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.