catch up post: art so far in the spring semester

by amandamay

I participated in a University of Iowa Center for the Book Show at the Quad City Arts Center Gallery, in Rock Island, IL.  Here are two artist’s books I made in my pop-up book class in the fall.

I’m organizing a department wide print exchange here in Iowa. Here’s a shot of the Colophon, designed by Kyle Peets.

Here are two shots of my screenprint, titled The Queen City or Paris on the Prairie. I’ll post the final shot of it on my website soon. I’ll also be posting some of my colleagues images for the exchange on this blog sometime in the future (I hope).

The Printmaking Department also had a one-night show at the Grant Wood Colony this Month. Organized by our fantastic Grant Wood Fellow, Kristina Paabus it was titled Out of Hibernation and technically took place in her apartment on the Grant Wood Colony Grounds (the people reading my CV don’t have to know that though!)

I showed my series of prints Ambiguous Grounds (Bethlehem Steel Administration Building). It is a Variable Edition of Reduction Woodcuts that frequent readers may remember me working on for the entire Summer and then hiding it away in my drawer come fall and forgetting it even existed. Even though this is a body of work that I now consider in my past I was excited to get it out in the world (albeit the small Iowa City art world) briefly.

One of my counterparts in Print Media, Sarita Zaleha used the opportunity of an apartment exhibition to show her Global Warming Quilt to its best advantage… on a bed! This quilt has sensors wired though it that it heat up whenever a participant climbs in.

And two shots of my fellow printmakers that were too good to never have an internet life….

I’ve been making blank books in my Bookbinding II class. So those of you that thought handmade books for Christmas was a one-time-deal…. get ready for round 2. These are my 4 needle Link Stitch Books (also known as Ethiopian or Coptic Stitch books)

And here are some sneak peaks of my preparations, notes, research and process  for my MA show. I bought a sheet of plexi-glass that is 36 x 72″ and am attempting to fill the Porch Gallery with giant trace monotypes. For those of you in the Iowa City area it will go up for the week of March 9th and there will be some sort of reception early in the week. Stay tuned! I’ll post more as it gets closer!