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Archive for May, 2014

Carole Pearson (Surrey, UK) started painting with oils when she was 12 or 13 years old. “Then, instead of going to art school, I went  to work in a bank,” says Carole, “Not that I miss formal art training. I’ve always suspected–and this week working with Maureen in her studio has confirmed–that my work is more original for not having entered into the system. What Maureen made clearer than ever to me was that what an artist expresses sincerely is all valid.”

Carole, who has been making prints for only a couple of years, had been wondering for some time what it would be like to do a workshop abroad. It occurred to her last month that she could extend her upcoming two-week walking holiday in Andalusia with an additional week of printmaking. “It was easy to find Maureen,” she says. “I just googled “printmaking Spain.”

“I really had no idea what to expect, beyond an etching press and a nice person whom I had been corresponding with by email. But in the end it was a tremendously fulfilling experience. I’m convinced that I’ve advanced more than a year in printmaking in just one week’s intensive work with Maureen. Working one on one with a master is such a luxury.”

What did Carole discover in the foothills of Sierra Nevada outside Granada in Spain last week?

“Aside from the siesta? Nightingales.”

What we were listening to: http://youtu.be/Ds8IevHRPGM

 

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Photos (color) by Brian Berry and (b&w) Francesco D’Apolito (Coraggio il Topo)

The First of this Year’s Impresiones Gigantes Events

The show was an exhibit of work by local and international artists in Granada’s Palacio de Almirantes in the Albaicín quarter on May 6. The artists showed mainly small work–when compared to the giant, road-roller prints we’ll be seeing on Sunday, June 1, in Granada’s Paseo del Salón. The delightful thing about all of the Impresiones Gigantes events is their  authenticity as IG, now in its third year, is a true grass-roots initiative. At this show lovers of art and culture had the opportunity to mingle with the artists in a relaxed and unhurried atmosphere.

IMPRESIONES GIGANTES is a collective of artists who live and work in Granada. Each June for the past three years they have staged an open-air event in the Paseo del Salón Park. It consists of printing huge, one-by-two-meter linocuts with a road roller. The quality of resulting prints is remarkable, and the process is fascinating and fun to watch. It draws ever-larger crowds of art lovers and passers-by each year.

Two dates to remember:

Friday, May 23, 2014 Mayo – 8:30 p.m.

Concert and exhibit of works by Fine and Applied Arts students in DISCOS BORA BORA in the Plaza Universidad

Sunday, June 1, 2014–All day

Impresiones Gigantes III in the Paseo del Salón – A full day of art outdoors; see you there!

Here’s the Impresiones Gigantes website: http://impresionesgigantes.wordpress.com/

Here’s their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/268821219966603/

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Here’s what we were listening to: http://youtu.be/129kuDCQtH

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Morgan Solarplate Day

L to R Standing: Tegan Rush, Bernice Morgan, Kat Rush, Greg Morgan, Andy Rush Front Row: Jennifer Morgan and Jackie RushMorgan Happy printmakers!

Maureen Booth writes from Granada–Printmaker Jennifer Morgan has confirmed for me something that I always suspected. Creative artists don’t limit their creativity just to their work. They take it with them in other aspects of their lives. Jennifer and her family were headed to Spain on a vacation organized by her mother, the Canadian novelist, Bernice Morgan. Wouldn’t it be fun, Jennifer mused, if we could find a printmaking studio in Spain willing to mount a one-day workshop for our whole family? Granada sounded good so she went to Google. I received her email shortly thereafter. Would I be willing to organize a one-day workshop for a family of seven?

Sure, why not? I’d never worked with a family group before but I’d done lots of  short courses for school groups. The challenge was whether we could achieve something meaningful in just one day. I decided we could give it a try if we worked both in the morning and the afternoon, with a break at midday for lunch and a short siesta. In the end my husband Mike made his specialty of the house lunch: a big paella that restored everybody’s strength and enthusiasm.

My good luck was that the Morgan clan is uniformly loaded with artistic talent and they took to solarplate printmaking like ducks to orange sauce. Why solarplate? Because it speeds up the printmaking process immensely, permitting us to prepare acetates and burn plates outside in the sunshine in the morning and then dedicate the afternoon to finding creative ways of printing them. In the end they took home a big stack of prints, all of which looked as if they had been done by experienced printmakers.

At the end of the day the Morgans had a 45-minute wait for the bus back to the city, so they spent it gleefully in our local bar between wine and tapas and furious games of “futbolín,” as the Spanish refer to the raucous table soccer game.

Here’s what we were listening to: http://youtu.be/BteIwbKU_iQ

 

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