New Special Editions Artists In Residence

We officially have 4 new Special Editions Artists in Residence. I cannot tell you how excited I am. My excitement partly has to do with the fact that during the month before the deadline the mailman is my best friend. Every day he brings me stacks of applications, which I then open, sort, collate and upload. The week before the deadline our mailman is basically Santa Claus, with a giant sack of mail as my presents. This means that by the time the panel comes to the Printshop  I know most of the applicants names and have seen their work several times. This particular deadline brought in almost 600 applications from all over the country and I am proud to say that I processed each and every one. The picture below is not me, but I love the image.

That being said being so involved in the process makes the outcome even more fascinating and I can't wait to see what our new artists Saul Chernick, Blane De St. Croix, Chitra Ganesh, and Marie Jager will create. As we set about creating this blog, we talked a lot about its ability to be a forum for discussion, and a place where we could share our thoughts on everything from printmaking to contemporary art and collaboration. In this spirit I am going to introduce each of the Special Editions artists one by one. I think it will be a nice way to highlight their previous accomplishments and showcase their work. It will also be a nice record to look back on at the end of their residency, to see where they were before they began their collaboration with Doug and Jamie.

I am going to start with Saul Chernick. 1) because alphabetically this makes sense and 2) because he was the first one to come into the Printshop. He dropped by this afternoon to see the studio, meet everyone, and talk about what the residency entails.

Saul Chernick is based in Brooklyn, NY and works in primarily in drawing and sculpture. He received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, RI, and his MFA from the Mason Gross School of Arts at Rutgers University, NJ. His elaborate drawings display an exquisite use of line and are executed so that they mimic old engravings. Tied to the past through technique or reference, Chernick's drawings traverse this link, reinventing our perception of otherwordly beings, alternate realities, and supernatural phenomena.

As a draftsman you can see how each individual mark works together to create his imagery. There is also a clear fascination with the phastasmagoric and the metaphysical. It will be great to see how this continues when he delves into printmaking.

Courtenay