A day in the life...

A lot goes on here at Pyramid, but today we have a peek into a day at the studio from our intern's point of view. Enjoy these photos from Tuesday!

Etching tools all lined up!

Jake taking us through an etching process.

Hanging out in the print shop

Litho sponges drying in the sun ;)

Tarlatan all ready for wiping our plates

Making a huge sheet of paper takes many hands!

APHA's Chesapeake Chapter visit

Yesterday we were lucky to have the Chesapeake Chapter of the American Printing History Association join us for a papermaking workshop.
The American Printing History Association (APHA) is a membership organization that encourages the study of the history of printing and related arts and crafts, including calligraphy, typefounding, typography, papermaking, bookbinding, illustration, and publishing.
It was especially fun to get to meet Jill Cypher, Ray Nichols, and Bill Roberts of Lead Graffiti in who are are real printing movers and shakers out in Newark, DE.
Hope to see some prints on the paper they made!

Paper artist feaured at Smithsonian Folk life festival

Colombian artist, Hernando Ruiz, was featured in this years folk life festival. Hernando was inspired by the environmental degradation he witnessed in the wetlands of Bogato, the capital of Colombia. He felt it was his duty as an artist to do something to address these problems. He founded an artistic laboratory, "Reciclarte" to investigate the artistic potential of these collected materials.

Hernando's work includes costumes, puppets handmade paper, and hand-bound books. The summer interns are depicted above visiting Hernando's stand at the folk life festival.

Source:

Suarez, Rafael. "Ante el Agotamiento de los Rescursos Naturales." Cuidadviva. June 2011: pg.4. Print.

Event: Opening reception of Wavelengths exhibitions, included work by Gretchen Schermerhorn

Date: Friday, June 10

Time: 7 to 9pm

Location: 1241 Good Hope Road, SE

Washington, DC 20020

Gretchen Schermerhorn, Pyramid Atlantic's Artistic Director and

printmaker-artist extraordinaire, is one of four artists featured in Wavelengths, an exhibition curated by the microWave project and hosted by Honfleur Gallery. Gretchen's installation consists of numerous prints on handmade paper hung at different heights and depths. Each of the prints was inspired by the sonic form of peoples' answer to a simple question, "What makes you feel alive?." Gretchen recorded peoples' answers and used the sonic map of the those answers as the basis for each of her prints. A sound component comprised of the recordings collected through out this process will also be included.

If you miss the opening Wavelengths will be up in Honfeur Gallery through July 22.

Above is an image of Gretchen and two interns, Elena and Caroline, installing her piece at the Honfleur Gallery.

Master Youngdam's visit

Last week we enjoyed a very special treat here at Pyramid Atlantic. Master Youngdam, an award-winning Korean nun and papermakaer, lead a workshop on traditional ways of making Korean hanji paper.Pictured above: our intern (coincidentally from Seoul) B00Gyung, did a fine job of translating

She taught the traditional way of sheet formation, whabaldugee, which is a different technique than other other Asian methods of sheet forming. During the paper dipping process, she held the screen and the mould together. The far side of the mould was attached to a string hung that hung from above. First, she scooped the vat stock from her side and let it flow towards the far side. This first scoop formed the ground of the sheet. Then she took the second scoop laterally from either side and it flowed away to the opposite side of the mould. She repeated these steps until the desired thickness was achieved, which was about 7 or 8 times.
To see more of her class and technique, watch this video
Side note: Notice her scarf. She was cold, so she tied a piece of paper around her neck!

see what our intens have been up to!

For the past few weeks, our winter studio interns, Melissa Salazar and Anna Spelman, have been working on thank you notes to send out to all the wonderful people who support Pyramid Atlantic.

The project started in the paper studio, where Anna and Melissa, with the help of Maria, an intern from Swarthmore College, made paper from cotton rag. White cotton with a bit of black mixed in created a gray-blue paper the interns used for one of the thank you cards:

The girls also used white cotton rag to create a lovely thick white paper used in the rest of the cards. Different moulds and deckles created several different paper sizes, allowing for a good deal of variety in the shape and feel of the cards. After cutting the paper down to size, the interns started the letterpress process, setting type for 4 different cards.



After a long day of printing the interns had 4 styles of cards, which they went on to embellish with stitching and vellum accents.


We are very excited about how everything turned out. Keep an eye out in your mailbox...you just might be getting one of them!

A couple of blog posts back, I mentioned that we were getting geared up to teach a workshop at the Visionary Art Museum.
Sabeth and I had a great time, and it seems that the kiddos got a lot out of it too!
Check out some of the pictures we took during the week long workshop.

Membership has its Privileges

Your membership to Pyramid Atlantic provides us with the critical support we need to promote and nurture artistic excellence, educational enrichment and community development. This year, memberships have allowed Pyramid Atlantic to foster educational programs in schools, libraries and community centers throughout the DC metro area.

Our basic membership starts at $40, and in addition to that fuzzy feeling that you'll get, you will receive:

• Special rates for studio, workshops and gallery rentals
• Free once a month "members only" nights featuring free hands-on activities such as screen printing or bookmaking
• Free once a month VIP tours of the current exhibition led by Annie Turner, Director of Washington Printmaker's Gallery
• A 10% discount at Art Spring- The Pyramid Atlantic Community Arts Store in Downtown Silver Spring
• A 10% discount to live music and theatre events at Pyramid
  
• Subscription to the Pyramid Atlantic Newsletter and Members only newsletter
  

How can you pass all that up??

Our June members only night is Fabulous Paper Hat making!

Details: June 25th, 6-8pm
Please bring your Pyramid Atlantic membership card.
We will supply Pyramid handmade papers, but bring other textural or funky items to add to your hat.
No art experience necessary, but a good imagination is welcome!

Want to come? It's simple, become a member!

Register online for our Summer Workshops!

Check out our Summer class lineup that includes some new class offerings like Woodcut Portraits with Sabeth Jackson, Printed Portfolios with Patty Lee and Marty Ittner, and Paper Bling! with Gretchen Schermerhorn.
For more information and to register, go to our workshop page on our website.


Self portrait by Sabeth Jackson

The Corcoran College of Art + Design Comes to Pyramid!

On Tuesday, Georgia Deal and her students from The Corcoran  joined us in a workshop on large sheet formation. The visitors were both undergrad and graduate students who have previously studied disciplines such as Library Science, Graphic Design, and Photography.  Gretchen demonstrated how to form large sheets using gampi pulp and a western style mold and deckle.

The ol'  "Pulling Out The Tablecloth" Method... 

(Not your average parlor trick!)

Each sheet is mixed with its proper ingredients inside of the deckle to avoid using a vat:

Before any sheets can be formed, the gampi must be beaten either by machine or in this case, by hand! (An excellent form of therapy for spring semester angst!)

Spring Interns-lst day

Remember how mom or dad used to take a picture of you on your first day of school? Well, yesterday was our spring intern's first day at Pyramid. Aren't they a cute bunch? Not only are they cute, but they are super talented; we are lucky to have them.


Left to right-
Carrie Rennolds, James Martin, and Phoebe Doran.

Pyramid Atlantic offers internship opportunities four times a year to 2-4 enthusiastic, engaged, and serious-minded college or post-college artists. Our interns assist resident artists, renters, artistic staff, and with printmaking, papermaking and book arts projects. In addition to hands-on experience with artistic projects, interns gain an understanding of the day-to-day operation of a non-profit art center and gallery.
Interns work for Pyramid Atlantic 10 am-4pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays of each week. Interns, in exchange, are given an opportunity to work on their own art in a creative and unique environment alongside experienced art professionals.
The summer internship application is due April 16th. For more information and an application, visit our internship page on our website

Register online for our Spring Workshops!

This spring, Pyramid Atlantic is proud to offer workshops for all levels in Printmaking, Papermaking , Book Arts, and more. Enrollment is limited, so register soon!

And....for the first time this summer, we will also be hosting a month long summer intensive art program. Sorry adults, this is for high school Juniors and Seniors only (yes, we have been asked by quite a few adults if they can be in the class, which gives us some ideas for next summer!)
To sign up , go to our workshop registration page on our website

Partnership

We love partnering up with like-minded organizations, and Asian American LEAD is one of our favorites!

Today the AALEAD mentor program dropped by and made paper.

Mentees taught their mentors how to form sheets of handmade paper

Then they taught them how to add color and texture to their papers using pulp paint and stencils.

Everyone helped out with pressing the sheets, loading the paper into the drying box, and cleaning up.

Yay! A paper hat!