SOL PRINT STUDIO: Featuring the Sol Print Studio Artists

--The Artists of First Impressions--

Now - November 30, 2012

St. Paul Companies Pavilion on Stevenson’s Greenspring campus

1525 Greenspring Valley Road, Stevenson, MD 21153

Randi Reiss-McCormack

Working at Sol Print Studios is a wonderful way to challenge your work and move your ideas into a new medium. The process of etching is so ripe with experimentation, technical feats to master, and all the accompanying magic, that it can’t help but be exhilarating. The camaraderie of working closely with other artists and the mentoring of Soledad, is something that makes these workshops unique and move beyond simply learning a new technique.

Detail from Relentless Edition.

Joyce Scott

Printmaking is probably as close as I’ll get to becoming an accomplished painter. A history of monoprints and lithographs created across the country with varying level of success is my story. My joy comes from the mess and spontaneity, not necessarily precision. Soledad encourages the best from her cohorts while gently directing achievement.

Heart and Soul. 2012. Monoprint.

Gloria Askin

Working in Soledad's studio is a true joy. With patience and an amazing open style of teaching that allows each artist to find their own, distinctive, voice Soledad has nurtured and fed me and those who work in Sol Print Studios. To be able to work in such an atmosphere and learn from a master like Soledad has been a marvelous growth experience that I am very grateful for.

Just Like Me. 2012.

Joan Belmar

This print (Rituals) is a combination of themes from 2 of my series. One part comes from a piece I did for "Art at the Top: A Sondheim Show" in Baltimore, MD, as part of Artscape and it was a 3D installation.

The other part comes from my Tierra del Fuego series, which was inspired by the traditional coming of age initiation ceremony once held by the Selk’nam people from Tirerra del Fuego, Chile, and who were driven, by 1966, into extinction.

The print workshop at Sol Print studio was intense and rewarding.

Although I am an experienced artist, I did not have any previous experience in printmaking.

I was thoroughly engaged by the professionalism and experience of Soledad. She pushed me and helped me get the best quality print.

The workshop opened a new world for me.

Rituals.

Pamela Phillips

The workshops were excellent, so much to discover! Soledad is a great teacher and guide with her extensive knowledge of all aspects of the printmaking process. We are very fortunate to have the Sol Printmaking Studio here in Baltimore.

Deep August. 2010. Solar Etching/Monoprint.

Christine Neill

Many of my studio works layer the hands-on techniques of painting and drawing with digital processes. This workshop has enabled me to become familiar with the possibilities of etching and embossing as well.

Developing a process for assembling the images prior to printing was as labor intensive and valuable an experience as applying the etching techniques. Through Soledad’s guidance, I ultimately combined a cell drawing and a wash drawing in Photoshop and printed them as one image onto BFK Rives. I developed a different combination for each print. Simultaneously, I prepared a scan or photograph of a plant form and had a Solar Etching Plate made of it.

In April, during the first half of the 6 day workshop, I printed copies of seven plates, adding color while inking the plate. When I go back to the studio in mid-May, I will print 3 more images and emboss the prints to complete the portfolio of 10 images.

By working on small size prints in an experimental way, I have gained skills that are transferable to a group of mixed-media watercolors I’ve been developing over the past year. The process of layering the etchings with other media has helped me to concurrently work through difficulties I have encountered in the watercolor pieces that are over 5 feet high and layered with complex and expensive digital prints. I am proceeding with the mixed-media watercolors with new insights and experimental fervor.

Split Magnolia, 1/3, 2012, Etching, Digital print and Embossing on Paper & Plexiglas, 22” x 15”

Oletha DeVane

There is something incredibly special about working with Soledad. Not only has she given over her space to mentor other artists in printmaking techniques, she’s also invested in the process of making sure they feel successful and leave with a coherent body of work. I’ve never left her studio without a sense of accomplishment. On top of feeding the inspiration, she literally feeds the body with her delicious cooking! I’ve produced several series at Sol Studio and her honest critiques and professional expertise keeps me coming back. My most recent prints “Call to Freedom”, were produced at Sol Studio and are currently showing at Stevenson College.

The print series was inspired by the book, Bound for the Promise Land, by Kate Clifford Larson. It is a series of nine prints which incorporates the raven which symbolizes an oracle and is considered intelligent, courageous, and a leader amongst birds. I used it to represent Harriet Tubman. The seedpods of the sweet gum tree are the background element and the trees are common in the forests of the Eastern Shore of Maryland where Tubman was born and also led the first slaves. Larson explains the seeds as, …”large, round, and covered with spiny, burrs. They littered the forest floor, sometimes inches deep, nature’s bed of nails.” Those seedpods, once the medicine with aromatic, therapeutic fragrance to the slaves; once healing folk treatment for wounds, and dysentery; once the hollowed out trunk that served as a baby’s cradle, would then, “pierce the calloused, unprotected feet of terrified runaway slaves, then the sweet gum tree would be among the first obstacles on the road to freedom.”

Call to Freedom. 2012.

Katherine Kavanaugh

My prints come out of a long history of making three-dimensional work and often include images of installations and sculptures I've constructed.

Since May 2012 I've taken three workshops with Sol. She helped me to make a body of work that I'm very happy with. I had not done printmaking for many years, in fact, my work has primarily been three-dimensional in the last 20 years.

As a teacher myself, I am very appreciative of Sol for having the sensitivity to each students' unique voice and honoring that while, at the same time, nudging us to move into unfamiliar territory in printmaking. She has an ability to communicate her ideas clearly, to understand color and technique and to help us to move beyond our resistances.

Axis IV.

Leslie Portney

My art practice before I enrolled was primarily ceramic sculpture , drawing and and painting. I have been working on a "heart series" for the past few years. This content evolved out of my study of Buddhism and meditation over the past years. What I wanted to evoke from the first series was to evoke "compassion", and "heart" to our world since all human beings can struggle with this feeling for themselves and others.
My most recent shows before this was "Betsy Hotel, Miami Basel".Before this I had work shown in the Peabody Conservatory, Tuttle Gallery, Clayworks Art Gallery , and The Maryland Arts Council exhibiting 40 ceramic artists .
I first enrolled in Sol Studios to learn more about the encaustic practice and how I could incorporate this process into my current work. After a few workshops, I realized that I was becoming more interested in drawing to create plates but still wanted to involve the imagery of Heart. An unexpected development of working with soledad is that I started going back to using my drawing to create the plates and ended up not using encaustic but straight printmaking.

Heart Series.

Ruby Yunis

These works are a part of my latest series, "Parallel Universes."
I feel there are other spaces and times that we cannot measure, and have explored this concept while working with Soledad in Sol Print Studios.
It has been a challenge for me to venture into the realm of solar etching, but the warm atmosphere and professionalism of Soledad’s workshop has made this possible and simultaneously captivating. It has been a great adventure of creativity, which has involved my heart and soul. It also allowed me to meet people who are precious and valuable as artists and human beings.
I will be participating with 12 solar prints of this series and other wax-encaustic, into a satellite exhibition Art Basel`s in December 2012 in Miami.

Parallel Universes, 2012. Parallel Universes II, 2012. Fractal, 2012.

Joe Kabriel
These “Café drawings” began when I was sitting in a coffee shop every morning with my sketchbook and a cup of coffee. I produced 300 pen and ink drawings in a 7“x 9” sketchbook, with one drawing taking as long as 40 hours to finish. Some days I would spend an hour working, other days, maybe two hours. It could take as long as a month to finish a drawing.

As the time past, I wanted a way to “transform” these drawings beyond their ordinary still life imagery.

For several months I experimented with various ideas; a handmade book, ink on acetate paper cast in resin, and encaustic wax. These ideas never went beyond experimentation.

After taking the sketchbook over to Sol Studio and talking in length with Soledad Salame about the different possibilities; I began a process of combining solar etching and monotype printing. It was a two step process that began with transferring the image of the drawing into a metal plate and printing a limited edition in blue black ink. A different color was applied to a second plate, either red or blue, where I began lifting the ink in a process known as subtractive drawing. This image was based on a loose interpretation of the first drawing. The second plate was printed on the first print combining the images.

For me, the final prints processes an energy and spirit that transforms theses images from the obsession with the mundane into a truly one of a kind image that is full of kinetic energy and life.