Visiting Turnhout's Playing Card Museum

The rich tradition of playing card production in the northern region of Belgium inspired the format of our collaborative 'Just Print Play' residency at the Frans Masereel Centrum - which meant we all had to visit Turnhout's Playing Card Museum!

The museum has an enormous variety of presses, as well as wood engravings and lithographic stones with original playing card designs still ready to be printed!

This massive camera was responsible for photographing designs in order to make them into cards!

After working for 10 days on our own playing cards, it was amazing to see an entire production space devoted to printing cards, cutting them and trimming the edges, and even a die-cutter to fold the protective box!

Then back to the Centrum to work on some of my own plates as well before heading back to Canada.

and last of all

PONY TIME!

'Just Print Play' continued

For the 'Just Print Play' playing card deck, my three cards to design and print were the Queen of Hearts, the Two of Diamonds and the Two of Hearts - perfect for my love of anatomy and duality!

The screenprinting stations and exposure unit are each housed in these igloos - very appropriate for the Canadian team to print in igloos even when in Belgium!

Getting work done!

Feeling very inspired by our A-frame houses.

One of the many chocolate items available in the grocery store - life-size chocolate chickens!!

All blue gnomes point to home - these little guys guided us home.

'Just Press Play' Residency at the Frans Masereel Centrum

After visiting Belgium, the land of chocolate, printmaking and beer, I feel like it may in fact be my unknown homeland!

I was part of group of printmakers from Concordia invited to design, and print a limited edition of artistic playing cards at the Frans Masereel Centrum this spring - 52 decks of 52 cards, each hand-printed at the Centrum in northern Belgium!

The project, called 'Just Print Play', was set up as a collaboration between Concordia University (by Mitch Mitchell) and the University of Georgia, with our team being responsible for the red half of the playing deck.

Arriving in Brussels to perfect weather, I walked around to admire the architecture - Belgium is beautiful!

Continuing to the Frans Masereel Centrum involved a train, a bus ride, and a short walk made much longer after losing a suitcase wheel to the beautiful-and-bumpy cobblestones of Brussels!

The Centrum is a giant round 1970's spaceship filled with intaglio presses, lithography and letterpress, while the resident artists stay in picturesque A-frame houses - with bikes!

 And the biggest surprise were the four resident miniature horses - one of the AMAZING perks of each morning is visiting the horses with carrots!!!

'inhabit' exhibition at MousePrint Gallery, Jan. 7 - 17

 

Open now at MousePrint Gallery at Concordia University, 'inhabit' in a print exhibition featuring myself and Hideki Kawashima, the two new additions to the Print Media Department sessional instructors. Both Hideki and I work with the presence and trace of bodies and human geography.

Copper Plates Ready to Print

One of the interesting moments in intaglio printing is how beautiful and luminous copper plates are when they are inked up and ready to print. Warm and reflecting, with black incised lines, ready to have the ink pulled out of the lines - it's always tempting to simply leave them inked up and beautiful.

 But then I remember that after I've printed them, I will always be inking them up again anyways. And now I have prints to colour and cut and fold too!

Letterpress Demos

Concordia University has a hidden letterpress room. Squeezed in a small room, tucked away between intaglio and lithography, 2 Vandercook Universals and drawers of metal and wood type are just waiting to be found. It's amazingly satisfying to see your own writing set in type and then printed over and over again. The above galley has one of my own poems, 'Retroactive Love', set out in several different fonts and sizes.

 

Over the last year, I've had the opportunity to teach letterpress to design students and print students, often with the assistance of fellow printmaker and writer Alexis Williams, who wrote the 'Alligator' text above.

 One of the most satisfying parts of teaching demonstrations is happening to walk by the room and have someone come out and show you where they've taken their new letterpress skills. It also means I always have cool new letterpress samples to put on my fridge!