Over the past year, I have been experimenting with ways to incorporate printmaking into my work as a sculptor. I am attracted to relief printing not so much as an end in itself but as a means to manipulate paper in a structural manner that guides and supports an expanded goal. Originally based upon close-ups of skin, these pieces have evolved in several directions that include expanded references to the body and other cellular structures as well as occasional allusions to landscape.
Born and raised in Minneapolis, art was a large part of my upbringing, but it wasn't until attending The California College of Art that I committed my full attention to it. I called the Bay area home and my identity as an artist had been linked to that city. When I moved back to Minneapolis, I didn’t know any artists and lost that sense of community, that is until I found highpoint.
Photo courtesy Public Art Saint Paul
With the support of Public Art Saint Paul, Jones staged Create: The Community Meal, a half-mile-long luncheon in the middle of Victoria Street in September of 2014. A host of community partners helped to grow, cook, and choreograph the meal that took 400 volunteers to realize. “The Community Meal,” said Christine Podas-Larson, president of Public Art Saint Paul, “is a beacon to the nation about how we behave as a civic body.” Three hundred tables stretching north to south, from University to Minnehaha avenues, came together to form one massive platform around which some two thousand guests gathered. The scene was surprisingly diverse across age, race, ethnicity, and class (negating my preconceptions of Minnesota), yet I was told by my companions that the project had engendered the speckled vista before me and didn’t accurately reflect the neighborhood.
The Community Meal. Photo: Andy King
Learn more about this event and the article from the Walker here!
My art is a lot like my hiccups. I’m not sure why they happen and I cannot always predict what they will sound like. They’re always at least a little bit funny, but sometimes they can be uncomfortable. Like my art, I have faith that my hiccups are trying to tell me something, “you use way too much hot-sauce” or “holding your breath won’t help you calm down”. As their host I am both tickled and plagued. My images are simple and speak to my love of illustration and story. These odd and often humorous scenes, though quaint, are echoes of anxieties, much larger than the image, but somehow just as simple.
Born and raised in Utah, my first print experiences took place while I was a BFA student in Photography at Utah State University. There I was exposed to traditional film and wet dark room processes as well as 19th century photographic methods. I fell in love with the process of coating the paper with light sensitive emulsion and watching the image appear in the developer. I believe this love of process led me to printmaking and later piqued my interest in collaborative printing.
I studied intaglio printmaking at MCAD as a side dish to my design major, and, perhaps predictably, drifted away from the practice until years later when I took a class at Highpoint to fill some dull winter evenings. The first night I walked in the door and inhaled the smell of ink I thought: I’m home!
A California native, I’ve spent the last eight years in Minnesota where my first truly serious encounters with printmaking and the book arts came through the post-baccalaureate program at MCAD in 2005 – 2006. For the next several years, I continued my art practice through Continuing Studies at MCAD and classes at Minnesota Center for Book Arts. In 2011, I received a Jerome Fellowship from MCBA; the need for more concentrated studio access led me to Highpoint.
A significant new body of work by internationally renowned artist Willie Cole. The works created in collaboration with Highpoint Editions include 27 intaglio and relief prints of ironing boards, a series of small and large screenprinted iron patterns juxtaposed in eye-popping colors, as well as a large woodcut depicting two female forms comprised of women’s high heeled shoes and echoing themes and techniques Cole has employed in his sculptural work.
David Rathman returned to Highpoint Editions during summer 2011 and finished up work on a spectacular large-scale diptych of a demolition derby car and truck. The images are lithographs in black and are hand water-colored by the artist. Both vehicles are tiled into multiple prints, emphasizing their quirky, deconstructed/ reconstructed quality and the scale reflects the physicality of their subjects.
© Highpoint Center for Printmaking
