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QMP 25 Collagraphy Demo

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Brian Fisher, assisted by Debi Shandling Crawford, will share the art of Collagraphy plate and print making tomorrow, April 14, in the Vashon Center for the Arts, Koch Gallery at 1:30 pm.  Art and printmaking enthusiasts please join us to learn about this very simple way to make and print a collagraph. Collagraphy refers to a collage of materials glued to a substrate to create a printable plate.  Ink may be applied to the high surfaces of the plate with a brayer, like a relief print, or ink may be applied to the entire plate and then removed by wiping from the upper surfaces leaving ink between and around collage elements, resulting in an intaglio print.  This demo is the first of many scheduled events (check out the VCA link above for dates) in celebration of the Quartermaster Press Studio's 25 Anniversary.   Collagraphy Plates 1&2 (left) and Prints from plate 2 (right)

QMP 25 Opening

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Last night Quartermaster Press Studio kicked off it's 25th Anniversary Celebration and retrospective exhibit with a talk by Valerie Willson.  She spoke about QMP's founding in a potting shed on Quartermaster Drive in 1993, the subsequent move to it's present location at Beall Greenhousese in 2010 and the studio's group history and the evolution of printmaking at Quartermaster Press.   Many of the founding members were present to hear Valerie briefly describe the experimentation and complexities of making fine art prints.  The Koch Gallery and Vashon Center for the Arts Lobby walls are filled with almost every kind of print process.  Valerie pointed out with explanation to examples of  etchings, viscosity monotypes, monoprints, collagraphs, linocuts,... and more! Co-curator Pat Churchill introducing Valerie Willson at QMP 25 opening April 6, 2018   Print enthusiasts and QMP fans listen to Valerie Willson speak at QMP 25 opening April 6, 2018 QMP 25 Spec

Brian Fisher QMP 25

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Vashon Island's print collective, Quartermaster Press, is celebrating it's 25th anniversary with an exhibition that features work by 31 past and current QMP members at Vashon Center for the Arts, April 6, 2018 through May 25, 2018. The first opening will begin at 5:30, April 6 when Valerie Willson will share QMP history and talk a little about print process.   More talks and demonstrations by QMP members are scheduled in April and May. The first demonstration will be about collagraphy on Saturday, April 14 at 1:30 when Brian Fisher will show how a collagraph plate is made, inked and printed. Below is "Persephone Cycle" a collagraph print, 17 1/2" x 17 1/2" by Brian.  It's one of many unique prints on display at VCA for your enjoyment.  Please join us for this visual celebration! "Persephone Cycle"  Collagraph print by Brian Fisher

"Collectors' Wall" QMP 25

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Today the Quartermaster Press 25 Retrospective Exhibit, April 6 - May 25 at Vashon Center for the Arts Lobby and Koch Gallery really started coming together!  QMP printers, past and present, delivered work that will challenge and inspire viewers of this show.  Thank you QMP printers! Pat Churchill, Deborah Taylor and Devin Grimm, VCA gallery manager, received and documented what was coming in the door while Suzanne Moore and Brian Fisher began hanging "The Collectors' Wall" in the VCA lobby.  By the end of a long day everyone was involved with arranging, shifting and rearranging 39 framed prints to everyone's satisfaction, ( though tweaks to come are already anticipated)! Tomorrow the fun continues when we hang the Koch Gallery.  Here's a public preview of the Collectors' Wall.  How'd we do ? QMP 25 Collectors' Wall, Vashon Center for the Arts, Vashon Washington, 2018

Quartermaster Press 25, Collectors Wall

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Print artist Beth Dunn has been an intermittent and influential Quartermaster Press member since she first began printing at QMP in the late 1990’s.  When she gave her photo exposure machine to the Vashon Island print collective, she forever changed the equation of print variation at QMP. Below is Beth’s photo engraving “I Was of Three Minds Like the Blackbird” inspired by Wallace Stevens’s Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird . It will be one of many prints by QMP members exhibited on the “Collectors Wall” in the Lobby at Vashon Center for the Arts during the QMP 25 Retrospective Exhibit, April 6 through May 25, 2018. Photo Etching, Chine -collé by Beth Dunn from the collection of Brian Fisher Here is another from the ”Collectors Wall”, a collage created by Quartermaster Press artists in 2003.  It also contains a Stevens inspired compositional element by Beth Dunn. Monotype, Linocut, Photo Etching, Collage by QMP Artists from the c

Quartermaster Press 2010

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Quartermaster Press celebrates it's 25th birthday!  The party and exhibit by past and current QMP printers begins April 6, 5:30 PM at Vashon Center for the Arts Koch Gallery.   Below is a publicity photo taken in 2010 at the original QMP studio just two years before it moved to its' new sunny and central Vashon address at the historic Beall Greenhouses, 18531 Beall Rd SW.  Left to right are members Edith Sehulster, Francesca Fuller, Beth Dunn, Suzanne Moore and Lisa Guy .  (Thank you Michael Rosenberg for our photo!) Below is the exhibition invitation that the 2010 publicity photo above was taken for.  A show about diversity in print process.  That's something that members of Vashon's print collective, Quartermaster Press have always pursued in real time!  Discovery as process!

Quartermaster Press 1993

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QMP, Quartermaster Press, was founded in 1993 when artist Valerie Willson moved to Vashon Island Washington with a very large etching bed press. Valerie had commissioned Ray Trayle to build the press two years before.   Before his retirement, Ray worked for Archer Blower and Pipe for 32 years. However, he will forever be  remembered for the design and fabrication of 63 fine art etching presses that he built for the Northwest print community.  Because of this, in 1997, he was awarded the Oregon Governors Art Award and in 2002  became the inspiration for the Ray Trayle Print Prize . In this photo, courtesy of Jil Stenn, Ray Trayle is shown assembling the press he had made for Valerie Willson in Quartermaster Press's first cooperative studio.