Student Screenprinting at NEXT 2013

Screenprint posters by Maribel O. Gray

Springtime is thesis time in academia, when students unveil their masterpieces after months of hard work. The much anticipated "NEXT" show from the Corcoran College of Art + Design always includes a screenprint component, due to their inspired faculty and great facilities. This year's highlights include the Work Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project (FAP) inspired posters of Maribel Gray. "In the 1930s, the mass-produced, screen printed posters disseminated the graphic language of Modernism to the American public...and paved the way for Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s". The aptly-named Gray has created a flawlessly printed collection of posters that is not to be missed. Get a close look at the flat areas of color. Her posters are available in the gift shop.

In the Rotunda Gallery lies the Masters in the Art and the Book show with a standout screen printed concertina book which depicts missing persons from Pinochet's Chile. The artist documented her creative process, which is on view as a video in the gallery.

Handmade screenprinted book features pigment powder applique.

In-gallery video shows the artist's process.

NEXT 2013
Corcoran Gallery of Art
500 Seventeenth Street NW
Washington, DC 20009

Fine Prints

Screenprints as part of the portfolio

Melinda (top) and Alison 

Lynette and Gretchen

Springtime means a fresh batch of prints for the studio print exchange, theme: fine print. Super intern Melinda Thiesson crafted The Best Portfolios Ever, complete with screenprinted covers, bookcloth covered hardback slipcase and inset type. The collection featured multiple screenprints printed by Gretchen Schermerhorn, Lynette Spencer, Helen Baribeau, Alison Bianco and Marty Ittner.

Sweet Screens at Pyramid Member Show

Sarah McDermott, Untitled

Laura Kinneberg, Specimens of Virginia (detail)

Allison Bianco, The Old Man of the Mountain (detail)

Check out the wide variety of screen prints at the annual Pyramid Atlantic Members Show, on view in the Washington Printmakers Gallery. Works by our resident artists Sarah McDermott, Laura Kinneberg and Allison Bianco are familiar to those following this blog. Laura's 18-color print features letterpress type and Allison combines intaglio with her screen prints. It's also a great chance to see screen print studio regular Allan Akman's D.C. Blossoms. Clare Winslow's organic print on board brings to mind looking out of an airplane window and Steve Walker's large poster is a turbulent dance of green and red squares. The show is up until April 25, 2013.

Clare Winslow,  Topographica #1

Steve Walker, Confetti

Codex Mexico

Magali Lara's screenprinted concertina book

Now on view at the Mexican Cultural Instititute: Codex Mexico: The Book as Art. The exhibition showcases both Mexico's enormous heritage in the arts of printing, and the Mexicans currently working to renew and enrich such an important legacy. We spied one screen printed piece.

2829 16th St NW
Washington, DC 20009
March 22nd - June 15, 2013
Open M-F 10-6, Sat 12-4

Bianco and Beyond

There's still time to experience the amazing screenprint installations by Pyramid's new artistic associate Allison Bianco at Arlington Art Center. The Interwoven show explores "the creative dialog around the ever-blurring boundaries between craft, design and fine art." Allison uses screenprinting seamlessly, so the viewer is immersed in the dreamlike sequences of her work.

Five Feet in Front of the Horizon, screenprint, housepaint and foil balloons

Gram's Beach House, screenprint on chipboard, muslin, feiber foam.
Photo courtesy Arlington Art Center

Want more magic? Allison will be teaching an intermediate screenprinting class and print exchange. Learn how to make an edition of multiple color prints using pin and tab registration, color blends and transparent ink layers. Culminating with a print exchange, participants will receive one print from each of their classmates. 

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INTERWOVEN: Art.Craft.Design.
Arlington Art Center
3550 Wilson Blvd Arlington VA 22201
January 18 - March 24, 2013

Introduction to Intermediate Level Screen Printing and Print Exchange

Instructor: Allison Bianco

Tuesdays: June 4 & 11, 2013 from 6-10pm.

Pyramid Atlantic Art Center

8230 Georgia Avenue
Silver Spring MD 20910

Adding Allan

Detailed progression prints for "Three!!" a 17-color screenprint triptych, 2012

Persistence pays off. The work of our own Allan Akman, including six of his meticulous, multi-color prints (all created at Pyramid Atlantic) will be on view at a new exhibit in Potomac. The show also features monotypes by Patricia Affens, handmade papers by Pauline Jakobsberg, sculptures by Charles Myers, and woodwork by William Peirce.  

Allan at the opening

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Adding in, Taking Away
March 1 - April 22, 2013 

Opening: March 3, 11 am - 1 pm
Gallery Har Shalom 
11510 Falls Road, Potomac, MD.

Something's Fishy in the Darkroom

On my last shift as a Screenprint Associate—along with the intrepid Becca Katz—I bid adieu to the Sargasso Sea screens and my position by adding a spotted mackeral above the washout unit. I will still posting on this blog, but hope to share this opportunity with others in the Pyramid screenprint community. Have a screenprint-related post? Send it my way or feel free to be a guest blogger. --Marty Ittner