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Posts Tagged ‘Maureen Booth’

Lola Blanche Higgins–A Bright Light from London via Edinburgh

Posted in Maureens printmaking workshops, Printmaking Courses Spain, Printmaking Granada, Workshops, tagged , , , , , on April 29, 2016| Leave a Comment »

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Lola Higgins arrived at Maureen’s studio a couple of weeks ago, a timid, uncertain recent graduate from the Edinburgh College of Art, the art department of the University of Edinburgh. She had made a few solar prints there but didn’t like neither the process nor the results very much.

Lola´s plan was to reproduce some of her photographs as high quality solarplate prints. When Maureen suggested going beyond mere reproduction, to start from scratch with freehand drawing in India ink on a laser acetate, Lola’s reaction was: “Draw? I can’t draw!”

With a little bit of encouragement Lola started drawing and never stopped. She went from strength to strength and, with Maureen’s help, turned her drawings into stunning solarplate prints. She finished up after 10 days with a portfolio with which the maestra affirms she should start visiting galleries in London, her home town. (See photos of the prints on the drying racks below.)

After Lola left, Maureen said to an artist friend, “I d0n’t think I’ve ever seen a young artist make so much progress in so little time.”

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More TASIS in Spain–February 18, 2016

Posted in Maureens printmaking workshops, Printmaking Granada, Printmaking in Spain, TASIS, Workshops, tagged , , , , , on February 18, 2016| Leave a Comment »

The printmaking continues and the results are gratifying

The TASIS artists and photographers surprised themselves with the quality of the work they produced in Maureen’s studio. Have a look:

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Hasta luego, TASIS. You’re brilliant.

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Martyn, Frank and the TASIS Artists Are Back

Posted in Maureen Booth, Printmaking Courses Spain, TASIS, tagged , , , , , on February 17, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night…

We’ve had a bit of all that in the past few days but it didn’t slow down the art studets and professors from  The American School in Switzerland (TASIS). Twelve students from Italy, Turkey, Mexico, the USA, Russia, Afghanistan, UK, and France have come to Maureen’s studio for an intensive five-day introduction to solarplate printmaking.
Art professor Martyn Dukes and photography professor Frank Long have returned this year with another crop of young artists and photographers. Some of the photographers were asking themselves what they were doing in a printmaking course, but when they saw the first prints made by tracing over photographs on acetates, burning them on photosensitive plates and putting the plates through an etching press on beautiful paper, they quickly changed their minds.
Here’s the first snapshots from day one. Tomorrow we’ll take a look at some of the work they’ve done.

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Happy Holidays 2015–And a Gift

Posted in Maureen Booth, Maureens printmaking workshops, Printmaking Courses Spain, Printmaking Granada, Printmaking in Spain, tagged , , , on December 23, 2015| 1 Comment »

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Here’s wishing a joyous Winter Solstice and a happy and prosperous New Year to all my people.

I want to make you a little gift. If you follow this link (http://youtu.be/4zNnkAbQ-1Y) it will take you to my Printmaking Tips video (one of my Master Printmaking Courses series) that is posted in a secret place on YouTube that can only be accessed with this link. I hope you find something there that might refine your work a little bit.

Two thousand fifteen has been an excellent year for us. Our good friend Rafa Sánchez, the surgeon whom Mike goes hiking with on most weekends, recommended a new doctor to treat my arthritis. Dr. Salvatierra changed my medication, which immediately reduced pain and swelling in my joints. It was like magic. I feel better than I have in years.

My other special joy for this year has been our grand daughter, Lucía, who has been staying with us for a couple of months during her first pregnancy. It’s a boy, due in February. This will be our third great grandchild, as Lucía’s little sister, Elisa, already has two wonderful children, Gabriel 4 and Julia 2.

I’m starting work on a new commission that proves to be challenging and fascinating. An old friend from California, a musician, composer, musicologist, documentary film maker and record producer, wants a portfolio of etchings based on a suite he composed when he lived in our village for a year back in the early 70s. I think I’m over the first hurdle. I’ve decided on an approach to the images. Wish me luck.

A group of 12 students from The American School in Switzerland (TASIS) are coming back this year during their winter break for five days of printmaking in my studio. I love working with young people, and it’s surprising the quantity and quality of work they can turn out. I’ll ask Mike to make some pictures of the workshop and post them here.

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Dolly as a baby. Angelic, isn’t she…

 

Shall I tell you the Dolly saga? Dolly is one of Cuca’s two pups, the one we kept. She’s just over a year old now. The father was a little Jack Russell-type terrier. We should have been forewarned. From early on she constantly tried our patience: hyperactive, chewy, yappy, and if we made her nervous she would take revenge by peeing on our bed. We were always of two minds whether or not to find a good home for her.

Then last month a young woman from the village showed up at our door asking if we had any puppies. She had been promising her two girls (10 and 4) a puppy and had to deliver. As soon as she saw Dolly she was smitten. (As you know, the Devil takes many forms and Dolly is diabolically cute.) As María José walked proudly down the hill with her new puppy on a lead Mike and I exchanged meaningful glances. Had we done it? A week went by. Apparently we had.

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Family portrait lacking just a couple of cats.

Then Dolly started showing up at our house from time to time. I would phone María José and she would come up dutifully and retrieve her. She said her girls were wild about Dolly but she was concerned because they never left her alone. If they weren’t dragging her along on the lead they were hugging her on their laps. No peace for the wicked!

A week later María José showed up with Dolly in tow. Her mother had said that Dolly had to go. She had come into heat and, along with her other shennanigans, was making life at their house impossible.

Dolly’s back, but with a difference. She’s almost perfectly behaved. It’s a miracle. She’s so happy to be in a familiar place with old friends–especially her soul sister, Blacky the cat.

Dolly now comes when we call her, goes where we tell her, hesitates for permission before jumping up on the furniture, hasn’t eaten any shoes, socks or plastic kitchen utensils since she’s been back. She’s discreet and affecionate, a pleasure to have around. In short,  we have never had such an appreciative puppy.

I almost forgot to mention Mike’s latest project, a new site he started in August. It’s called Somos Pineros (We’re from Pinos) and it showcases the photographs he has made in our village since we arrived here, pictures from the end of the sixties till day before yesterday. The text is in Spanish but the images are universal. Here’s the link: http://somospineros.com.

Do take good care of yourselves next year and come and see us when you can. Printmaking is good for you!

 

 

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Library of Andalusia Acquires Artists’ Books

Posted in Andalusian Library Granada, Artists books, Biblioteca de Andalucía, tagged , , , , on December 17, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Unexpected treat for Lola  Sánchez and Teresa Gómez

After the poetry reading and presentation of Teresa and Lola’s artists’ book created and edited in my studio, Cinco Minutos Nada Menos (Five Minutes No Less) at the Library of Andalusia in Granada, the library’s director expressed an interest in acquiring a copy of the work for inclusion in their permanent collection. This was the frosting on the cake after selling out the rest of the edition on the night of the presentation, with all the proceeds going to Médicos sin Fronteras (Doctors without Borders).
Congratulations to everybody!
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P.S. While Teresa and Lola were in the meeting with Javier Álvarez, the director of the library, they mentioned my own artist’s book, Entredós, Between Two (scroll down towards the bottom) and he decided to add one of those to the permanent collection, as well. It was a good day for everyone.

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Then There’s Editioning

Posted in Editioning Prints, Maureen Booth, Maureens printmaking workshops, Pomegranate Editions, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 20, 2015| 1 Comment »

The Importance of Having a Great Assistant

We talk a lot about the creative part of printmaking but there’s another aspect which is also creative, but somewhat less: the production side. If you’re going to sell prints you have to edition them. Depending upon the numbers involved–I try to keep my editions under 50–editioning can become a trudge.
Enter the assistant, who can make all the difference. I’ve had a few. When Rodrigo, who was excellent and had worked with me frequently for a number of years, went back to Argentina, I was left on my own. Then an old friend of ours, Maria Jose Braojos, wife and co-producer of Juan Carlos Romera, the video producer who has made all my videos, offered to help me out. I was delighted.
Maria Jose and I have been working together for more than a year now and she has proven to be the ideal helper. It’s not just for her technical ability and her punctillious character, which keeps print quality highly uniform. It’s also because she’s great company, always cheerful and optimistic, always generous with her time and discreetly helpful with her suggestions. Maria Jose’s great, and I want this post to be an homage to her. I asked Mike to make some pictures of us working in the studio yesterday and he kindly said yes. (If you ask me he went off the rails a bit, but he’s entitled to his creativity, too.)
I hope you enjoy this photo essay on a morning of editioning in my studio. Better yet, come on over and we’ll do some work together!
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Trish is a Nice Mix of Quality and Enthusiasm

Posted in Maureen Booth, Printmaking Courses Spain, Printmaking Granada, tagged , , on October 15, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Trish Roberts arrived last Sunday with her husband, Peter, and they adapted quickly and joyously to the Gallinero. Trish shows tremendous enthusiasm in her work. Everything we did together seemed to delight her. I have seldom seen an artist have so much fun doing prints and learning new techniques. It was very rewarding for me. She must have enjoyed it, too, as she’s talking about coming back for a longer stay.
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This five-day visit to my studio was tacked onto the front of a Spanish holiday. Trish’s idea was to spend this time preparing work for two shows she has in the near future. “Though I don’t expect I can get much work done in five days,” she said. In the end, when they leave tomorrow she will go with a portfolio of new prints and some fresh ideas about colour, fondino, liquid metal and solarplate prints. Oh, I almost forgot, and the siesta.

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Activism in Black and White

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 1, 2015| 1 Comment »

Revolution, Rain or Shine

As some of you may already know Mike is digitizing his archive of black and white negatives from the old days. Besides the photos of our pueblo going back to 1969 (which he is publishing on a website SomosPineros.com) he has also unearthed family pictures which we had forgotten even existed. It’s a lot of fun. Here are some pictures he made of me participating in an anti-NATO demonstration in Granada’s Plaza Bibarramblas on a rainy day in 1984.
Did we manage to stop Spain’s entry into NATO? No but, 30 years later, we have the satisfaction of knowing we tried.
P.S. I’ll fill out this slide show with some portraits Mike made around that same time of the wonderful left-wing poets, painters, journalists and academics who usually participated in those Quijotesque political demonstrations.

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Forming Etchers at the Fundación Rodríguez-Acosta in Granada

Posted in Grabado Granada, Historia grabado Granada, Obra grafica Granada, tagged , , , , , , on September 28, 2015| 1 Comment »

Farewell to Granada’s Beloved Etchers’ Haven

A Small Miracle for Artists in Granada

The Fundación Rodríguez-Acosta was the brainchild of the Granada banker/philanthropist/artist, Miguel Rodríguez-Acosta. Miguel was the grandson of the excellent 19th and early-20th-century painter, José María Rodríguez-Acosta. In the mid-1970s Miguel reconditioned a floor of one of his family’s buildings in the center of Granada, hired a good painter, Jose García Lomas (Pepe) and sent him to be formed as an etching master in Barcelona and Rome.
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When the workshop was fully equipped Pepe trained two assistants (the artists never touched the etching presses), the brothers Jorge and Pepito. Besides being a consummate technician, Pepe Lomas had a fine artistic sensitivity as well as an extremely respectful teaching approach with his artists. He was an exacting and demanding teacher but he never imposed his own creative criteria. Pepe was important to me not only for what he taught me about printmaking but also for what he taught me about teaching.
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Admission to the Founation’s etching studio was via a selection committee to which artists from all over the world submitted a portfolio of sketches. When I first saw the etchings that were coming out of the Foundation–work by artists like Claudio Sánchez Muro, Teiko Mori and Pepe Lomas himself–I thought I could never achieve that standard. But I presented my portfolio and was accepted. For the next two-and-a-half years, until it closed in1980, I went to the Foundation studio every weekday . This was the most intensive learning period of my life. I thought I had died and gone to heaven, and I am eternally grateful, both to my maestro and to the Foundation for the opportunity.
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Making an Artist’s Book with Teresa and Lola

Posted in Artists books, Granada, Maureen Booth, Pomegranate Editions, tagged , , , , on August 31, 2015| 2 Comments »

A couple of months ago Teresa Gómez and Lola Sánchez asked me if I would help them design and put together an artist’s book made up of a poem by Teresa and images by Lola. It sounded like a delicious little project for summer mornings. These are the pictures that Mike made today when we started pulling the edition. We´re all delighted with what we have achieved.

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