Philadelphia Prints

Philadelphia is a place that I hold close to my heart. With a wonderful culture of love, and hard work, and passion, I chose to focus my art series on things that make the Philadelphia area so special to me. With major themes in the region being the arts, sports, and the overall hard working ethic, it was something that I felt pursued to show those who have never been. With the history that Philadelphia has of being a blue-collar hard working city, the people are some of the friendliest, hardest working people in the country. The city was once a mecca of industrial production, providing jobs to nearly the whole region, and getting the name of the “blue collar city. “For my prints I chose to include many famous figures in the region to help explain the love I have for the city. I believed that this would work best to show my love to the fellow Philadelphians, and also showing those who don’t know the city. For my prints I included figures like Mike Schmidt, Jim Croce, and Rocky to display the themes that I was creating. I felt that using these icons of the area, I could create a work of art that was able to really connect with those. I chose colors that replicated the sports teams of the area, and the overall patriotic feel that our cities history holds so close to our heart. Overall, by using famous pieces that lie within the Philadelphia region, I am able to connect with those living, and teach those about how and why they have become such a significant part of the culture of Philadelphia.

PHA essay

Brad Cutler

Words:626

Future Bear

Rachel Simmons

PHA essay

This semester I was able to work with an amazing group of 5^th grade students at Park House Academy. I initially signed up for the course to learn more about art, and the different art forms, and was initially hesitant about helping the kids with less skill than some of my peers. Immediately upon meeting Tanner and Sadie, I was glad that we were paired together. They were both reserved in the beginning, which I related to, and began to open up and I learned all about them.  Our project was to collaborate with the PHA to learn about global warming, and the affects told through the curious eye of Future Bear! I felt very comfortable with this topic, from taking classes on this subject. It was a time where I could use my knowledge to help teach them, and create images and ideas to work off of. After teaching them, we went to work trying to plan on how to stop global warming, and reverse the current affects of climate change. Tanner had the idea to have future bear become professional, and talk with Chinese officials, to have them reduce factory pollution, which is hurting their region with dense smog. Sadie decided on reducing the Ozone layer, and increasing protection. These themes related to helping to save the environment, while being creative and thinking outside the box.

The second thing that really stood out with me was the how creating the art and working with Tanner and Sadie, was much better than creating the work on my own. The creativity that the youth have is amazing, and it is wonderful hearing all of their unrestricted ideas flow from their brain. It opened up my eyes to realize how so many kids today are hindered from their creativity due to a heavy force of following “routine” through there middle, high school, and beyond. I looked forward to Thursdays getting to spend time hearing about their weekends, and how they were going to approach the next step of the project. I was able help guide them and keep them on task when they said they were running out of ideas, or they were just loosing focus. I wanted to let their minds think and keep mine out as much as possible.

I also want to touch on the idea of who this project and experience has effected, and how it could help benefit the arts as a whole, and the creative aspect in a child’s life. I confidently believe that the 5^th grade class thoroughly enjoyed working with us, and creating art, and it impacted many other people. To start, the teacher Mr., Lutins, had the ability to see how much of an impact the arts had on the students and how engaged they were in creating it. He mentioned how they never focus this long, and how proud and surprised he was with the concentration levels around this project. This allowed the teacher to understand the importance, and hopefully imput more creative and artistic programs into the curriculum. This also affected the parents of the students, as they would likely go home and share. This would open up the eyes of the parents to hopefully look at art in a positive way, and not as “useless.”

Working with the entire 5^th grade class at Park House Academy was a privilege and a wonderful experience. I got to relieve some of the most amazing times of my lives, and remember how worry free, and simple life was. They taught me to open up and communicate, and to listen carefully. It was a very rewarding experience, and I hope that I made an impression on their art career moving forward.

PHA

Today the kids came and visited us at the print shop. We were able to show them the techniques that we have learned in class. I was working on the Press With Haley, and were were with two students at a time. We taught them how to load the ink on the press, how to set up the plate, and how to pull properly. It was very enjoyable displaying and teaching what we have recently learned to a new generation of future artists. Many of the prints that we did were not perfect, and I became skeptical of the future of printing the backs of my decks of cards. The experience with the kids was overall fantastic, and I really enjoyed encouraging the kids and working with them. I got to know each of the students more on a personal level, and was great to have them feel comfortable around me and the shop.

PHA 3

This week my team was very successful. I was able to recive lots of input from sadie, on the direction that she was hoping to go with her image. We decided to make her coasters with a image that she had created. Last week i took her image and put it into illustrator and edited it. This week i was able to bring back what i had created, and get her input on what changes she was looking for me to make to it. I have since then completed what she wants, and hopefully I have the final idea for her. For the side of tanner, We decided to scrap his old idea of printing on the shirt, and instead we are going to make a deck of 52 cards that we are going to design. This week we designed the logo, and i was able to make them into cards on photoshop. I got the back design that Will had made for his group, and i am hoping we can print the backs of the cards as the interactive experience for him, as well as printing the coasters for sadie.

2nd Visit

This visit was fantastic. Tanner and Sadie were able to make great progress with their stories. I taught them about the different things that global is warming is causing our environment to change. Like change in water temp, etc. We were able to taylor this into our stories to allow it to be educational yet still very creative. It has been a very rewarding experience so far, and am looking forward to seeing what they have created over the week. We were able to write the stories, but they are now capturing the visuals, and they seem very engadged and feel comfortable around me. Now to begin brainstorming on how i want to capture this in the studio.

PHA

Today I had the privilege of going to park house academy. I worked with Tanner and Sadie. They were both wonderful students, and were really easy to communicate with. Sadie was much more quiet, but she felt comfortable and opened up and began sharing. It was great to hear the interests that they have, and the creativity that they can put forward in this project. They seemed very excited about the idea. I hope to inspire them to become more interested in the arts and being able to be creative in a school system that limits creativity as you get older. My challenges are going to be keeping Tanner focused, and to have sadie express herself and not feel shy or intimidated by the situation. I am going to constantly keep them on task and ask questions to find the creativity that i know they have inside. Just asking a few ideas about future bear they were getting creative and thinking about wonderful and silly ideas of what happens. Its going to be very rewarding, and I always enjoy working with younger students to inspire them.

Screenprint artist

While researching screen print artists, i came across a company called lovenskate. Since i love to skateboard, it stood out to me. They use screen print to make create designs for their skateboards, shirts, and other goods. It really stood out to me because of the colors, and interesting designs that they were able to create and capture on mediums such as wooden skateboard decks. They have been around since 2001, and specialize in skateboard gear. They are based in East-London, so they do not get much attention in the U.S, as i have never heard of the company. Their different screen prints focus on the visuals of a skateboarder, and use old style screen printing methods to apply the ink to the board. Overseas, they have become a beloved company where they can create art, and products that people can skate with all the time. I hope they get popular in the US.

Second Project

For this piece, I focused on the arts within the city of Philadelphia. I wanted to capture the unique cultural spirit of the arts, following my theme of understanding what makes Philadelphia so special to me. I chose to use the Philadelphia Art museum in the background, as it is a central point of art and culture within the city. It is visited by millions of people yearly, and holds great pieces of work. I then chose to use the Oldenburg Clothespin, with famous south Philly musician Jim Croce, to capture the sculptural aspect and musical aspect of the city. I used a transfer to create the faded background, then wanted to use a dark image to capture jim and oldenburgs clothespin on the front. I hope that this captured the arts in the beautiful city of Philadelphia.

9/23

For this assignment I researched a local letterpress studio that stood out to me in Philadelphia. They are called Black Letter Heart Press. They have a 100 year old press that is called the "chandler and Price new series". They have gone commercial and are commonly printing postcards, coasters, invitations, and my personal favorite business cards. They used the scraps of chipboard and make a heavy impression in the paper to form a rugged, amazing business card. They had one on the website that stood out to me being one for a plumber, and it had a wrench, and was printed on this rugged looking paper. It was so unique and unlike anything that I had seen before. The press they use is also a wheel that continues to spin, which allows them to print mass quanities of images very quickly. They have a very unique look. It reminds me of something rugged, and authentic. They also have images of them doing immense detail with pressure prints, and it amazes me how they can so quickly change.

Homework 9/16

After looking online, I was very interested to see how these new presses were created and how they were able to be providing income for the study. After reading, and looking at images that companies are using the press for, it seems that the most common use is for cards, and invitations. They look very classy, and I never knew about this option. After seeing this, I would definitely be interested in using this style of cards for my wedding. I really like how it makes a deep impression in the paper. I was initially curious on how different companies made money off of this medium, but was pleasantly surprised to see the card industry, and also the shirt companies. It seems that the wedding cards would be the highest income for artists working in the printing industry. It would provide a steady income and busies for the artists, as people are always getting married and that will never stop. As people find out more about this, there is potential for the industry to grow, and it to take over regular print cards. I see this being a great industry to get into the christmas card industry. Every year people send pictures of the family in very nice cards (at least where i live) and with companies like shutter fly, they are become less genuine, and more factory made. This printing style could allow for a more genuine print and card.

Letterpress Artist

After looking through lots of pictures of lettpress, a artist by the name of Amos Kennedy came into my view. Upon looking, I could see that all of his pieces were statement pieces with large fonts to capture the eye from far away. He tends to focus on little words, and have a image of a animal etc. included in the work. My favorite one that he has made is the Pig out, die early print. I believe that he is trying to capture the idea that eating healthy and enjoying life will lead to early death. It was part of a series that was called "health advisories" He made the word DIE very large to attract the viewer, and placed it on a light colored background. I love that his work is very bold and attracts the viewer. He also focuses his work lots on the problem with racism and segregation in the United States, and highlights some of the problems that the country has with it. He is sarcastic but he gets the meaning across in a very strong tone. I think that after looking at his work,  have an appreciation for how hard, yet simple it is to present something very powerful in a few words to capture the meaning of his work.

Readings for Thursday 8/27

After todays readings, I learned lots about Printmaking that I never knew. The most interesting thing to me was the ability to create 3D printmaking images. When looking at the article on the letterpress, there was a image/section that showed how you could create amazing textures that would show up on the print. I began brainstorming what I could use on my own print. I felt that this ability to create the 3D print, makes it more interesting in my mind. I also imagined the possibilities of printmaking in advertising, which is my interest. Just thinking outside the box, i could see printmaking being used all over the city(philly) to advertise events and other actives, in a very cool and a-typical fashion. After reading online, i found that there is a company called the Print Center in Philadelphia, which promotes Printmaking in High schools, and thought it was a very cool place, i will need to check out when home.