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Looking Back with Love–Chapter 9

Posted in Featured Posts, Maureen's World, Workshops, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 14, 2015| 1 Comment »

Mel & Bernice Strawn, Salida, Colorado, USA

Mel and Bernice Strawn are a young couple whose entire lives have been dedicated to art. He taught at universities in Michigan, Colorado and, I think, Chicago. She is a painter and sculptor with a long trajectory of incredibly imaginative and delicate work. When Mel retired from teaching they made their home outside Salida, Colorado, high in the Rockies, where they still live. Mel has the honor of being one of the world’s very first digital artists.

He and B came to the Gallinero and my studio in February of 2011 to work on solarplate prints. Mel had already done some solar work but, tireless researcher that he is, he wanted to delve further. Working with them was a delight and a learning experience for me as Mel questioned and experimented every step of the way, while B did what she is: pure creativity.

We’re still in touch via email and Mel is still experimenting with new solar plates. (The manufacturers should supply him with plates and pay him for  publishing his findings!) Thanks for coming, Mel and B. It was a pleasure to meet and work with you. You’re two wonderful role models for the creative life.

Here’s a longer article on the Strawns from the Colorado Central Magazine.

From the visitors’ book: “My husband, Mel, and I have stepped out of the cold February weather of Colorado to enjoy the sun on the little deck to draw, work on prints and sip a little afternoon wine.  The view across the valley to the south dips to the River Genil  and then up the steep terraced hillside carpeted with green and glowing with blooming almond trees. The Booths have cultivated an exotic garden here which immediately captivated me.  The local nopal, prickly pear cactus clumps, are fascinating and I did several prints based on those forms. In Maureen’s studio you can try out different approaches to printmaking and with her help you can find one that relates to the direction of your art. Maureen and Mike are very generous in their concerns for your comfort and the success of your art goals. We couldn’t have asked for more caring and attentive hosts.

Bernice and Mel Strawn, March 2011

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Looking Back with Love — Chapter 8

Posted in Featured Posts, Granada, Maureen's World, Workshops, tagged , , , on May 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Carole Pearson, UK

Carole Pearson is a English painter and printmaker who came to my studio for a week last summer after a two-week walking holiday in Andalusia. As well as being an engaging person, she’s a born artist who took to the studio like a natural. By the end of the week we were soul sisters and she’s coming back at the end of this month (May, 2015) to mount a joint exhibit with me at my new mini-gallery and studio.

Here are some of her observations from her stay in the Gallinero:

Instead of going to art school, I went  to work in a bank. 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.

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.

From the visitors’ book: “Thank you so much for a wonderful week. I am rested, instructed, filled with creative hope and stuffed with all the goodies you keep bringing me. And not to forget Mike’s paella–a dream.”

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Looking Back with Love, Maureen’s Studio Retrospective — Chapter 7

Posted in Featured Posts, Granada, Maureen's World, Workshops, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 21, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Jennifer Morgan Family, Nova Scotia, Canada

I received an email from Jennifer Morgan in Nova Scotia asking me if I could mount a one-day solarplate printing workshop in my studio for herself and six family members, as a creative stop on their trip to Spain. I thought, “That’s impossible.” But I, who believe in the impossible, said “Fine. Come on over. We’ll give it a try.”

On the day, I had the great good luck that all Jennifer’s family had surprising artistic talent, which they may have inherited from their mother, the Canadian novelist, Bernice Morgan. (See photos) The quantity and quality of work they produced in a single day, their first, was impressive. I tremble to think what they could have achieved in a week.

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Looking Back with Love, A Studio Retrospective — Chapter 6

Posted in Featured Posts, Granada, Maureen's World, Workshops, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 12, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Fran Ramírez, Madrid, Spain

Fran Ramírez is a talented and dedicated artist. We have been doing collaborative work together in my studio for more than 10 years. As you can see from the images below, Fran has his own particular view of life in Spain plus a unique vision in his paintings and prints.  He has recently finished the restoration work on a new studio in Madrid for himself and his photographer wife, Marta. It also includes a discreet exhibit space. We’re anxious to see the work they hang up there.

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Looking Back with Love, A Studio Retrospective — Chapter 5

Posted in Featured Posts, Granada, Maureen's World, Workshops, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 7, 2015| 2 Comments »

Dave McConnell, Boston, USA

Dave McConnell was a special person and it was a privilege to have him in my studio for a  week’s collaborative work in photogravure solar plate. To begin with, a few days after he returned home to Boston he turned 90. He was accompanied on this trip to Spain by his son, a banker with the Boston Fed. Dave, who had spent his working life as a photographer at the Boston Globe, was the quintessence of the charming Irishman with a young heart, excellent humor and that glint in his eye. His project was to make a four-color solarplate photogravure print from a color photograph he had made many years before. This was new territory for me; we both learned a lot from the experience. And we had a grand time in the process. Here’s some pictures Mike made.

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Looking Back with Love, A Studio Retrospective — Chapter 4

Posted in Featured Posts, Maureen's World, Workshops, tagged , , , , , , , on March 30, 2015| 1 Comment »

Beatriz Taillefer, Málaga, Spain

Beatriz is from Málaga, an authentic Andalusian provincial capital located at the edge of one of the world’s biggest tourist booms, the Costa del Sol. She had been primarily a portrait painter (one of Andalusia’s finest) for years when she decided to expand her repertoire and, along with her compañero Eduardo Guille (see below), came to my studio to try printmaking. Already an accomplished artist she quickly started turning out colorful and creative solarplate prints at a professional level.

Shortly after returning home she and Eduardo exhibited in Málaga the prints they had made with me. Not only was the show successful in terms of print sales, but it resulted in a series of commissions for editions.

 

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Looking Back with Love, A Studio Retrospective–Chapter 2

Posted in Featured Posts, Granada, Maureen's World, Workshops, tagged , , , , , , , on February 3, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Abbie Luck, London, UK

At the time Abbie came to my workshop, in 2005 I think, she had just gotten a job as art teacher at a fancy girls’ school in London and was eager to expand her repertoire of techniques. She took naturally to solarplate printmaking and did some interesting work while she was here. She liked solarplate particularly as it was something she could teach her students without getting involved with acid and resins. She quickly made friends with Karoline Piedra, the American artist from Massachusetts who was on holiday from her day job in Switzerland. That’s the two of them below, captured on a day that Mike and his mate, Curro, were doing some electronic flash tests that somehow got mixed with a wine tasting. That’s probably why the two girls seem to glisten in the photograph.

From a comment by Abbie on my Printmaking Courses in Spain blog: “Thank you for everything. I am leaving with a wealth of knowledge, but also wonderfully relaxed. You have been so welcoming. I have come to feel really at home in your studio and in Granada. I couldn’t have asked for a better working holiday. I will most definitely be back to visit.”

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Looking Back with Love, A Studio Retrospective — Chapter I

Posted in Featured Posts, Granada, Maureen's World, Workshops, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 28, 2015| 1 Comment »

Maureen etching press

Here’s What We’ve Been Up To for the Past 15 Years or So

Mike and I were reminiscing the other evening about all of the wonderful people who have come to Granada to work with me in my studio over the years when he said, “Why don’t we do a multí-chapter post that is a tribute to all of them? Do you have samples of their work?” That’s how this project was born, and it’s turning out to be a fascinating stroll for me through years of printmaking, teaching, and collaborative work with other artists. I hope it will be that for some of you, too.

What follows is the first chapter in a retrospective virtual exhibit of work done by the artists who have worked with me in my studio over many years. They have come from all over the world, from Canada and the U.S.A to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Australia, and many places in between. They appear here in roughly chronological order. Their work includes a wide variety of techniques: traditional acid etching, collage, variations on solar-plate printmaking, liquid metal, photogravure, linocuts, etc. The photographs used here of the artists and their work were mainly done by Mike while they were here. Where available we have included excerpts from the messages they left in my visitors’ book as they were leaving. Let’s start at the beginning.

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Summer 2014 in Maureen Booth’s World I/II

Posted in Featured Posts, Maureen's World, Workshops, tagged , , , , , , on September 5, 2014| 2 Comments »

IB Bremen lunch

Lovely Mild Weather, Wonderful People, Four-Legged Lilliputians, Printmaking and Painting

More than anything else I wanted to paint this summer. Though I’ve made my living for many years doing printmaking, a painter has to paint. So I made up my mind to devote this summer to oils and pigments on canvas. In the end it was an eventful summer–including a brush fire that ravaged 2,000 acres of foothills just four kilometers down the valley from us. And, thanks to an old friend who showed up unexpectedly I even managed to squeeze in some painting.

May at Our House

The month of May in Granada is quite summery, at least by English standards. This one was made memorable for me by the Toronto artist, Jennifer Morgan, who wrote to ask if I could mount a one-day workshop for her and six other members of her family. Nobody had ever requested anything like that before but I said sure, we’d give it a try. The Morgan family solarplate experience turned out to be a big success, thanks in large part to the uniformly high level of artistic talent of Jennifer’s entire family, starting with her mother, the Canadian novelist Bernice Morgan.

Then mid-month Mike finally got to meet Patricia Wood-Wynn from the Spanish Tourist Office in Chicago. They had exchanged emails for a couple of years but had never met till she showed up in Granada shepherdessing a group of American travel writers. The evening before they arrived Mike took Patricia and a reporter who arrived early for beer and tapas at one of the sidewalk cafes on the Paseo de los Tristes (“Melancholy Walk” because it used to be the path up to the Granada cemetery.) The terrace is located directly beneath the Alhambra fortress and palace, perched high on the opposite side of the Río Darro. The monument–lit up on summer nights–made a profound impression on the two midwestern girls, who kept repeating: “I can’t believe I’m sitting here in Granada right underneath the Alhambra!” (more…)

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Summer 2014 in Maureen Booth’s World II/II

Posted in Featured Posts, Maureen's World, tagged , , , , , on September 5, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Dolly Brown

Maureen and Cuca’s July

July was full of surprises. After two months of what we assumed was a false pregnancy our nine-year-old Shih Tzu bitch, Cuca, gave birth to her first-ever litter, two lovely female puppies. We named them Dolly Brown and Pony. This birth, we are told, is the equivalent of a 55-year-old woman having her first child. In two-and-a-half short months Dolly and Pony have developed from a couple of blind worms, capable only of sucking and sleeping, into semi-professional hell raisers adept at harrassing the cats, digging up flower beds and chewing up anything that even remotely resembles a shoe. That is to say, they are a delightful addition to our family, providing untold joy every day. Pony is more Shih Tzu and Dolly (above) more terrier so, as you can understand, we’re obliged to keep them both.

While we’re on the subject of pets, do you remember Rosie, the pussy from the pantry? She had her first litter, too, just a couple of weeks before Cuca, so her two kittens, Alley and Dolly Black, can run a bit faster and jump a lot higher than the pups. Lucky for them.

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