Ciao

I'm done with grad school.
I officially have my MFA.
And now....
I am taking a much needed break to eat, drink, and draw in Italy.

Arrivederci!

Installation View

Two installation views of the cases and their contents, and the print shelf above, from my thesis exhibition End Page at Fourth Wall Project .

Printing

I've returned to one of my first loves this semester-- relief printing. I'm using a set of tools given to my father by his father. They took an entire afternoon to sharpen by hand. I've put them to good use cutting woodblocks, one of which I recently printed in ochre.

This and That

This book began as a project to explore the formal relationships between random elements from my collection of ephemera. I had envisioned the format, made the accordion structure, and set the type all before I had selected the content. I had an empty book to fill. And that's where things changed.

As soon as I glued down the first pair of elements I realized the relationships and juxtapositions were anything but random. The fragments I had gathered had a history of their own that I couldn't ignore. I spent 10 straight hours in the studio creating the final sequence.

The result was poetic, heavily coded with visual data, and completely mysterious. Although there is not an intended narrative, one can be implied or created through various readings of the sequence. There are threads running throughout. The final book is over 12 feet long, but it can easily fit in your hands.



This/That 
accordion structure with hardcovers 
ephemera and typewriting
5x150” opened 
unique edition, 2012

copyright Kate Castelli 2012

Endpapers

Endpapers: usually ignored and hastily turned to get to the title or the preface or the story. They are quiet, forgotten. Blank. But paper has a memory. It retains history on the edges and in the corners.

I began collecting endpapers from old books because I was interested in printing on them. The found paper had a subtlety that new paper lacked. I stacked the collected pages on the corner of my worktable and was struck by how they changed when they layered or overlapped. In many ways this book began by accident.

The covers were very frustrating. I made half a dozen sets with bookcloth or leather or paper,  and none of them felt right. Finally I realized that if the interior content was taken from old books, then perhaps the covers should be appropriated from an old book as well. I came across the beautiful marbled covers of an old atlas and knew they would work.

Continued 
photolithograph, vintage endpapers, and hand-stitching 
8 page accordion structure with hardcovers, unique edition 
6.75 x 52" opened 

copyright Kate Castell 2012

Presence and Absence

I collected the vintage photolithograph pages over the course of several trips to Argosy Bookstore in New York City. I was intrigued by the ghost chairs but was unsure what to do with them. They sat in my flat-file for a long time. Recently they worked their way into an accordion book. Each panel is hand-stitched with silk thread. It took forever.

I loved the stitching on the reverse of the panels, so I let it remain uncovered.

Presence/Absence 
hand-stitching on vintage photolithographs 
8 page accordion structure with hardcovers, unique edition 
7.75 x 44" opened 

copyright Kate Castell 2012

Collaboration No. 2

As soon as Caroline Board and I finished the first book we started on a second collaboration. This one took about half the time and immediately felt more cohesive as it progressed. There is a little bit of everything incorporated into this book: monoprinting, ink, acrylic, collage, and hand-stitching.

It's been a great experience to work back and forth on these books throughout the summer. And I am looking forward to showing with Caroline in the Spring at our thesis show.

Untitled (Collaboration No. 2)
accordion with hard covers, 6 pages
mixed media
6x 30" opened

Book-a-week: Collaboration

And now for something completely different...

For the last month or so I've been working on a collaborative book with my friend Caroline Board (see her work at http://carolineboard.com). I started on the first panel and then would leave it in her studio and we passed it back and forth over the weeks. We finished it up last week and right after I attached the covers we decided that we didn't like the first four panels as much as we liked the last four panels, so...we cut the book in half!

It's been a good experience working back and forth this way, and we've just started a new book, so stay tuned.

Week No. 6?
Untitled (Collaboration No. 1)
accordion with hard covers, 4 pages
mixed media
7 x 20" opened

Proof of Purchase

I'm pleased to be participating in Proof of Purchase, a show to benefit the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. You can purchase "Above and Below," one of my pieces from the Pages series (above).

How could I resist a show of postcards?

Hunt through hundreds of original works by artists and Boston personalities, each for sale at the bargain price of $50. The twist? You don't know the identity of the artist until you make the purchase. With all the art priced ($50) and sized (4x6 inches) the same, the piece you fall in love with might be by a current student or by a famous artist. 
 
Proof of Purchase: 
A School of the Museum of Fine Arts Benefit 
@ Samsøn Gallery

Thursday, May 3 (7–8:30 pm)
Friday, May 4 (11 am–6 pm)
Saturday, May 5 (11 am–6 pm)
Sunday, May 6 (12–5 pm)  

450 Harrison Avenue &/@ 29 Thayer Street, Boston, MA 02118

About face

 

Sometimes my work stares back at me...

Etched

A pair of recent etchings. Each plate has a dozen line drawings of faces based on Renaissance portraits. I was distilling the complex paintings into essential lines and layering them until the density obscured the individual faces.

The top etching is the final edition, while the bottom etching was the result of a printing error. I had printed half a dozen editions with the plates transposed. So I decided to run the print through again with the plates in the right order. The result is a slightly offset double print-- fraternal rather than identical images.

A detail of  the linework (left) and the double printing (right)

Untitled
Etching and drypoint on copper
plate size 3x4" each
paper size 11x10" on Canson Edition Cream
Edition of 20 with 2 artists proofs*

*Double print resulted in 5 unique editions

copyright Kate Castelli 2012

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.

In Time

Screenshots of Christian Marclay's mesmerizing The Clock, on view at the MFA

It is a brand new year and I am grateful to have some time off before the start of a new semester. It feels like such a luxury to pause for a little while.

What's in store for the beginning of 2012?

• My latest submission to The Sketchbook Project
• A revamped, updated, and brand spanking new website
• An exchange show between SMFA and Edinburgh College of Art
• Experimental Letterpress at the Center for Book Arts, NYC
• Lots of printmaking...

And hopefully some more frequent blog updates!

Install

This piece is different every time I install it, and I really enjoy that process. I start with one page and the narrative makes itself. It was great to be able to install it on a larger wall space than I have in my studio (even though it was only temporary!)

Museum School Art Sale

I'm excited to have two series of work (both framed and unframed) in the upcoming art sale at the Museum School. This annual sale features celebrated alumni, current undergrad and grad students, faculty, and affiliated artists of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.

Proceeds benefit the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Scholarship Fund.

You can visit smfa.edu/artsale for more information!

School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
230 The Fenway
Boston, MA 02115

Autoportrait

Portrait of the Artist
page from the "Guide to London" series
sumi ink wash on vintage paper
4.25 x 6.625"


copyright Kate Castelli 2011

Taking over