This Saturday night: Farm to Fork (to Fabulous!)

Opening reception Saturday, March 16, 7-10pm.

Showing with my friend and fellow artist Alicia Rheal in our From Farm to Fork (to Fabulous!) exhibit. The opening reception is a gala celebration and benefit for the Walls of Wittenberg. More info, and the poster, below. Highlight? Why Nueske’s Applewood Smoked Meats of course.

This is going to be a really fun (and delicious) opening reception! (Click on poster to enlarge) And, if you drive up early, you can visit Nueske’s Company Store in Wittenberg (Sat. hours: 8-4).

The WowSpace is located at 114 Vinal St – Wittenberg, WI. Easy to find…Just look for the 8ft hanging hog carcasses and the giant pull-toy pig (cuts) in the front windows along the main street of downtown Wittenberg!

And here’s more info about the Walls of Wittenberg ongoing mural project.

One section of the wall installed for now….

Installing…. That’s an 18ft long Hampshire stud boar on right (the model, Pioneer is owned by Monson Show Pigs in Richland Center). And that’s an 8ft pull-toy pig in front window.

The Tunnel of Mortality

The Tunnel of Mortality, a life-size tunnel-book installation at Artisan Gallery, has been extended to September 9th, 2012! The next reception is Friday, July 27, 2012, 5-9pm at Artisan Gallery.

Here’s some shots (click any image to enlarge):

“Come in.” said the spider to the fly….

Once you step in the door, you are in a floor-to-ceiling, darkly wallpapered, little anteroom, about 8ft x 8ft.

Back wall and right corner of anteroom

Chairs are upholstered in the same, matching, printed fabric as the walls.

The richly detailed wallpaper is actually a 10in x 10in linocut pattern printed black onto burgundy duckcloth. About 480 times. If you look closely at one of the “tiles” you will see the underlying theme of the show:

If you look behind you to your right, the outside light looks blinding compared to the dramatic low lighting surrounding you.

Taxidermy chicken NOT for sale.

As you step through the door, into the anteroom, The Tunnel of Mortality is that big framed piece on the right-hand wall. It looks like any other of the framed woodcuts, except as you walk towards or by it, it changes (since it’s a 3-dimensional space, not a flat piece). If you’re not paying attention though, it doesn’t “read” as an interior space, but rather a mirror…or something. A number of visitors were looking behind and above them to figure out where the projector was. Most think it’s a mirror, but can’t figure out how come they don’t see their reflection.

Matching tablecloth and upholstery! This is really the only time I’ve gotten into “interior decorating” (in our real house, nothing matches. I mean, who has time when it takes this long to make pretend rooms?).

Walk into the center of the room, turn to your right, and there’s the tunnel.

The Tunnel of Mortality, framed.

I’m not going to try to explain how this looks in real life, since you really have to go experience it to get it. Suffice it to say, that it’s confusing at first since you can’t quite tell what you’re looking at. Some have said it feels like a mirror.

And here’s a cropped panorama of the center section:

All woodcut or linocut prints on fabric or Tyvek.

Reception is this Friday, 5-9pm at Artisan Gallery (directions).
And the show is up through September 9th.

So, come check it out!
Experience the tunnel!
Sign the camouflaged guestbook!
Read some of the entries in the guestbook here.

Making 4th Century Books

Took a fantastic bookbinding course at Valley Ridge Studio last weekend with instructor Daniel Essig! I love his work, and showcased his books in the book arts class when talking about contemporary book artists this past semester. He’s so inspiring. So, I was thrilled to be able to take his class and learn how to make his wooden book covers and Ethiopian binding.

Click on any image to enlarge it.

The book is about 5 inches tall, the cover wood is cherry–cut, filed, sanded, drilled, then stained with Kiwi shoe polish, then buffed to a shine.That window on the front encases some field corn and a small chicken feather (from a Black Laced Polish), sealed in with sheets of mica. Mica, or muscovite was originally used as windows in horse-drawn carriages as well as windows for early 20th century cars [more...]. Daniel uses it in many of his books and taught us how to cut, drill, peel and manipulate it for use in our books.Those are tiny little nails holding down the mica.

The thread is 4-ply and heavily waxed. the pages are a mixture of cotton rag paper sections alternating with mica sheets–all sewn in with the coptic stitch using 4 needles.

It’s a coptic (or chain) stitched book, but there’s a lot of detailed intricacies to drilling and sewing on the covers that I never would have learned by reading a book (that is, I wouldn’t have had the patience to figure it out from written diagrams all by myself). Daniel says that the Coptic-stitched book combined with the wooden covers is what makes this an Ethiopian binding, a style of bookbinding from the 4th century. More information about the history of this book form is here.

(click on photo to enlarge)

This spread (in progress) features one of my rooster’s spurs (cut in half with a jeweller’s saw)–you see the back of the spur here, encased in mica (click on the image to see the awesome growth rings exposed when it was sawed in half!). And on the right, some pages from a 19th century version of The American Standard of Perfection (a chicken breed book), sandwiched in-between sheets of mica.

Anyway, just wanted to share the experience here. To see much better made, polished, gorgeous books by Daniel Essig, as well as his amazing wooden sculptures and more, please visit his website. You’ll find his schedule of workshops there too, as well as information about his private workshops in his studio in Asheville, N.C., so you can learn how to make these too!

Tunnel of Mortality (and much more) Friday night!

(Day 3 of the install)

Artisan Gallery 25th Anniversary Exhibition
June 8th – July 22nd, 2012
Opening Reception Friday June 8th 5-9p.m.

Group Show: 25th anniversary — We are excited to celebrate our 25th year in Paoli, the anniversary show will feature favorite work from many of our gallery artists.

In the Cooler: S.V. Medaris “The Tunnel of Mortality” — Printmaking from birth to slaughter and everything in-between. One season of life on the farm (in life-size tunnel book form), as told by S.V. Medaris of Market Weight Press.

Nick Wroblewski: Color Reduction Woodcuts — Wroblewski’s woodcuts entice the viewer through the use of vivid colors and hold their attention through his variety of distinct mark making. This exhibit will have many prints which showcase his unique style of reduction woodcuts.

More info at Artisan’s Facebook page and
Artisan Gallery website

More linos…

Listening to rebroadcast of the Cluck: From Jungle Fowl to City Chicks interview on Larry Meiller’s show (archives) that Susan Troller and I did earlier in the year, meanwhile drawing carcass for segment of Tunnel of Mortality that is upcoming solo show in June atArtisan Gallery.

Oh yeah, and my first reduction tees! (hint to you tee printing folks: if the lino is cut out in a shape, you can just line up color #2 by matching the outside contours of the block shape to the outside edges of the print shape) Just did 2 prototypes (pink thermal shown) to see if it would work…. It did!

Plucked lino measures about 30in. high. “Wallpaper” in background is lino on canvas duck cloth about 8ft wide, pigs are reductions on drill cloth, included in panels for ‘Tunnel’ installation

Ouch!

Now I know why that one Araucana squawks so loudly when she lays her eggs. That big green one on the right is hers…

No surprise here, when I cracked it open to cook…. a double-yolker:

First print of the year…

(Finished in first week of January, but belated posting)

January 15, 2012

For a folio exchange called Everything Eleven (and some A/P ones will be used for my Bestiary), this one’s called:

Eleven Polish Posing

'Eleven Polish Posing' • 3 color reduction linocut with some hand-coloring on Rives Lightweight • 14in x 4in • January 2012

(more than) 11 polish drying

He’s a White Crested Black, cockerel (under 1 year old), all grown up (he is one of my summer 2011 chicks). Quite the beauty, and not too mean as far as these fellows go. I have a bunch of young polish cocks in the barn pen, separate from the coop. When it came time to decide which polish would migrate to the coop (all the pullets and some of the cockerels), this guy was a no-brainer. Although he has about 6 or so other equally handsome brothers of the same breed, when I went to gather up some of “his” girls to take to the coop, he swooped down and tried to grab them (literally) out of my hands. He didn’t try to attack me, but rather tried to grab his girls back. I knew then that I had a good caretaker, mate for those girls, so I swooped him up too. At the very least he would look out for them and not let any of the bigger chickens pick on his girls.

(click any image to enlarge)

And now they are meat…

Took in the last of the season’s harvest this morn (turkeys and broiler chickens). This year (as in years past) we drove them to Twin Cities Pack in Clinton, WI (near Janesville). We left about 4:30am and got there at 6am. I pick the (frozen) birds up tomorrow! I did save behind 3 of these “super chicks” from the batch of broilers. They are from a shipment of chicks that were sent in June and arrived with many dead. Amid the sad bunch of dead babies were these 3 super chicks that acted like nothing was wrong–peeping loudly demanding water and food. I figure after that, they are meant for something else–maybe they’ll be good breeding stock for more meat birds?

Carcasses from 'The Meat Locker' (click to enlarge)

At any rate, they earned it. Let’s hope they are fertile and can lay some eggs. If not, oh well, they are a good addition to the bunch–calm, big, personable girls. And they’re not pecky. Instead, if they don’t want somebody near, they stand up tall, poof out their chest and neck feathers making themselves huge, and the wee little pesky polish (crested) turn tail and run.

Also picking up meat–pork– from Avon Locker Plant over in Darlington, tomorrow. I love this place–best meat processor around (and yes, we tried the others nearby). Incidentally, these are the guys that let me take photos of my hogs when they (as carcasses) were hanging in the freezer. And from which I made some 8ft woodcut of the carcasses. And who (the woodcut carcasses) then made it into a NYC show! Still can’t believe it. Awesome hogs (from feeder pigs I bought from Monson Show Pigs). Awesome carcasses courtesy of Avon Locker Plant.

New broiler tees!

Available (for the first time) at tomorrow’s chicken talk at DCHS (see next post below).

(Click to enlarge)

woodcut-printed tees, tanks and v-necks available at DCHS this Saturday, August 6!

This Saturday Aug. 6 at Dane County Humane Society

AUG 6, 2-3pm:
DCHS Benefit &”CLUCK” Book Signing/Talk with S.V. Medaris
Free event, door prizes, auction…

Join DCHS in welcoming Sue Medaris for a talk about the life (and artwork) of raising chickens, peafowl, turkeys and more on her farm in the Driftless Area of Southern Wisconsin. Funds riased at this event support efforts to build a coop for the homeless chickens in DCHS’s care. Door prizes, drawing for 3 hard-cover CLUCK books, live auction of an original print by S.V. Medaris, and more!!

Dane County Humane Society
5132 Voges Rd,
Madison, WI 53718-6941
Phone: (608) 838-04130
Contact : Jan Viney at janviney@giveshelter.org