INTRODUCTION TRADE PORTFOLIO

INTRODUCTION TRADE PORTFOLIO

The portfolio cover type was designed by Michele Brown and grew organically from a discussion we had concerning type design.  Michele tackled the challenge of designing a basic font based upon a traditional grid, imparting a strong sense of unity with just enough variety to distinguish the individual letter forms.  Together we toyed with the size and arrangement of the letters to form the cover layout.  The colors were carefully mixed to allow for the maximum range of the spectrum and maticulously printed on both the portfolio cover and cover sheet.

INTRODUCTION
Scott Brown
Michele Brown

 I came to this idea as I engaged the things, devices and materials of a small sign press that my wife and I recently acquired.  I was fascinated by the limited choices and infinite decisions to be made regarding movable type. Spacing, size, alignment and placement become my primary consideration, my choice of wording merely a vehicle for the act of constructing a block.  After resolving the typographic concerns, I was struck by the lack of creativity of my statement.  In response, I let my inner delinquent out, constructing the vulgarity with a juvenile glee.  Having invested some time in setting the type, I committed to print what I had produced.  For me, this sort of commitment upped the ante.  I was now making a piece of artwork.  Having committed to my phrase, embracing the cliche’ and adding a counter intuitive vulgarity, I set out to again shift the meaning and intent of the piece through a symbol of passive defiance.  The resulting piece exists at an intersection between text and imagery where the construction of meaning is a slippery prospect.   I liked the concept of using my introduction to letterpress to construct a piece of artwork about introductions.

PASSIVE
Scott Brown
     

     From the beginning I knew exactly what I wanted my introduction to say, "What do you need me to be?" At the time I was struggling with the fact that in any given moment I am asked to preform many tasks at once. I am always wearing many hats, and I'm always juggling the plans and coordination of several different present and future projects.
At that time in my life I felt that I had no time or place to be wholly myself, because everyone else needed me to be something different, and all at once.  I was having a very hard time compartmentalizing my life.
       While my phrase was simple, I had a much harder time deciding what my image should be. I wanted my image to translate well into linoleum, and I knew I wanted it to have a rough quality.  The fact that we were asked to make it a single, iconic image vetoed a lot of my initial choices.
       The phrase I chose could take on a sexual overtone, and while I wanted to keep that in place, I didn't want it to be the focus of the piece. I sketched a lot of ideas out. At one time I had decided to use the image of a paper doll, but I felt that it may be too dated of an image. It also had more of a vulnerable quality than I was looking for. There was also the fact that despite sketch after sketch I felt it did not translate well into a lino cut.
        During the months that this project took place my professional life took some major turns. I gave up being a stay-at-home mother to work for an advertising agency. Six weeks later the agency closed. Toward the end of the project I was finalizing plans to open my own business.
       These personal changes helped me view my "What do you need me to be?" persona as a strength rather than a burden, as a testament to adaptability, rather than a mark of someone simply stretched too thin for their own good. That is when I decided to drop the question mark. I then started thinking of using a stronger image. Something that would convey a pride in the trait. Something other women could relate to and feel a sense of pride, understanding, and solidarity when viewed.

Untitled
Lacey Schechter

One morning I was having coffee at Spangles when Scott stopped in to ask me if i would care to participate in this trade book thing he was putting together.  It took a little thought for me to agree to participate.

We all met up, Scott gave us who were unfamiliar with the process some instruction.  The parameters of the project, words of wisdom, caution and encouragement as well as the block and tools to carve our master pieces were shared.

I took my block and pondered my part in the project.  Soon, I had something I wanted to explore and proceeded to lay it out and started cutting the block, remembering Scott’s words of caution,
‘Always cut away from yourself’.  It took a day or two to cut and I was ready to proof the print.  We set the type and Scott took over from there, printing the entire portfolio.  The resulting portfolio you see here.

Untitled
Randy (Rama) Oberle

What an Adventure!!

I ran into Scott and Michele in mid-December after not having much contact with other “art brains” for the past couple of years.  He e-mailed me the info about “the plan” and the Ideas started to formulate.  How to identify myself?

At first I considered ways to signify a life-changing bout with the medical profession... Nah, too personal.  Next I thought about trying to convey through the project the fact that I had become “a mere shadow of my former self” after losing 155 pounds in the past five years... Nah, not with my abysmal drawing skills!  What about the end of my 33-year career as an art teacher?  Nah, nothing clicked image-wise... same with images of my new job.

I’ve always heard that you should go with your first instinct.  So, I talked to Scott for some help sorting things out.  As always, he helped clear things up!  Taking his advice, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and go with the personal.

As an art teacher, I’d thought lino cuts to high school and middle school students.  Most of the prints I’d made at that time were relatively simple ones - to be used as teaching examples.  My only non-teacher linoleum experience was in Scott’s print making class at HCC in 2010.  Like I did then, for this print, I relied on my forte’ - “zoom-zooms and wham-whams” as Scott aptly dubbed them.  Little did I know what I was getting myself in for!  What comes so natural with a Sharpie doesn’t translate well with a linoleum cutter... cutting the block was EXACTLY tedious!  Several areas had to be modified due to knife operator error.  Fortunately, I realize most of the “errors” aren’t obvious to anyone else!  I didn’t expect my hands to hurt so much either!

The printing process was fascinating.  I’ve hung around a friend of mine’s print shop enough to know that letters, phrases, etc. needed to be backward in order to read correctly when printed.  Armed with that knowledge, I carefully chose the size font I wanted for the graphic and arranged the letters accordingly (I thought).  Much to my chagrin, the first printing read “Howby, I’m Elizadeth.”  So much for the ‘b’s and ‘d’s!

Scott was in charge of color mixing and achieved the exact color I requested - “titty pink”.  Ha, ha, ha?

It’s was an amazing experience to be a part of this group.  The variety displayed in this work is sooooo interesting!  I certainly hope we can do this again.

Over the course of this work, I got over the idea that the topic is too personal.  Since having a lumpectomy for breast cancer in 2011 (yes, the scar is illustrated in the print), I have become an advocate for getting your ‘mammies grammed’.  I’ve voiced this loud and long.  Now I reckon I’ve committed it to paper as well.

BOOBAGE
Elizabeth Doxon

This was my first time doing a linoleum block print, although Scott Brown had encouraged me to try the technique and showed me the basics a long time ago.  I began envisioning the image based on the idea of introduction and iconography.  I am the creator of an ongoing graphic auto- biography called Pedestrian Comics.  By way of shame free self promotion, I'll say that you can Google that title and read the memoir if you are interested.  It's free and will remain so unless a surprise comes up.  Anyway, I decided in a very simple (minded) fashion to introduce myself as my comics "character," and in the style of Eastern Orthodox icons I have seen.  After the fact I realized that for me the project would be an exploration of, and meditation on, my mental illness.  I suffer from bi-polar as well as anxiety disorder.  Only after I had created the image did I realize that among other things, the rays emanating from the figure's head represent the onset of a manic episode.  The figure's facial expression represents his anxiety over this.  The image's caption can be interpreted in various ways, and it is my hope that the viewer will do that for herself, in a way that is unclouded by the communicative intentions I wish to impose upon it, and that goes for the image as well.  Interested parties can find clues to the interpretative possibilities in this paragraph, however, including these: my practice as an artist is an attempt at a transformation of the pedestrian, and really the whole of it, not just this piece, is an ongoing exploration of myself, which includes the (faulty?) wiring of my brain.  I am honored to be in the company of my collaborators on this project, and especially grateful to Scott and Michelle Brown.  May they remain big and nasty in the good, good way that they are.  Peace.

THE PEDESTRIAN
Daniel Spees

I’m always leery about discussing my intentions for a piece of writing or an image, but since this print is so obviously a thesis, I’ll just say that I’ve grown increasingly weary of the human tendency to look forward to a next world at the expense of this one, the one we can be certain of, to the point that some long for the destruction of this beautiful place, exchanging it for impoverished notions of gold streets and milk and honey. As to the image, we had begun raising chickens several months before this project began, and I had become fascinated with the hard-eye the birds turned to the world in their search for food—living like most animals very close to the moment—and at the way their combs, wattles and ears looked in the sunlight. I wanted to capture these elements in an image, and when this project arose, it seemed the natural outlet for my interest. I wanted the image to have a rough, woodcut look to it, and since the last time I worked with a linoleum block was high school, the rough part came easily. The words emerging at angles from the rooster’s mouth was inspired by advertising I grew up with I’m sure. That’s my story.

WORLDLY BIRD
Bill Sheldon

GEEK
Dustin Lies

I had fallen in love with linoleum long ago, so for me, this project was a lot of fun. I had to think about how I would introduce myself though, so I tried to step outside myself and see what I think other people might see once they get to know me. Calamity, pure and simple. So there it was.

Setting type however - not fun. More like math to my brain than art. What I did like about that part, was knowing that there was so much history in that big bunch of letters, and that long before the computers came, this was how letters got put to the paper. I loved how it looked on the paper, and how my brain thought it was putting words together properly, but really a few were quite jumbled..... calamity. Fitting.

‘Calamity’
Rebecca Bridges

The theme of this project was Introduction. I chose my imagery and type more out of randomness and personal fascination, rather than a direct dialogue of self introduction. The word "SHINE" has captured my imagination for years. I was inspired by the older folk definition: to shine in the way my children shine or a crisp summer morning, or the way a woman can shine for someone she's attracted to. It's something you feel more than see. I had a great time working on this piece and I'm happy to have been included.

Untitled
Brady Scott

My introduction to the letter press was reminiscent of my child hood.  Like sorting blocks, painting or carving into Play dough with a popsicle stick.  The smell of paper, wood, metal, ink and solvents all familiar and elementary.  From beginning to end the process was thought provoking and enriching.  The most challenging for me was the cutting of the linoleum.  You can’t erase a gouge!  It turned out to be very therapeutic and setting the type proved to be a test of perception...  “Am I reabing this dackwards? HA! What a blast!

X-POSED
Shel Brown

“Aggressive” was designed as a companion piece to the first letter press image I created.  It functions from the inverse position of “Passive”.  Michele and I considered the familiar nature of the font we had acquired and discovered it to be the font of choice for a popular fast food chain.  From there all the decisions for this piece followed:  the golden finger and the catchy slogan.  

AGGRESSIVE

Scott Brown

INTRODUCTION at the Walnut St. Gallery in Wichita, Kansas