images – the frailty of advanced age.  Sunt lacrimae rerum is printed from an assemblage of 14 etched plates: five of them are based on drawings of my mother’s decline; the other nine “spacers” are darkened with dots and jagged lines – like the tangle of her mind.  Et mentem mortalia tangent pairs an etching of my mother with one of a man who is elderly but still alert.  I am experimenting with different arrangements and may possibly include counterproofs in the final composition.  The counterproof impression – a pale (and reversed) version of the etching- seems an apt metaphor for the losses that come with aging.  (The titles for these works are taken from Virgil’s Aeneid, Book 1:462, where Aeneas weeps as he stares at murals picturing his comrades lost in the Trojan War:  “Here are tears for things, and thoughts of mortality touch the mind.”)

But all is not lament.  I am eager to work on more joyous images:  a fiddler playing jigs with his band; three young women sharing photos on the subway; my granddaughters.

In the etchings of the natural world, I depict the skeletal remains of once flourishing life:   ancient trees, fading leaves, bones, and seed pods.  But I couple these with images of new birth.  Signs and Seasons, the work that gives the show its title, celebrates the improbable return of life to a tree wrenched apart by a storm.  To accompany this work I have written a poem (an entirely new endeavor for me), reflecting on new life out of death…[this poem makes] explicit the commonality that I see between seasons in our lives and in the natural world, the words forming a bridge between these two parts of the show.

You can read Peggy’s poem, as well as see her etchings, sculpture, and drawings, May 1-26.  The opening reception is Saturday, May 4, 1-4 pm.

National Small Works Update

NSW 2012 Grand Prize Winner: “Not the Center of the Universe” by Cianna Valley (California), etching, aquatint, and spitbite.

We are about 3 weeks out from the National Small Works application deadline.  That sounds like a long time, but we’re about to hit a busy time of year–graduations, weddings, Mother’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, the battle against allergies–these are just a few things that might distract you from getting your prints submitted in time.  So, we suggest going online this weekend to submit your application.  This year’s juror is Philippa Hughes, founder of the Pink Line Project and DC Commissioner for the Arts and Humanities.  If she picks your work for the show, you’re in the running for a solo show in 2014, a $200 purchase award from Graphic Chemical & Ink, Co, and more.  So, document your work if you haven’t already, and submit your prints to get in the running!

NSW Reminder

2012 Graphic Chemicals Purchase Award: “Turf” by Curtis Bartone, two-plate aluminum lithograph

Are you thinking of applying to National Small Works?  Remember that April 17 is the deadline for early bird submissions, which carry the reduced fee of $20/4 images.  Can’t quite get everything together by then?  (We know, sometimes that plate needs to go back in the acid bath just one more time…) Don’t worry, the final deadline for submissions is May 18, but from April 18 til then the entry fee is $30/4 images.

Good luck!