EMERGENCIES ARE RELATIVE

It's been too long since my last post, but surprisingly it's because I have almost nothing to say. Nothing, that is, until I received an e-mail from a friend yesterday that causes me to post a warning on this blog. Most of you don't need the warning, but hey, it gives me something to do.

The e-mail is bogus, and I've deleted my friend's name, because I suspect that even he doesn't know that I received this, and while e-mails are somewhat interchangeable around here, I'm pretty sure that this particular friend likely doesn't have my personal e-mail address (the one that this "emergency" missive came to).



Hello,
I am really sorry to bother you with this email but i just want you to know what i am going through right now. I am sorry i didn't inform you about my traveling to Spain for a Seminar,i am presently in Spain but unfortunately for me i lost my wallet and other valuables in a taxi. I can easily access the internet for now but i do not have access to phone and i also cannot afford the pay phone simply because i do not have a dime on me at the moment. I want you to please assist me urgently with a loan of €1,800 to sort out my hotel bills and to get myself back home. I have tried the embassy here but they are not responding to the matter effectively,i want you to know that i will pay you back as soon as i return,so kindly let me know if you can be of help so that i can send you the details you will use to send the money to me and i think the best way i can receive the money is via WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER since i still have my passport with me.

There are a lot of this type of e-mail floating around these days. Most of them are from people we don't know, but every now and again they stumble across a real printmaker to use in the scam. So Bill (or Tom or Frank), if you are really in Spain and really lost your wallet, and are waiting at the American Express office for my wire transfer, I'll quote my sainted mother as a response - you are so screwed!

PEOPLE YOU SHOULD KNOW

There are a lot of people in the printmaking world. A few years ago, there was a movie called Six Degrees of Separation. The premise of the movie was supposedly (since I didn't see it, I can only suppose about the premise) that you can move from yourself to any other figure on the planet - perhaps the Pope, with only six degrees of separation. Of course, if your target is Kevin Bacon it's more like four degrees.

In printmaking, I would argue that the number is more like two degrees! I've rarely met a printmaker that didn't share a common acquaintance with me. I would like, however to introduce you to someone that you don't know probably...Florence. Like Cher or Madonna, she needs only one name. Her given last name is probably "the Milk Float".

Shown above, Florence is a refugee from the Dairy industry. In this picture she is toting two heavy hitters in the printmaking world. Well, they're both heavy at least! In the command seat - yours truly, and closest to the camera is Martin Lawrence - the chief cook and bottle washer at T.N. Lawrence & Sons of Hove, England. In a fit of insanity, I allowed myself to be intimidated into driving Florence down the street from her home to the Lawrence warehouse and back. It was a nerve racking distance of almost 50 yards round trip....all on the wrong side of the street. Fortunately it was Sunday morning and all of the intelligent nearby residents were still asleep, or cowering behind their drawn curtains!

While our plans had some last minute changes which necessitated canceling a couple of stops on our grand tour - most notably an art fair in Oxford, England, and one of our distributors, it was still a successful, albeit damp trip. Successful, if you can forget about being run over by an Amsterdam taxi that I was in at the time, and a decidedly unpleasant gate crew for Continental Airlines who tried to put our 8 year old granddaughter on a different flight than Susan and I. But that's a story for another day. Hopefully by then I'll have forgotten about it.

INT'L PRINT EXCHANGE & EXHIBITION

The following was received from the Inkteraction Group today. I thought that it was a good thing to pass along to any printmaker that might be interested. The picture to the right has almost no bearing on the text, but I thought it would be a good opportunity to show off our new labels.

Dear Friends,

Hope you are doing well, I am sending you a call: La Calaca Press International Print Exchange that I am organizing in conjunction with Expressions Graphics in Oak Park, IL for the Day of the Dead celebration in Nov. I would love to count with your participation on this project, please feel free to spread the word!!!

Thanks, have a great day!

Carlos Barberena

La Calaca Press and Expressions Graphics invite you to participate in the first LA CALACA PRESS International Print Exchange and Exhibition. This exchange is open to printmakers from the USA and abroad. The purpose of this exchange is to promote printmaking and create connection with artists around the world.

Requirements:

• Deadline date: Prints must be received by September 15, 2011

• Please RSVP by e-mail to: Carlos Barberena at calacapress@gmail.com

• Theme: “CALACAS” Day of the Dead / Open to your own interpretation.

• Media: Any traditional Printmaking process: Relief, Linocuts, Woodcuts, Intaglio, Lithography, Serigraphy, Collograph, etc. - NO DIGITAL PRINTS OR PHOTOCOPIES -

• Paper Size: 7 inches by 9 inches. Print/image size is open. *Please use any Archival Paper or Hand made Paper. (No Exception)

• Edition: 15 identical hand-pulled, original prints, include glassine sheets or tissue paper between each print, cut to match paper size.

•Each Print must be Signed and Numbered on the front.

• Fee: $15 US or $20 International paid via PayPal to:carlosbarberenadelarocha@gmail.com or a Check made out to: Carlos Barberena (Checks from US Banks only) This Fee covers the costs of postage and promotion of the project and Exhibits. *Fee is non-refundable.

• Exhibitions: The selected prints will be exhibited at Expressions Graphics in Oak Park, IL in Nov. 2011. * A Second exhibit will be at La Casa de los Tres Mundos in Nicaragua on Nov. 2nd, 2011.

• A Portfolio of 12 randomly selected prints will be mailed to each participant early November 2011. We will keep 3 Prints from each edition submitted to the exchange: 1 print will remain at Expressions Graphics and 2 at La Calaca Press for traveling exhibitions and promotional purposes.

• All prints submitted will be put in a web gallery and may be reproduced to promote this project. Please visit http://calacapress.blogspot.com for more info.

• IMPORTANT: All prints must conform to the guidelines. Any prints that do not fit the guidelines will be returned to the artist. *Fee is not refundable.

• Please RSVP by e-mail to Carlos at calacapress@gmail.com and mail submission to:

Carlos Barberena

324 Washington Blvd.

Apt 3G Oak Park, IL, 60302

USA

La Calaca Press International Print Exchange Submission Form

WATER SOLUBLE RELIEF INKS, THEY'RE BAAACCCCK!!

I really hate missing a month for blog postings, but I missed the month of May. There were a lot of reasons, but few, if any, of them were good reasons. There's been a little bit of travel, but that's not it. A few health problems, but that's not it either. We've been busy redeveloping the Water Soluble line of Relief inks, but that's not it either. No, it's just a hot muggy time of year, and I didn't feel like it.

The redevelopment thing, however, has been on the front burner for quite a long time. In all of the years that I've been at Graphic I've never had an issue that was so universally concerning to our customers. We've been very proud of the Water Soluble Relief Inks. We believe that they are the best on the market, but it doesn't matter what we think, it's what you think that matters. A number of years ago, there was a bulletin board post from someone who mentioned another manufacturer had come out with the first professional quality water soluble relief ink. It implied that ours, not mentioned by name were less than professional in quality. We were concerned that people would believe that claim, so we offered members of the bbs a free sample of our ink to try. No strings attached....and we crossed our fingers that those who sampled ours would have a positive comment or two for the board.

Almost every artist that received a sample wrote in to say it was the best that they'd ever tried. O.K. I'm editorializing a little bit, but the comments were very positive. You can imagine how upset we were (not to mention how upset many of you were) when without notice, the specialized vehicle that we used just disappeared! We'd even been buying 20 drums of the old vehicle at a time to insure that they'd make it for us, but with the economy the way it was, the manufacturer chose to discontinue the product. (20 drums, by the way, is one heck of a lot of water soluble vehicle - about 1100 gallons worth!)

The process that led to our new product was long, convoluted and arduous. We began by begging for one more kettle of the vehicle, and were told no - we could use their new product instead. If you'd seen the MSDS you'd understand why we couldn't do that. Next, we tracked down former employees of the vendor. Several of them had left to start their own businesses or to work elsewhere. That didn't pan out the way we'd hoped. We even went to a distributor that I swore I'd never do business with again. Ironically, our last effort that resulted in the new vehicle actually turned out to have a connection to a former employee of the old supplier, but we didn't know about it until we'd found the new product and learned that the salesperson that we'd would work with was our former salesperson with the old company.

The ink field is very much like printmaking in some ways. Everybody knows everybody else, within reason. The people are very close and generally are happy to help. And sometimes you just get lucky. I'll always take lucky over good...always!

What's next? Look for new colors...some Earth colors, a few bolder colors, and perhaps a couple of new modifiers. Keep looking here, we'll try to make it interesting.

LINKS

I've received a few comments on the Tyler School of Art job posting. Apparently the link doesn't work. All I can tell you is that the information was copied directly from the form that was sent to us. Contact the school directly if the link doesn't work. Unfortunately, we have no control over that at all.

Best of luck to all interested in the position - and don't forget Graphic Chemical when your back-to-school orders are being sent next Fall.

CLEAN UP YOUR ACT

This post comes under the heading of a public service announcement....or perhaps a "don't be stupid like I was" announcement. Take it for what it's worth. Do not assume that I'm looking for sympathy or attention, I'm not. I want you to avoid what happened to me.

When I was little, my parents made me eat whatever was on my plate...completely. It seemed to me that there was an inordinate amount of liver on that plate, and to be honest there isn't enough ketchup in the world to mask the taste of liver. Two things, however, came out of that. First, I pretty much learned to intensely dislike things that were probably reasonably good for me, and second, I learned to finish everything on my plate...everything!

When I moved away from my parents house, there is a chance that my choices of meals were perhaps not as healthy as they should have been (unless deep fried twinkies are healthy). Bad habits are a bear! Yes, when I married Susan, the quality of my choices got infinitely better, but quantity probably didn't.

Coupled with my eating habits, I started getting involved in the community (schools, planning commission, chamber of commerce etc) and stopped playing basketball and volleyball on a regular basis. I hope you can see where this is leading....I couldn't.

About a month ago, Susan and I were finishing up a two week sales trip to the West Coast. We decided to fly home from Las Vegas. We stayed there for a day and a half. On the first morning we were there we decided to go to a restaurant down the street from our hotel for breakfast. When we travel, we walk a lot, so three blocks to breakfast shouldn't have been a big deal. The operative phrase was "shouldn't have been". I had to stop twice because I was out of breath. Well, to be more honest, my chest hurt a lot, but it didn't seem to be classic heart attack symptoms. The pain didn't radiate down my left arm, there was no jaw pain, and no crushing chest pain.

Susan was sure that I needed to go to the hospital, but I convinced her that I just needed some rest (that would be mistake #1). Because I'm not entirely stupid, I called one of our daughters and asked her to make a doctor's appointment for me for when we got home. The short version of the story is that we got home Friday night (mistake #2 being getting on not one but two airplanes!).

Circumstances dictated that we drive to Ann Arbor, MI on Saturday morning and back on Sunday (mistakes #3 and 4). On Tuesday, I cheerfully went to see my doctor. I like him. I went in with the obligatory laundry list that Susan wanted me to share with him. His nurse ran an EKG while I was there and it was perfect!

Uncharacteristically, the doctor spent very little time with me. He heard my list - blah, blah, blah, chest pains, blah, blah, called the hospital, arranged for a room for me, and scheduled an angiogram for the next day.

What both he and the cardiologist expected was to find a minor blockage, remove it, put in a stent, and send me home the next day. It seemed simple enough to me..a minor blip on my health radar screen. In retrospect, I really wish it had worked that way...really!

It turns out that my life style had lined up not one minor blockage, but rather 5 blockages at 80% or more. I've come to realize that there are numerous statements that you don't want to hear in your life. Things like a dentist saying, "oops!" or the ever popular, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you", come to mind. The latest addition to this list is a conversation that begins, "Hello, Mr. Clark, I'm your surgeon."!

Coronary Artery Bypass Graft surgery (known in the medical trade as CABG or Cabbage) ain't for sissies. The problem is that we sissies don't have much choice in the matter.

I had absolutely fantastic doctors, nurses ....everyone that I came in contact with was excellent. My recovery from triple bypass surgery has gone exceedingly well. The problem is that I never should have gotten to that point. I assumed that I wasn't a risk for heart problems. We've never had heart problems in my family. There is a fair level of longevity on both sides of the family, so I thought I'd live forever (it's worked out pretty well so far).

Don't allow yourself to buy that story. My problems go back for decades. I am rapidly becoming a zealot for eating better, exercise and a healthy dose of common sense when it comes to these things. Most of my friends believed, as I did, that a good EKG and blood tests were sufficient indicators of good health. That just isn't true. The good news is that I've lost a lot of weight, seemingly have my cholesterol and blood sugar under control, blood pressure is way down and I intend to keep it that way. This operation isn't fun, and I don't want to swap cabbage stories with you, unless you've already had the surgery. Please clean up your act and stay healthy!

JOB POSTING

Instructor/Assistant Professor– Printmaking

Employer: Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA

Required Education: MFA or foreign equivalent

Description:

The Printmaking area invites applications for a non-tenure track, full-time position teaching all forms of printmaking including screenprinting, etching, relief, lithography, monoprint and incorporating digital/new media into the Printmaking experience. This expansive position will include teaching in the studio and the computer lab. We seek a print artist with a broad knowledge of historical and contemporary art practices, as well as a thorough understanding of technical, critical, and theoretical issues of the media. The successful applicant will carry out a large portion of the teaching load in the BFA, BA Visual Studies degree programs, and will also teach in other departments of the college according to expertise.

The appointee will work closely with the Area Head and assist with the management of the Printmaking programs. Applicants should have a broad range of technical, intellectual and cross-disciplinary skills, with wide ranging conceptual and creative interests. This position is a Full-Time Non-Tenure track Assistant Professor with a one-year appointment (renewable) beginning Fall, 2011. The teaching load is 4 courses per semester.

Requirements:

MFA (or foreign equivalent) required and minimum of four years college teaching preferred. An evidence of teaching with technology is required.

Application deadline: April 4, 2011. Please send

• Cover letter detailing qualifications
• CV
• Sample syllabi,
• Contact information for three references,
• Statement of teaching philosophy and evidence of work in your field,
• Detail any administrative experience in cover letter
• SASE for return of materials (if desired)
• 20 Images of your work and 20 images of your students’ work should be uploaded to Slideroom. Please visit temple.slideroom.com to set up an account and upload your images.

Finalists must be prepared to submit course evaluations for courses taught and official transcripts. Tyler school of Art is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer committed to increasing and sustaining its diverse academic community.

Contact:

Printmaking NTT Search Committee

c/o

Nora Leva

Graphic Arts and Design Department
Tyler School of Art, Temple University
2001 N. 13^th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122

Deadline:

April 4, 2011

***NOTE: Images must be uploaded to Slideroom, CD’s and slides will not be accepted. Other materials must be mailed, hard copy to the above address. Materials such as a CV, Statement and so on sent via the College Art Association website or other electronic means will not be considered or reviewed.***