Art of Protest: A Review

One time at UofL we had a show that I am pretty sure was simply called "Dissent". It was a good show. Tons of political works wheatpasted to the walls. They even had some stuff by Shepard Fairey in the show.

Well tonight, I thought that I would be treated to a similar experience at Vanderbilt University's Divinity School. The Divinity School had an opening reception tonight for a show titled "Art of Protest". I didn't know what the Divinity School even was, but I just assumed that was the name of their art building. It isn't. It is a school for religion, and houses their religion grad program. What this has to do with art I do not know, especially the art of protest.

Thank goodness it wasn't in the school's art department. The exhibit could have been called "Art of Art" because while some of the work was politically charged, a lot of people's art is, but I wouldn't call it "protest art".

Many works, such as the George Bush portrait made out of matches and matchbooks, would have fit in great during the 2004 election, while others seemed like fine pieces of art, but hardly seemed to protest anything. Some dealt with race relations, some dealt with consumerism, some dealt with the way/the things we eat, but I never really got the Protest vibe.

These were just the way these people feel about the subjects. That's what most artists do. Externalize the internal. I guess when I hear "Protest" I think sit-ins, fliers, t-shirts, and giant signs, maybe a folk singer. It's as if the curator(s) of the show had lumped protest work with general artistic emotion. That is to say that any work that strayed away from technical skill to that place of conceptual thought, was considered protest.*

I am not critiquing the artists in the show at all though. Every artist there brought their "A" game. Everyone's work looked very solid technically as well as conceptually, and the works ranged from very traditional paintings, drawings, a few video works, amazing print work by Sue Coe, as well as some work that incorporated found objects.

I think that the best way to remedy the lack of a "protest vibe" would have been to include an artist statement, or a short description of the particular piece. When Bob Dylan started singing protest songs, he used powerful imagery, but it was catchy enough and easy enough to read that you got the message. With these works the meaning behind them often seemed so esoteric, that it was impossible for me to decode what exactly the artist was protesting. Was the explosive vest made from crayola crayons a statement about child soldiers? Was it a comment on the loss of innocence in war-torn Countries? I don't know.

Its a really nice show, but if you go, don't go in thinking "art school protest show". The work is quality, but the organization of the show under the banner of "Protest" was just bad marketing.

*I guess thinking, could be a form of protest(1984?), but that means every art show would be a protest art show, so as deep as that may be getting, I don't think that's where they were going with that.

Images From My First Week @ Hatch Show Print

The first week has come to an end, and what a week it was. I learned how to spot Franklin Gothic and other fonts, how to use a pantone book, run a vandercook letter press, how to measure in picas and points, what a serif is, how to read type upside down and backwards with no problem, and all kinds of other printmaking and design oriented stuff. On an un-printmaking related note, I also learned how Jack Daniel's is distilled while touring the distillery in Lynchburg.
This image shows a typical job in progress, or a job being dismantlement by interns. Since we have not done any jobs ourselves, this one is probably being put back. Each letter, and piece of metal or wood (rigglets)must be put back into their original drawer. There are drawers(cases) and shelves of type everywhere in the shop, and a lot of it is very small.
Here, intern Harry runs a Vandercook press to do a re-strike of the Hatch Cats Poster. A re-strike is when an existing poster is reprinted. Usually this is done with the older posters that are used for sale to the general public one at a time.
On this Vandercook press, ink is aplied to the top vibrating roller which distributes the ink to the other rollers. When the wheel is turned the ink is rolled onto the block (seen here already inked) then the paper is locked onto the drum and rolls over the image creating with enough pressure to create the print.
The final product. These posters seem to be quite popular. Between 4 interns we printed over 400 of these.
Michaela and David were assigned to decorate this birdhouse for a charity auction. All the images on the house were made from print proofs which are called make-readys in Hatch speak. I would let my birds live there.
100 print order+2colors+the start up fee=$350...I hope she said "Yes"
Oh you can use GOJO, and soap and water, but sometimes that ink just doesn't come off! I still have blue under my fingernails from Friday.
HUEY THE HUGE!! He is fat, loves attention, and drools. He reminds me of my cat Danger back in Louisville.
Bethany Taylor designed this poster and printed the orange/yellow background. I printed the black.
I forget who did the blue, but here is the final product.Friday was an interesting day. We put up lots of type, I printed re-strikes for Alrico stunt shows, and the radio show "American Routes" came in to record. I think that I messed up the Alrico assignment.

The colors were inconsistent, either because I had to mix up a new batch of ink which was not quite like the other, or because the ink was running low on some of them and they turned out lighter. The colors printed for the background before we got there were also inconsistent which led to the borders being off on some of them. Instead of resetting the furniture(pieces of wood used to keep the plate in place on the press) I decided to print straight through them all because the 2 colors still lined up at the same border which would have still made it the same size poster when we trimmed them.

Speaking of borders! When NPR was doing their interviews with Jim and touring the shop recording we decided to step out for a long lunch next door at a place called Bailey's. We played ping pong, pool, and watched the Olympics for a while just to stay out of their hair.


After lunch we walked back and they were still recording. Jim and the NPR people walked over to me printing (the only one printing at the time)and Jim asked me how the re-strike was coming along. As soon as I opened my mouth to talk about the way in which I had to adjust the border about 1 pica to the left, this fuzzy microphone was there in my face. They cut, and Jim told me I needed to say it again, but really describe it for the radio audience. No pressure or anything. I tried again and probably sounded a lot more nervous than I did the first time. It threw me for a loop, and my smooth moves at the press where thrown off. The lady kept recording the sounds of me applying ink, and the sound of me making prints. It was pretty cool. I am excited to hear the show. Brad says stuff like this happens probably once a month.

In addition to the NPR people, tour groups kept coming through the studio and taking pictures of everything, including me printing. It is interesting, and also a little unnerving to be the center of attention like that. With all of this excitement around all the time, I wonder if it ever gets old.

The rest of the time spent outside of the internship was spent hanging with the other interns, or hanging at home mostly. I ride my bike almost 4 miles a day 5 days a week and yesterday we went to the Jack Daniel's distillery and then saw a show at The Basement on 8th st.

Having a wonderful time, wish you were here.

Dress for Success-ful Printing

And they all thought I was MAD for dressing like a rain cloud all the time when my prints were so bright!! I turns out that I was right for doing so from printeresting.org

Printing Money.

This is a magic trick, but it is also kind of useful to show you what I have been doing during my week at Hatch Show Print. Paper goes through the rollers, and prints come out the other side.

Print Collection 3,4 & 5

Kelsey Iwanski
Pin-up 1, 2, & 3
Screenprint

Last year around this time was the Southern Graphics Council conference in Chicago. It was here that I acquired the three prints you see above. This was from the Columbia College campus I think. I don't remember what the name of the building is, but it is the same building that houses the Shop Columbia store. Inside the doors to one of the rooms on the first floor was a spinner rack. You would often see these racks inside of stores where you could display postcards, or it could be used as a way to display pamphlets. This was the latter. Inside this display rack were show flyers, and other information, but along side that were two pockets with a different pin-up print in each.

It was like finding a small printed sexy treasure. The prints have a D.I.Y. feel to them, and make me think more about the zine and concert poster culture than the gallery culture in art.

The third print we found was later in the same building. Up a few floors and after seeing some demos or visiting some gallery's-whichever may have been happening in this particular building at the time-we stumbled upon a table near the stairs with lots of other college information, and concert flyers scattered across it. In with the other printed ephemera was the third in the series of Pin-up prints. I am curious to know whether there were more in this series scattered around. I also can't help but wonder if there was some sort of artist statement attached somewhere along the lines or if this. Was this a part of a larger exhibition? Did it have anything to do with a Shepard Fairey-esque study of phenomenology?

As I mentioned before, the images seem to lend themselves more to a low-tech or counter-cultural printmaking aesthetic, and as such are probably nothing more than a way of spreading the joy of printmaking, and the joy of images with others.

Eric Lawrence: Hatch Show Print-ern.

Today was our first day as Hatch Show Print interns! Since there are a lot of pics, I will try to keep it short. I could probably click away all day in there and not get half of the shop documented as it should be. This image for "The Show" wine, was being packed up ready to be shipped this morning. It's really interesting to be able to see things before anyone else does. Some people in the company probably haven't seen this image yet, but today I did. I held and touched the posters before the client even did.
I rode my bike to work today. I only live about a mile from Hatch. I was riding on the sidewalk because I am not a strong enough rider to take these hills, and about 2 blocks from the show I turn my wheel a little at the crosswalk and slid on a patch of ice. Down I went. A few blocks down a man standing outside said that he gave me a 2 for the fall. I told him I will try harder next time. My first adult bike injury! YEAH!
If there is one project in Hatch's archives that I would like to have a copy of or do a re-strike of, it would have to be some of the work done for the Kentucky State Fair. I remember seeing some of these posters when I was younger and loving them even though I had no education in printmaking at the time. As interns we get to keep a copy of any work we do, as well as get something like 10 prints from around the shop.
This is Maow. He is one of the famous "Hatch Cats". I thought he was dead or something because the last time I visited everyone kept talking about Huey, the other Hatch Cat, and about a dog they were rehabilitating. No one mentioned Maow.
The Hatch Show Print neon sign from the inside.
This is the pile of boards with works in progress. There are two piles kind of like it that us interns get to spend hours putting away. Everything must be deconstructed into its separate blocks and then put back into its corresponding drawer. There are a LOT of letters and images. For example: in addition to having cabinets for all the different fonts, and sizes of fonts, there is also a shelf for "Random" and a shelf for "Miscellaneous"...It doesn't get confusing at all.
There are a lot of little hidden secrets around the shop like these. One of the Vandercook presses has a picture of Wolf Blitzer on it. The fridge has drawings all over it, and a lot of drawings, and cut-outs are scattered all over the place.
Posters from previous jobs are all over the walls.
One of the Vandercook presses.
More posters. Below the posters are cabinets and shelves full of different type, and images of various sizes.
Hatch Magager Jim Sheraden uses old images and type to produce these monoprint works.
Texas intern David stands in front of shelves of type and images.


After work we went to the Flying Saucer and had some beers. If in Nashville I recommend the Yazoo Dos Perros. By this time it had gotten darker and colder. I am getting used to it, but I still can't wait for it to warm up.

Letterpress is Everywhere.