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August has been a very busy month at the David Krut Print Workshop! It began with the arrival of Mike Houston and Martin Mazorra, a.k.a: Cannonball Press, from New York, as well as the introduction of a new project for Strangelove’s up and coming exhibition at David Krut Projects, and the arrival of our new letterpress.

Having only arrived on the Thursday, by the weekend Cannonball Press had held the introductory session of their woodblock workshop with a group of South African artists and had begun work on the ziggurat created for the Oppikoppi event at the Coca-Cola Dome. This hand-made sculpture was a unique visual element during Friday’s live performances.

Back up at the workshop, the new letterpress had been given a new lease of life and was ready for use in the woodblock workshop. On the 13th and 14th of August the artists brought in their woodblocks for printing. The variety in images was very exciting to see, as each artist used the same materials and was working to the common theme of Contraption. Everyone got involved in the printing process, some having created more than one block, whilst others were so inspired by their printing session they had created new blocks for printing by the next morning!

A collaborative session followed where the artists created a large work from all the different prints. Mike and Martin also had the opportunity to hold a woodblock workshop on the Tuesday morning with members of the David Krut TAEP, which was not only a great exercise for them, but was a chance to learn a new form of making art which they can use in their own workshops.

Cannonball Press’s opening night on Thursday the 16th was a great success. People poured out of the gallery onto the street, and the work of Mike, Martin and participating workshop artists was extremely well received. Amongst the crowd were artists from the weeks’ workshop as well as fellow colleagues and art enthusiasts. Bruce Backhouse, one of the participating workshop artists, was extremely complimentary saying that the work of Cannonball Press deserved a wider audience.

Strangelove’s collaboration with the Print Workshop had also evolved over the week, with Carlo and Ziemek touching upon the similarity in language between pattern making for clothing and print making as a starting point for the work. The images used are a take on Strangelove’s unique clothing patterns, remaining true to the technical details which act as touchstones in their original creation.

A series of 16 prints have been created in the workshop. The first 6 were produced using laser-etched acrylic cut-outs of digital drawings created from the original pattern. Each piece of the pattern makes up a section of a woman’s torso, therefore the positioning of all 6 is crucial in creating a uniform series. Each acrylic form is inked up and carefully positioned on the press according to specific registration marks through the centre of the pattern. The result is a beautiful series of embossed prints containing white contour lines which give definition to the image itself and emphasise its curves.

The latter 10 prints which make up the series are created by fusing cotton cut-outs of the original pattern pieces to paper according to the same registration marks of the first 6 prints. These are then printed onto using the 6th plate from the original 6 prints which must also line up to the original registration marks. The result is stunning and clearly illustrates how drastically the pattern changes at each cross-section of the female form. The show opens on the 6th of September, 6 for 6:30pm at our gallery, 142 Jan Smuts Avenue.

In the midst of the various projects taking place, artist Wilma Cruise was in the studio to work on one of her prints. This large piece of work is being developed in stages with Cruise coming in to re-work the plate after having time to respond to her previous changes.

The variety of projects which the David Krut Print Workshop has been involved with this month have been highly stimulating. From woodblock printing, to creating works using lazer-etched acrilic this last month has allowed for some fantastic work to be produced. Please look to our website for the latest updates on up and coming projects.

Keywords: Arts-and-Culture, Print Workshop