Found Lines

Empty hangers, found lines, snapshots...

Sleepless.
The constant stream of traffic outside my window. It is oddly comforting. It pulses, it has become part of my rhythm. But tonight I am wide awake.
A snapshot...

Walking by crocuses / running past the first daffodils / the Charles / one river reminds me of another / Rome / Renaissance faces / overlapping edges / the shape of things / that particular blue / ovals / the smell of printing ink / copper / editions / paper / portraits of portraits / cousins / lentils / wanderlust / 222 / plural / airships / silence / letterpress / New York City / Whitney Biennial / elegant bullshit / new jeans / never wearing socks / Downton Abbey / used bookshops in alleyways / vintage Penguin Classics / the luxury of a novel / a new bed / wandering / old friends at the other end of the line / second chances / clementines / monochromatic / proceed with caution / an almost straight line / dreaming fool / finding my own way

Printing in purple

Setting up my printing guides on the press and soaking paper.

Purple color palette.

Inking a plate and pulling a print.

I've been spending a lot of time in the print studio lately. There is a very precise ritual and rhythm to printmaking that I enjoy. I can easily lose myself in the process for several hours.

My printing playlist--

Somebody That I Used to Know / Gotye
The Ghost Inside / Broken Bells
Punching in a Dream / The Naked and Famous
Walking with a Ghost / Tegan and Sara
Too Much / Sufjan Stevens
Santa Fe / Beirut
Heartbeats / José González
Because the Night / Patti Smith
Can't You Hear Me Knocking / The Rolling Stones

Open Studios

You are happily invited to take a peek into my studio and that of my 100 other fellow grad students at the Second Annual SMFA Open Studios.

Join us on Friday + Saturday, March 2-3, 2012 from 6-9pm at the Mission Hill Studio Building!

SMFA Grad Open Studios
Mission Hill Studio Building
160 Saint Alphonsus Street
Boston, MA 02120

For more info please visit: http://smfaopengradstudios.blogspot.com/

SPQR

This is a project I've been working on as part of a print exchange between the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Edinburgh College of Art.

The concept was for 50 select students and faculty on each side of the Atlantic to construct a pair of boxes with the dimensions of 5x8x1" The material, medium, and contents were completely open, but under the general title of Transatlantic Fun-o-Pack. One box will remain in the permanent collection of each school.

After a couple of false starts, I was still at a loss for what I wanted to make for this show. I've been thinking about Rome lately and after finishing the edition of Roman Faces, I decided to make the box about Rome (which was my last Transatlantic journey...)

The box is a drop lid structure made out of bookboard and covered in fine weave linen bookcloth. The color reminded me of the buildings in Rome. The cover and interior tray are lined with vintage architectural drawings of the Pantheon. 

Each box contains an edition of the small book Roman Faces, a plaster hand (one of several I bought as "relics" in a shop near the Vatican), and a panoramic accordion book of Rome.

The panorama was created by combining half a dozen sketches from my sketchbook. I created a litho plate of the final composition and printed the image in red. The covers are bound in a hand marbled paper purchased in Rome. The overall dimensions of the book are 17 x 5.25" (opened).

SPQR is from the Latin phrase Senātus Populusque Rōmānus or "the Senate and People of Rome", an ancient abbreviation used as the modern emblem for the city of Rome.

 
copyright Kate Castelli 2012

Doing what you love

The artist as a child...with a purple crayon.

Somewhere along the line I stopped doing what I loved. I got caught up in thinking about what I am doing, what I should be doing, and I lost a vital connection to my work. Over the last several months I have felt increasingly indifferent to my work, a feeling that is painful and confusing and ever so murky. I got stuck in my head. It wasn’t the same familiar feeling of “artist’s block,” it was something else. Something I couldn’t name.

I need to start drawing again.
I need to remember why I love line...
and printmaking...
and booking making...
I need to start doing what I love.
Again.