Very Hot and Way Cool!

Sizzling!

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The air temperature wasn't the only thing sizzling in Houston this summer.   Heating up Houston's art scene is Burning Bones Press, a brand new full service print studio located at 1518 Yale Street in the Heights.  Artists and printmakers Carlos Hernandez and Patrick Masterson partnered up, leased the space and opened for business this summer. Their inaugural party June 11 was planned to coincide with PrintHouston 2011. If you missed the party like I did, watch their video of that event. Not quite the same as being there but....

Patrick Masterson and Carlos Hernandez

 Working along with Pat and Carlos are studio managers  artists Cathie Kayser and Nancy Luton. 

Cathie Kayser 

Patrick, Carlos, Cathie and Nancy are all members of PrintMatters, (see more about that further down) and Cathie is currently serving as president of that organization. 

Full service printing studio means just that. Lithography, intaglio, relief printing, screen printing, solar etching and all the ins and out that each printing process brings. Besides doing their own work here, these artists offer printmaking classes, and collaborate with other artists helping them develop their own ideas into a realized edition, as well as doing projects for museums, businesses and other organizations. The goal, according to master printer Patrick Masterson, is to create an open and inviting environment conducive of collaboration with other artists, as well as taking on jobs from institutions, publishers and dealers.

Nancy Luton

A bit of biography.....
Carlos Hernandez has fame for his limited edition screen prints of gig posters of rock n' roll legends such as B.B King, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, to name a few, as well as his Day of the Dead Rock Stars Series. Carlos also has selected works featured in the 2011 Communication Arts Typography annual and the 2011 Communications Arts Illustration annual.  Carlos said he started out setting up a studio in his garage so he must be loving this new studio!

Patrick Masterson wears several caps, artist/teacher, artist/printmaker, and business owner. He teaches printmaking at both University of Houston and Glassel School of Art. He served as master printer at both Mad Cap Press in Houston and Flatbed Press in Austin. In Austin he collaborated with artists James Surls, Luis Jimenez,  Trenton Doyle Hancock to name a few. You can find his work (Masterson's) in the collections of the Whitney Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Photo courtesy of Jenny Antill. Patrick and Carlos are bounded on right and left by some of their work; next to Patrick is  a James Surls piece and next to Carlos, several prints from his Day of Dead Rock Stars series.

One of their goals is to bring more attention to traditional printing processes and techniques. I questioned all three, (Carlos, Patrick and Cathie) if digital technology has impacted their work and business in a positive or negative way and the overall response was positive.
Some of the new technology has really impacted what they can do in the studio in a positive way, saving time and steps.

All of them through their teaching gigs found many students with heavy digital backgrounds have a real longing for the 'hands-on' experience that traditional printmaking methods provide.

Cathie reminded me how photography at one time put the fear into artists and printmakers alike, that photography would render both obsolete. That didn't happen.

 New Addition to the family

With  half dozen various presses in the studio at opening, their long awaited 4 x 8 foot Takach motorized press arrived this week enabling them  now to print large format images. Below are the four of them posing with the inaugural print compliments of Nancy. 

Carlos, Nancy, Patrick and Cathie with the inaugural  pull using the new press.

Several projects are in the works  keeping them busy.  Patrick is working on a project with Francesca Fuchs for the Houston Museum of Fine Art's Core Program, for one.  Besides several teaching gigs at the studio, Carlos is adding new images to his Day of the Dead Rock Star Series, as well as collaborating one-on-one with artists wanting to learn more about the silk screen process.

Print Houston
If that weren’t enough to create sparks with Houston artists who have been chomping at the bit for sizable Houston-based  print studio, PrintMatters, a Houston art organization,  after declaring June as PrintHouston 2011 month. 

It was a month long celebration of  traditional and nontraditional printmaking, held printing workshops, sponsored  the Rockin’ Rollin’ Steam Roller event, invited curators to propose print-related exhibitions and galleries and museums to participate with print-related exhibitions.  June’s exhibitions spilled into to July, then into to August. Seems PrintHouston 2011 is really Print Houston Summer!  See my Nov 2010  post about PrintMatters at WHAM here.

Very Hot and Way Cool!

PrintHouston  will happen again in 2012 so all you print makers keep your radar turned on for exhibition calls and announcements.  


Founding members, Cahtie Kayser, Andis Applewhite, Ann Johnson, Vivian Hordes and Ruth Shouval, organized with the following goals in mind: to promote traditional and non-traditional printmaking, encourage print collecting, and further the professional growth of our members.

WHAM and Houston's 18th Annual Art Crawl

Spacetaker brought their Winter Holiday Art Market (WHAM) to Downtown Houston last weekend at
Winter Street Studios. The Winter Holiday Art Market – Downtown  was presented by Amegy Bank of Texas.   This is a juried event.  Earlier in the season, artists were invited to submit a portfolio of their products they would like to sell.  Products ranged from drawings, paintings, sculptural pieces, pottery, jewelry, handmade bags, leather goods, hand made wooden objects, fine art prints, hand died silk scarves, and much more. It was fun, indoors, and busy with lots of people. And things were selling.

Studios at Winter Street are identified by letters and numbers stenciled onto the floor in front of their doors. I got  caught up with taking photos of numbers on this day. This was not open studio day. Most of the studios were closed.

Below artist/printmakers Andis Applewhite (L) and Gema Barclay (R) running the booth this day for PRINT Matters  a Houston arts organization started by five artists who have exhibited locally and nationally and share a love of printmaking. Their goals are to promote traditional and non-traditional printmaking, encourage print collecting, and further the professional growth of our members.

L. Andis Applewhite, R. Gema Barclay

From Andis's P Series. Image from her blog.

On the Print Matters web site you will find a list of members with links to their web sites. Worth a look-see. You will also find information there regarding membership in the organization if you are interested and Print Matters has a current call for work for exhibition next summer. 
Click here for more information about that. 

Ichthys, save me
Multiple plates with dry-point etching; Rives BFK
Image size: 24 in X 18 in
Paper size: 30 in X 22 in
Monoprint

The image above was done by member Cathie Kayser. Her work is the yellow green-piece above Gema's head.   Click here to see more about her. 

 
Below is artist Steve Campbell making a sale. We stopped and chatted with him for a bit. He was gracious enough to give us a demo on how he creates the textures on some of his pieces. Said he learned it in Korea.

Steve's studio is three DOT pots.

 Golden Cat Silk Originals had beautiful hand printed silk scarves and shawls.  I wish I could have bought one.

Sparrow Birds Scarf

Y.E. Torres YET: Drawing, Dance and Design. Funky stuffed conjoined dolls, drawings and other stuff.   Click here for more about her.

Artist Matt Messinger's booth. He does mixed media paintings, collages from found materials and prints. Click here and here to see more about Matt.

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It was also the weekend of the annual Houston Art Crawl when artists whose studios are located downtown in the warehouse district and nearby open their doors for an open house.  The weather was good for it and there were lots of folks out. Many of the photographs I took below are not the art on view. We didn't get to all the studios---missed Vine Street and Diverse Works and probably others. Another time. Anyway, the pictures I took will tell you a bit of what I saw and the flavor of the event. Not all will have captions. My apologies to those artists whose names are missing. Photos are not in order any particular order either.  But the first image below is where we began.

Artist: Carter Ernst

Concrete wall with ghost sign.

Above and Below: Photos taken in one of the loft apartments. I don't know whose but the big C above and the strange black animal below are both paintings done by Matt Messinger whose work I saw at Winter Street. 

Artist Peter Dickson

John Runnels; House of Bausch ( A Danger to Be Safe In) Chartpack letters on tile & wood

Across the street.

Artist: Carter Ernst

Artist: Corrine Jones (from Nacogdoches)

These pieces were partly drawn and partly stitched. I didn't get the name of the artist.

The photographer talking about the images of Jo Ann Fleischhauer's installation at M. D. Anderson.
Click here to see more about this project. It is quite awesome.

More about Artist Jo Ann Fleischhauer click here and here.

William Reich: Bunny Love

Work by Tim Johnson

Just the floor.

John Runnels; Cigarette Chair, chair and cigarette butts

Streets of Houston

 

 Artist on right, art on left. We were nearing the end of our crawl for the day. This studio housed a sound studio as well as this hair dresser's salon.