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Sunday to Friday, January 10-15, 2016, 6 workshop days. Starts Sunday morning and ends Friday evening with a gallery show and reception. Anyone with an interest, including beginners as well as emerging and established artists who want to build their portfolio and add a gallery show to their resume, is welcome. $995 per person.
Oaxaca is a vibrant center for the arts with a rich tradition in the graphic arts. There are more than 20 active printmaking studios here and many more galleries where artists and their work are featured. We invite you to learn more about Oaxaca’s graphic arts scene and take part in an in-depth, hands-on workshop to apply the printmaking traditions of Oaxaca and Mexico. You will make your own carved relief prints using wood and multi-density fiber board (MDF), professional carving tools and a traditional press.
Who Should Attend: Anyone with an arts interest, emerging and established artists, and mixed media artists will want to incorporate this medium into their work.
Your Workshop Leaders: THREE Amazing Professionals
Complete instructor bios are included below.
Before we go to work in the studio on Monday, we take you on Sunday to museums, markets and Monte Alban archeological site to examine historical objects, fine art and popular crafts. Take a closer look at indigenous and vernacular design motifs, then use your sketchbook and/or camera to record your impressions and create a starting point from which to develop your relief print – an impression of Mexico.
Our workshop is held at a fully equipped graphic arts studio located in the historic center of Oaxaca. During the course, you will make an artist’s proof and a small edition of six or more 18″x 24″ black and white prints. Then, you will carve an additional block to introduce color into the print. This is called a two-plate relief system.
To ensure a quality hands-on experience, this workshop is limited to 10 participants.
During the week, you will receive group and individualized instruction, coaching, constructive feedback and review. Our final day will culminate in a gallery opening and reception with a group exhibition open to the public. You are welcome to invite guests.
Before the workshop begins, we will send you suggested readings and materials to prepare you, including essays on the artwork of printmakers Jose Guadalupe Posada, the Taller Grafica Popular and artists currently working in Oaxaca. Our packet includes travel and packing tips, restaurants, shopping guide and more!
About Kevin McCloskey
Kevin McCloskey, professor of Communication Design, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, has been visiting Oaxaca for over 30 years. In 2007, he was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship to study the visual arts of Oaxaca. He has written extensively about Mexican political prints and has curated eight exhibitions of Mexican prints across the U.S, notably at the Fowler Museum, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). In 2012, he was invited to Princeton University to lecture on Mexican prints at the Woodrow Wilson School of International Studies.
McCloskey holds an MFA in illustration from the School of Visual Arts, New York. His humorous illustrations have appeared in magazines and newspapers, including the Village Voice, New York Times, New York Daily News and Philadelphia Inquirer. His prints and illustrations have been exhibited widely and his has published numerous books.
Articles on the Oaxaca art scene by Kevin McCloskey:
About Miles DeCoster
While Miles DeCoster teaches interactive design in the Communications Design Department at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, he is also a painter, photographer, printmaker, book artist, web artist and designer. He received formal training at the Washington University School of Fine Arts in St. Louis (BFA 1972) and the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA 1979). His work is in numerous collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the California Museum of Photography, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Washington University Rare Books and Special Collections and private collections.
DeCoster has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, Post-Newsweek Stations, Nexus Press and the Chicago Arts Council. His studio is at the GoggleWorks arts center in Reading, PA, one of the largest facilities of its kind in the USA. His work is included in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, The Walker, and many regional exhibitions.
As a professional designer, DeCoster served as art director for In These Times, a national news magazine published in Chicago, from 1983 to 1993, and has designed many print projects and web sites for clients including the American Heart Association, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Freedman Gallery at Albright College, Harcros Pigments, Trattoria Mario in Florence, FESTA, First Books, Yellow Press and others.
About Alan Altamirano
Printmaker/artist Alan Altamirano is one of Oaxaca’s young, up-and-coming artists whose work is collected around the world. His professional nickname is MK Kabrito! You will have to ask him what that means.
Alan is the founder of Taller de Grafica La Chicharra in Oaxaca, Mexico. He attended the Escuela de Bellas Artes, Universidad Autonoma Benito Juarez de Oaxaca (UABJO) and graduated in 2010 in fine and visual arts.
Alan has studied with noted printmakers Shinzaburo Takeda, Suzanne Simpson, Tamana Araki, Per Anderson, Raul Herrera. He his work is recognized and exhibited in Mexico, Spain, Italy, The United States of America, Rumania, Brazil and Argentina.
His resume includes a long list of expositions and seasoned printmakers recognize Alan as an important contributor to the Oaxaca art scene. At the end of March 2015, Alan traveled to University of California at Davis where he had an exposition of his work and gave a week-long printmaking workshop. He was in California for three weeks to explore the printmaking and contemporary art scene in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The workshop includes
The workshop does not include airfare, lodging and meals, taxis and admission to museums and archeological sites, alcoholic beverages, tips, travel insurance, optional transportation and incidentals. When you register, we will send you a list of suggested hotels and B&Bs.
About Suggested Accommodations: We are based in Oaxaca city for this workshop. To keep this workshop affordable, we are not including lodging and meals. We will suggest a range of hotels and B&B’s where you may choose to stay, complete with contact information and estimated pricing. You can also check TripAdvisor and BookingDotCom or other online agencies for best prices. All reservations for lodging are to be made and paid for by you directly with the hotel. You are free to choose any accommodation you prefer, from luxury to basic hostel. We will send you a list of recommended hotels after you register and make your deposit.
Reservations and Cancellations: A 50% deposit will reserve your space. The final payment for the balance due shall be made on or before November 1, 2015. We accept PayPal for payment only. We will send you an invoice for your deposit to reserve when you tell us by email that you are ready to register.
If cancellation is necessary, please notify us in writing by email. After November 1, 2015, no refunds are possible. However, we will make every effort to fill your reserved space or you may send a substitute. If you cancel before November 1, 2015, we will refund 50% of your deposit.
International Travel Insurance Required. We require that you take out trip cancellation, baggage loss and at least $50,000 of emergency evacuation and medical insurance before you begin your trip. We will ask for documentation. We know unforeseen circumstances are possible.
To register, email us at oaxacaculture@me.com We accept payment with PayPal only. Thank you.
Ready to register? Send us an email and we’ll send you an invoice to make your $550 deposit. This guarantees your space.
Posted in Cultural Commentary, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Photography, Travel & Tourism, Workshops and Retreats
Tagged art, artist, artist residency, carve, carved relief print, class, course, design, graphic arts, graphic design, graphica, Mexico, multi-density fiberboard, Oaxaca, printmaking, seriagraph, studio, taller, woodcut, workshop
A Return to Oaxaca
I’ve returned to Oaxaca after being gone for almost six weeks. It’s warm here — cotton and linen weather. Much warmer than Mexico City where layers of wool are needed for protection from the chill. They tell me today it will be eighty-eight degrees fahrenheit. The snowbirds are happy.
In Teotitlan del Valle, where the last dance of the three-year commitment for this Dance of the Feathers group was on December 12 for the Virgin of Guadalupe, I stayed home. I needed time to absorb what life will be after our mother’s death, what it means to live fully and in service to others, and to reflect on life and death.
My Zapotec friend Abraham tells me, “Todos vamos por el mismo camino.” We all go on the same road.
My Zapotec friend Lupita says, “Es la ley de la vida.” It’s the law of life.
This is comforting as I look out onto the mountains and vast clear blue sky from the rooftop terrace. As I feel the sun on my back. As the sacred mountain Picacho reaches skyward just beyond my reach.
And, then, I walk the streets of the city where Christmas lights wink and twinkle, big tinsel stars suspended from buildings say to me what matters most is now.
I see things with particular focus: a broken windshield sending a million sparkles through the refraction like shooting stars.
Here hot pink juicy flowers bloom in December. I stop for a different view of Santo Domingo church. Take a coffee break at the Oaxaca Coffee Company on the side street nearby where it is quieter.
Next is a stop to the Museo Textil de Oaxaca where a small but exquisite rebozo exhibition shows us the talent of artisans around the world, with a focus on Mexico and the extraordinary ikat cloth woven here.
Finally, I meet the two young artists from India who I am mentoring through a joint program between the governments of Mexico and India, helping them win residency grants.
They arrived in early November, just as I was leaving for California. Nidhi works in interpretive textiles, and her husband Ruchin is a muralist, street and graphic artist. I took them to meet Fernando Sandoval in his studio and my day was complete. They will be here until early February. Still lots to see and do.
Fernando and his team were working on color registrations for a new series by Sergio Hernandez called Alice in Wonderland. Oaxaca has a rich graphic arts community and Sergio is at the leading edge.
Soon, my family will arrive and we will celebrate this season together. I just saw them during my mother’s passing. This visit will be different.
Memoir Writing Workshop in Oaxaca, March 2016
I’ve now moved over almost completely to using the smaller, lightweight Olympus OMD 5 Mark II mirrorless digital camera. I think the results are almost equal to my Nikon. While I’m using the Aperture Priority setting and not full manual, I feel that I have pretty good control over light and shutter speed so I can get the photo I want. But, the experiment continues!
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Posted in Cultural Commentary, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Photography, Teotitlan del Valle, Travel & Tourism, Workshops and Retreats
Tagged art, graphic design, Ikat, memoir writing, Mexico, Oaxaca, photography, printmaking, textiles, workshop