Spotlight Alumni: Terri Goggans, Peripheral Vision

Peripheral Vision is Terri Goggans MFA printmaking based thesis exhibition from the fall of 2010. Terri Goggans now lives and works in Nacogdoches, volunteering her time at Lanana Creek Press and working on art in her home studio. Below is her artist statement on this body of work and a few images from the installation.

Memories for me are fragments of images and thoughts, based on past experiences, that are clear and recognizable yet their meanings sometimes remain elusive. The most recent experiences retain almost all of their clarity and meaning while the older memories tend to break apart, fade and compress into certain images. It is these common images that are repeated over and over in my art which have evolved into a visual language over the last several years. The focus for Peripheral Vision came from a memory I have of playing in a clothesline full of white sheets that were blowing in the breeze.

The choice of materials, traditional and non-traditional, allows the viewer to have a personal relationship with the work. The use of panels of translucent fabric suggests the vagueness memories take on over time. Together they create intimate spaces for the images to appear and reappear moving in and out of space. Some are faded and ethereal, just a mere suggestion of memory, while others are very clear as if the event just took place. The stitching found throughout plays many different roles. As a formal element it acts as a tool for drawing, creating patterns and lines on the surface. The wrapping and encasing of various elements with thread suggests binding and restraining, loss of freedom and silencing. The dangling threads are a metaphor for the fragility and tenuous nature of emotions and relationships. The birds stand for the ability to break free, both physically and mentally, while the text comes from my love of language and handwritten communication.  

The influences in my life have been rich and varied.  My grandmother and great grandmother were both professional tailors passed  and they passed along a love of fibers and stitching me at a very early age.  It is this rich tradition coupled with a love of the relationship between image, fiber and thread that led to Peripheral Vision. 

Old Mize Department Store

CBH Insurance Agency, located in the old Mize Department Store in downtown Nacogdoches, is graciously opening up their display windows for collaborative printmaking and digital media student installations later this semester.

Exquisitely Bored in Nacogdoches has an interesting blog post on the history of the Mize department store. Check out the CBH Insurance Agency web-site for information on their business and their move into the Mize building.

The right display window features a permanent domestic interior, including beadboard wainscoting and mantel. The entrance into the display window is located on the right side of the back wall, with a decorative door on the right side wall. The left display window is more of a blank canvas, so to speak. Both sides have overhead florescent light fixtures and light fixtures for flood or spot bulbs. Electrical outlets line the back walls.

Rockin' Rollin' Prints

PrintMatters, a Houston based printmaking group, is organizing the first PrintHouston event for June, 2011. This month long event will include a steam roller printing event, juried art exhibits at the Museum of Printing History, and a lecture series on printmaking.

Check out PrintMatters' blog for more information.

Advanced Printmaking, Spring 2011

Thursday of the Gulf Print Storm: Ink, Paper and Process exhibition

The reception for Ink, Paper and Process: an Exhibition of Contemporary Prints in America was held at the Dishman Museum in the evening. Brief talks were given by artists on their approaches to printmaking and its influence on their artistic practice.












Last Saturday I got a sneak peak of the show when I dropped artwork off and helped Xenia and Lamar art students with installation.




























Downstairs gallery.













Dishman director introducing curators Xenia Fedorchenko and Joseph Velasquez.

























Print by Joseph Velasquez.
























Print by Xenia Fedorchenko.




































Michelle Rozic.


















































Joseph Velasquez speaking about Ryan O'Malley's work.












































John Hancock.










































Angela Malchionno. (Image from http://angelamalchionno.com)






































































Collaborative, interactive print project by Xenia Fedorchenko, Tim Robtoy, and Michelle Rozic.

Thursday of the Gulf Print Storm: Demonstrations

The first day of the Gulf Print Storm was packed during the day at several demos in the print shop of Lamar University's Department of Art. Thank you to all of the Lamar people who helped make the demos run smoothly.

Angela Malchionno








Angela Malchionno presented the first demonstration on monoprinting, sharing her approach to this direct printmaking process.


















Contact paper shapes were cut out and applied to a beveled sheet of plexiglass. Additional plate possibilities include cut vinyl graphics (such as those created using the Cricut personal cutting machine) and textured contact paper shapes applied to Sintra, a dimensionally stable expanded PVC. Sintra is also great for collagraph processes as you can carve into it like a linocut or add onto it with gesso for texture or to adhere other materials.

















The plate was inked and printed intaglio style, with care taken in modifying the edge quality of the plate tone around the image area.

























Trace monotype was shown next, with the matrix created by rolling litho ink onto a piece of newsprint, then lightly talcing the inky paper. Baby powder works here, as well. This was laid ink-side down over a piece of printmaking paper, and drawn through with various pens and burnishers using a photocopy image as a guide.


















A ghost image of the original plate was printed over the trace monoprint.

















SFA Printmakers: Michelle Rozic, Joseph, Maria and Lauren

We presented more approaches to monoprinting next with our Tale of the Torbbit and the Haretle. Winsor and Newton water mixable oil paint was used for the monoprinting layers, and Caligo safe wash relief ink to ink the linoleum blocks. One benefit of using water soluble paints/inks is that you can clean up with soap and water. The oil paint can be thinned using water for washes.

The first print was comprised of three layers. The first layer was an additive and subtractive monoprint on plexiglass. A trace monoprint layer was printed over, with the relief blocks printed last. The plate from the first layer was reworked and printed on a second sheet of paper as a ghost print, with the relief blocks printed on top.

A kraft paper template ensured accurate registration, with sharpie outlines of basic image elements, including stencil locations, and xerox copies of the linoleum blocks to register both the monoprinted interior animal colors and the exterior edges of the linoleum blocks during the linoleum printing stage. T-bar registration marks were drawn with ball-point pen.

















Basic colors were relief rolled onto the plexiglass, then pounced with a dauber to even out and modify the color. Marks were added in using brushes, and subtracted using various mark-making tools. The interior color of the animals were painted on Yupo paper stencils, with additional painted stencils of cut lace, tarlatan and interfacing fabric, for the foliage, clouds and houses.














































































Ryan O'Malley

Ryan demonstrated how to use silk screen as an alternative to other photo intaglio processes.

A copper plate was first beveled, with a 65% rosin aquatint applied. A spray paint aquatint can be applied as an alternative to rosin.

A xerox copy of a half-tone, positive image was baby oiled to use as a transparency in order to expose a photo silk screen. The intaglio plate was first secured to the table with tape behind the plate, and pieces of mat board above and below, which also caught extra screened asphaltum.

























Asphaltum was flooded onto the screen image, and then squeegeed onto the intaglio plate through the open parts of the mesh, or the "whites" of the final intaglio image. The asphaltum should be thick enough to stay put once transferred to the intaglio plate, though thin enough and without dried particles to easily push through the screen. The screen was fairly fine, probably a 305 screen mesh.




























































VOC (volatile organic compound) solvents are needed to clean the asphaltum from the screen.

After the asphaltum dried, the plate was etched in a medium ferric chloride bath for 35 minutes to achieve a rich, velvety black. A value test strip should be done first to determine the length of time needed in the acid for the desired value.

One of the benefits of using this method to block out areas of a rosin aquatint is that multiple layers of stop out can be screened through different stencils to step-etch values. This would allow for not only the illusion of gradients from the half-tone patterning, but actual value shifts from different etch times.