Sketchbook Project 2018

Selected spreads from my submission to this year's Sketchbook Project that combine ultra-violet, sketches of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum, impossible grids, and vintage targets.

This is my 9th year participating!

Noli Turbare Circulos Meos (Do Not Disturb My Circles)
2 color risographs and collage on vintage paper.
16 pages, pamphlet stitched,  7x10 " opened
unique edition 
2018

Total Solar Eclipse 2017

Progressive proofs from my "Ode to Pluto" print edition (2014)

On Monday, August 21, 2017, North America will be treated to an eclipse of the sun. Anyone within the "path of totality" can see one of nature’s most awe-inspiring sights - a total solar eclipse. This path, where the moon will completely cover the sun and the sun's tenuous atmosphere - the corona - can be seen, will stretch from Lincoln Beach, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina. Observers outside this path will still see a partial solar eclipse where the moon covers part of the sun's disk

This celestial event blocks all or part of the sun for up to about three hours, from beginning to end, as viewed from a given location. For this eclipse, the longest period when the moon completely blocks the sun from any given location along the path will be about two minutes and 40 seconds. The last time the contiguous U.S. saw a total eclipse was in 1979

(info from https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/eclipse-who-what-where-when-and-how)

Haruki Murakami: Men without Women

Out today across the globe...Men without Women by Haruki Murakami

"Dreams are the kinds of things you can … borrow and lend out."

"Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. There are vanishing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles, woven together to tell stories that speak to us all."

The fabulous design team at Vintage Books wrote a blog post about the cover process, you can check out what they have to say here and read the official release from Penguin Books UK! 

And check out the story behind "The Frequency of Falling," the print used on the cover!

A State of Mind: 2016 Boston Printmakers Show

Excited to have my "Ode to Pluto" prints included in the 2016 Boston Printmakers Show!

Friday Inspiration: The Sea! The Sea! (part 2)

MC Escher, Phosphorescent Sea (1933)

Kate Castelli, The Frequency of Falling (2013)

What Escher called a "phosphorescent sea" is actually a biological phenomenon known as bioluminescence. This "biological light" in the waves is the product of marine microbes called phytoplankton. Various species of phytoplankton are known to bioluminesce, and their lights can be seen in oceans all around the world.

I saw a phosphorescent sea many years ago at Race Point, on the Cape Cod National Seashore. The waves glowed with pinpricks of light as they washed on the shore and around my ankles. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen and it was the inspiration for my woodblock print The Frequency of Falling.

The Sketchbook Project 2016: Distance & Time

I'm down to the wire (per usual) on the deadline for The Sketchbook Project 2016. My prompt this year was "Distance and Time," which has been an underlying thread in my work for quite a while. The final book incorporated primary colors, constellation charts, early perspective diagrams from the Renaissance,  Florentine paper, and proof prints from my last woodblock circle series.

{vellum overlay} I had this anecdote in the back of my mind as I was working in the studio.

{pages 18-19}  Primary colors, graph paper, and numbers are constant threads throughout.

{pages 14-15} A vivid blue scrap of marbled paper from Florence combined with a Renaissance diagram and process prints.

{pages 6-7} an incomplete map of the universe...

The Sketchbook Project 2016: Distance & Time
22 pages, single signature binding
cut paper, vintage ephemera and woodblock proofs
9.875 x 6.75" opened
unique edition

copyright Kate Castelli 2016

Night studio

{1:29 am} something brewing in the studio...

Child of the Moon (take 2)

{Sketchbook page of the final page layout}

It started with last year's submission to the Sketchbook Project. That book felt like a rough draft of something bigger. I wanted to combine sketches, images of the moon, lyrics from the 1968 Rolling Stones song "Child of the Moon," and prints into a process book of sorts for the series of circle woodblocks I have been working on for the last few years.

This summer I changed the format to a square and sourced some new images of the moon from a NASA publication, but the book was still lacking something. So I put the project aside for a while.

{pages 4-5} a vellum overlay of a horizon diagram from Bruno Munari's "The Circle" (1964)

{pages 6-7} A spread with one of the cropped pages featured original prints, and images from a 1970 NASA publication.

When I began working on it again, I decided to use the mechanical wire binding to my advantage. I included vellum overlays with scientific and philosophical diagrams, I inserted cropped pages to reveal and obscure content, and I decided to include more original prints. The result was much more dynamic than the first two "drafts" and felt like an authentic process book that reflected the ideas I was interested in.

{pages 10-11} a vellum overlay of a late 16th century astronomical diagram

Child of the Moon
photocopies, ephemera, woodblock prints
22 pages, mechanically wirebound with linen hardcover
14.5 x 7.25" opened
unique edition
(copyright K. Castelli 2015)

From the archives...

I recently rediscovered this print from 2013-- it's a variation on some prints ("The Hard Way" and "The Known Universe") that were included in my MFA thesis show. But this particular one has never seen the light of day. Reminds me of a venn diagram, and there is something intriguing about the overlapping of the circles.

Untitled
woodblocks on Japanese paper
16x12" edition of 4
2013

18

(Spread No. 18) vintage notebook page and woodblock on vintage paper, 14 x 7" opened

Fragments

(Spread No. 16, Sketchbook No. 14) fragments of woodblocks on vintage paper, 14 x 7" opened 

The End

The final prints...Ode to Pluto (Part I & II).
Two 10" diameter four color reduction woodblocks. Printed in mauve, magenta, cyan, and indigo. Final edition of 10 on 12x16" handmade paper with 2 artist's proofs.

copyright Kate Castelli 2015

Purple Process

I've been feeling like my circle prints were reaching an end, and that I needed to go out with an ambitious final series. I very rarely print in color, and I very rarely make editions. However reduction prints are so uniquely time consuming (and self destructive) that I felt I needed to do an edition.

The woodblocks are 10" in diameter and are printed in 4 colors. I printed the first layer and then cut away each successive layer to reveal the color underneath. The layers cannot be reprinted, as each new series of marks changes the surface. At first I thought of the marks as gathering clouds or a storm front, but the layers of color now remind me of a small galaxy or the city lights at night.

Purple on the press and purple on my feet...my studio shoes matched the very vibrant layer 2.

222

Not a Circle (False) | ink on vintage paper | 6.75x10" | copyright Kate Castelli 2015

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness
It took me years to understand
That this, too was a gift.

 ("The Uses of Sorrow" by Mary Oliver)

Child of the Moon

(pages 4/5) photocopy of sketchbook page, 1960s National Geographic image

(pages 12/13) 1960s National Geographic image with cut-outs, text on graph paper

(pages 18/19) woodblock on found paper, ephemera

National Geographic issue from 1969 + graph paper + lots of circles + an obscure Rolling Stones song = my submission for the 2014 Sketchbook Project.

Child of the Moon
20 page signature binding, unique edition
mixed media
9.875 x 6.75" opened

copyright Kate Castelli 2014

Razzle Dazzle

A wandering accordion book inspired by "dazzle" camouflage used by the Royal Navy during World War I. The dizzying paintjob on warships was developed by Norman Wilkinson and British artist, Edward Wadsworth.

Two prints by Edward Wadsworth depicting the Liverpool Shipyards where the ships were painted (1918)

It is also sometimes called "razzle dazzle," it consisted of complex patterns of geometric shapes in contrasting colors, interrupting and intersecting each other. It was not meant to conceal the vessel, but rather make it much more difficult to estimate a target's range, speed and heading.


Razzle Dazzle
30 page wandering accordion structure with hardcovers
woodblocks on handmade paper, unique edition
3x3" page size

copyright Kate Castelli 2014 

Tiny Little Process

Some sketchbook pages related to my Tiny Little circles series of woodblock prints. 

Sketchbook circles

I've kept a sketchbook for as long as I can remember. The practice intensified in undergrad and my sketchbooks became vital and dynamic extensions of my work. My studio practice changed in grad school and I started using softcover moleskins (they come in a 3 pack) as a sketchbook and notebook. I'd record critiques, observations, research, sketches and layouts. The sketchbook became less precious and more of a deposit of ideas and notes.

I've continued to use the moleskins post-grad school and they are currently filled with lots and lots of circles. The above pages are related to my horizon line series of woodblocks.

All of the circles...

(actually not all of the circles...just some of the circles)

Tiny Little (series)

Pairs of circles in conversation with each other. From the on-going series of Tiny Little circles (the woodblocks are only 3-4" in diameter). Printed on vintage navigational charts from the 1920s

Unique impressions, 8.75 x 11" each