BYO Print

"Merry Christmas!" Woodcut, 5 x 7
I printed my Christmas card at BYO last week marking my 1 year anniversary of printing on Connie (the shops little etching press). A year ago BYO was just starting up and Katie invited me to come see her studio and use her press. My woodcut Christmas card was a hit so I decided to make it a holiday tradition! Many thanks to Katie and Lauren, this has been a really awesome year for printmaking.

Oops! BYO Print has been busy getting ready for the holidays. We've been crafting and printing and winterizing our space and haven't had time for blogging!
I attended the grand opening of Second State Press this past Saturday, and while they are technically 'competition,' they young folks in charge are very nice and I think that the more printshops in Philly the better! Come print etchings with us, but they have a lithography situation that is pretty tops.
I've also just picked up a guest blogging gig over at Handmade in PA, and will be posting every other Tuesday about all things Philly in the art and craft community. Sooo, look for my posts there!
-----
Other news, Lauren and I were finally able to start winterizing the shop (our semi-open floor plan is great for easy of access and spaciousness, but not the best for heating). We've hung a plastic ceiling over the printing area and will continue the ceiling over the rest of the shop this week. Our landlord l…

The deadline is approaching for submissions to The Printmaking Council of New Jersey's Trade Print. See this post for details about the trade.
Here is the Entry Form; just copy and paste the below information into a Word Document and fill it out to send along with your submission. Easy as pie!
PRINTMAKING CENTER OF NEW JERSEY: PRINT EXCHANGE ENTRY FORM NAME: ADDRESS: CITY: STATE: ZIP: EMAIL: SCHOOL/ORGANIZATION: NAME OF EDITION: PROCESS USED: Printmaking Center of New Jersey, 440 River Road, Somerville, NJ 08876 PLEASE MARK ONE: CASH: CHECK MONEY ORDER:

etching on Arches Cover, plate is 1/4" by 1 1/4"

Last week my good friend and printmaking buddy, Audrey, was visiting from Austin TX. We had a great time working on some collaborative mono-prints. We made this awesome monotype by drawing with relief ink on a piece of plexi-glass. Our session reminded me how mono-printing is such a great way to learn basic printmaking skills and and experiment with layering colors and textures. If you would like to learn more about mono-prints contact us at BYO! I'd love to teach you!

David Aponte, one of our awesome member printers, was quick and witty enough to bring two Temple Journalism students into our lives this fall! They visited the shop, asked some questions, and met with all our printers. They were eager to learn about printmaking and how art is helping the neighborhood. What we showed them has finally made it into this awesome article all about BYO Print!
Here are some highlights....but check out the full article. There's a nice video too!
I'm showing them what ferric acid looks like...it's what etches copper plates! I keep a spent bottle around for when I need to etch brass too. (Note my re-use of a friend's old Starbucks apron, been using this since college!) Lisa Imperiale lifts one of Lauren's exposed silkscreens to show how old images leave a ghost stain on the silk. Thanks to Norman Fetter & Honeymoon Music for those screens! Three State proofs of an etching being printed in the shop, including the print I pulled for the…

Tomorrow BYO will open our doors to all the POST'ers in Philly, so definitely come by! We'll be simmering spiced cider and have the rum on hand. I'm going to make an unusual foray into baking and make a spice cake of some kind tonight. It's not to be missed!
We'll have Connie set up for copperplate intaglio printing all weekend, the Whelan set for relief/woodblock/etc, and the cast iron press ready to roll for plexiglass prints. Come on over and experiment!
All members will be exhibiting new work around the shop as well!
Fishtown and Kensington have the most POST artist participants of all the Philly neighborhoods! Visit our neighbors too at Part Time Studios, and all the artists working hard at the Viking Mills Building, just to name a few.

PCB Blog: How Ink Is Made: "The craftsmanship of making ink. This video is beautifully entertaining for you ink lovers."

BYO Print is teaming with its founder, Katie VanVliet, for a double header of printmaking excellence for this year's POST tours!
If you haven't heard, POST stands for Philadelphia Open Studio Tours, and is coordinated by the awesome Ann Koivunen, who is also a new neighbor to BYO! This is a yearly event, in which select artists and cooperatives throughout the city open their doors to the public for a refreshing October weekend. It's a great opportunity to meet all those artists whose works graces the galleries of this city.
The stats:
Saturday-Sunday, October 9-10, 2010 12pm-6pm each day, 2212 Sepviva Street, just off of Frankford Avenue at Susquehanna St.
BYO (and Kate VanVliet) will be open, showing off the artwork of our members and running demos of different printing processes. If you can never make it to our First Friday Open Houses, this is your chance! We want to see you there!

Call for Entries!
Thanks to Shelley Thorstensen, the PCNJ is now on BYO's radar. Linda Helm Krapf, their executive director, generously gifted an oversize light table to BYO a few weeks, and then promptly visited us during our September Open House!
Since my co-founder is a New Jersey resident, it's only natural that we make an effort to participate!
If you want to participate, but do not have access to a shop to do so; you can rent time at BYO!
If you would like to participate in the exchange (and who doesn't love a good print trade...), email us at byostudio.philly@gmail.com for the entry form.
Here's the skinny:
The Printmaking Center of New Jersey invites you to participate in our first autumn Print Exchange, to benefit the studio of PCNJ.

Theme:
“see”change: gradual transformation in which the form is retained but the substance is replaced

Requirements:

Any EDITIONABLE hand-pulled printmaking technique must be used. (woodcuts, litho, intaglio, photography, silkscreen, d…

I editioned this two layer woodcut at BYO this month. It will be available along with other petite prints at Little Berlin's BYOTY. Mail it to a friend or hang it on your wall with Philly Pride. Don't miss out on the fun September 26th!

In the true sense of BYO, we will be participating at Little Berlin Gallery's BYOTY II at the end of the month. BYOTY is a fair for books, zines, prints, and other works on, with, and about PAPER. House printers Lisa Imperiale and Katie VanVliet will be there represent BYO and sell and show our own prints.
We will each be making special one page books to have on hand at the fair, Lisa's will be a mini woodblock print, and I will be making a mini handbook all about BYO Printshop.
Little Berlin will be binding a book with pages contributed from the participating artists for their zine library; awesome!

Come by and enjoy! I heard a rumor that the folks of Little Berlin will be brewing some hard ciders and other tasty libations for the event; it's not to be missed!

Vitals: B.Y.O.T.Y. II Sunday, September 26th NOON to 6pm @ Little Berlin 119 West Montgomery Philadelphia PA, 19122
P.S. This whole shindig is being planned and executed by Beth Heinly. She made the rad call for artists…

BYO Print OPEN HOUSE!
Calling all PRINTERS without PRESSES
Visit us on First Friday, September 3rd, 2010 from 7-10pm to see what BYO can do for you. We have some awesome recent acquisitions that just made printing here a lot more...more! Rent is cheap, so is our hourly rate, and space is ample. Join the club!
2212 Sepviva Street, North Loft (come in through the garage doors, head straight back and up the stairs)

Ran these proofs for some nice folks. They are antique copperplate half-tones, which would normally be used for publications like pamphlets, newspapers, or other mass media marketing, circa 1900. A few are newer, and are more likely zinc with a blue coating. A few are probably not edition quality, but it sure was a joy to print them!

Oh hell yes.
The Whelan Press is a unique etching press, somewhere between traditional presses and proofing presses. The rollers pass over the press bed rather than pushing the med through. What a space saver!
Now, we can print up to 30" wide, and about 45" long. And it rolls like butter. And it has precise pressure gauges. And it's amazing. Did I mention that?
SOO...come print on it!

Philly street devils...
Parking my bike in front of the euro motorworks shop on 2nd street yesterday, and found to my delight this green creature guerilla installed on the sign post!

Later in the day I saw another similar sign in old city, but it was dark out so I could not photograph it. There is a post across from the Ritz at the Bourse and slightly north (on the east side of 4th street) that is worth noticing!

Kudos to this unnamed artist! If I had had a flat head screwdriver, I would have taken a souvenior.

For now, I'm off to the west coast for a week and hope to see some great street art and other exciting things!

Come party with Katie and I as we celebrate our quarter-life crisis!
As usual for First Friday we'll be hanging out at BYO, but the first Friday in August holds a special place as it falls right between our birthdays.
Besides the pleasure of our company that evening you will also get to enjoy a performance printing project by none other than myself. (Some may consider this a Risque show)
Don't forget: the name is BYO and our party is too. Bring anything you like, but please share with the birthday girls.
-Lauren

Yesterday was perhaps not the best day for a cross-state road trip. Nonetheless, Lauren and I took the day off work and hiked (drove) up to Warminster to visit the excellent Renaissance Graphic Arts, one of the few supply shops for printmakers exclusively. Not open to the public as a store, we went to pick up an order we placed online. It went smoothly, everything was accounted for, and the wonderful ladies in the office were nice, homely, and accommodating. They were excited to hear about BYO!
We picked up some new ferric chloride, LOTS of tarlatan, inks, barens for handprinting, and some soft ground for a performance/print project Lauren is about to start.
POST supply pickup, we continued north through the eastern mountains, and while snaking up 611 (you know, Broad Street...) parallel to the Delaware River, I managed to sneak this photo of the fog coming off of the trees. Later, we got drenched getting to our car from a restaurant in Olyphant, just east of Scranton. We were try…

See how this fancy POST postcard is split into quadrants? That's because we are currently a foursome! We have room for one more printer in the shop, who would like the following perks:
Keys to the building, for unlimited 24/hr access. A locker, for storing supplies, and non-flat stuff. 2 Flat file drawers, for storing flat things. A nice place to hang out on First Friday, when our building is abound with activity! Access to a 15" by 30" steel etching press. A nice place to work and make prints. With adequate knowledge, access to some of the machine tools in the building.
If you check through the blog's archives, you'll see that we provide some of the basics, and you supply your own materials for your project, series, experimenting, etc.
We have:blankets, acids, blotter papers, solvents, gloves, tarlatan, newsprint for intaglio big spaces to carve, barens, and the above for relief printing (coming soon) exposure unit and washout for silkscreen
We charge a very minimal mon…

Printing the edition of the teacup lady. Come see the print on First Friday July 2nd, the ACTUAL first friday. Those folks in Chinatown are taking the week off and pretending that July 9th is First Friday...which is great, so everyone gets double the first friday goodness!

So I will be doing some hands-on instruction ( a refresher course, mostly) for a neighborhood artist on July 25th, a Sunday morning. We will be going over relief printing, with some experimental stuff, and a focus on printing techniques to do at home (with a spoon or baren).
Holler if you want to get in on this workshop. It'll be fun!
In other news, Lauren and I will be hosting a large student group from Denison University in late August. It'll be a hot, sweaty mess while we teach drypoint intaglio to a bunch of college freshmen! Awesome!
Anyone have an extra press for us to use that day?
-Katie

I etched this old brass doorknob at BYO, but it's not necessarily the most practical matrix for printing.

This small, four layer, reductive woodcut is the first of many that I will be printing at BYO this year :) It is part of a mini series of prints that describe the urban language of graffiti in Philadelphia. Stay tuned for more prints from Lisa.

Lauren Fischer, co-commander. Lisa Imperiale, woodcutter and lithographer extraordinaire! David S. Aponte, woodblock cutter and general print expert on premises! Curious printmakers...looking for a place to print?

WE HAVE A SINK.

IN THE SHOP. It's like my dream has come true.

Spent all of Sunday printing, inking, making marks in soft ground, and splashing solvents.

What a treat (and functional safety feature) to have a sink so close to wash my face after splashing solvents all over myself.

Ran a proof of the largest copper plate I've ever worked on, and barely fits on the press at 14" by 20", and ran the edition of Marriage Beach, which has been due to run for about 3 years.

Have 4 plates ready for the acid bath tonight. MMMMazing.

Bike past this big wheat-pasting everyday and it's just kind of amazing.

We're having our welcome party tonight!
Do come!

2212 Sepviva Street
7-10pm

Same building as ExtraExtra Gallery; and they are having a series of performances tonight, including miss Beth Heinly, of Little Berlin fame.

See you there!

Hey printers, friends, and curious parties!

We'll be having a welcome party on Friday, April 2nd, so visit us during your Fishtown gallery rounds. We're in the same building as ExtraExtra Gallery, at 2212 Sepviva Street.

Meet me and Lauren, plus Lisa and Eric, our printing partners! See if BYO is the right place for you to make a print!

We'll be hanging out from 7pm and after, or earlier...

First Friday in our building is great if you like dudes, booze, dogs , and motorcycles...not your standard gallery fare!

Some very nice freelance writers over at the Fishtown Star visited Lauren and me on Sunday, and wrote all about what we're doing at BYO!

If you want to read the article, you'll have to hope on over to Fishtown and find the paper at your favorite pub, coffeehouse, or grocery store. There's no online version of the Star.

But it's worth it to see a nice full spread on page 6 to see us posing with a huge etching wheel, and me enthusiastically holding up the first editioned print to be made at BYO!

To correct a simple error in the article, Lauren is from Berlin, New Jersey. I am from Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Loves!

P.S. Yes, we will be having a little welcoming party on Friday, April 2nd to kickstart the printing! Visit us to see the space, chat about prints, motorcycles, art and enjoy the awesome weather!

Here are some teasers for you, our printers. The shop, as we're starting to get things into place...Deciding where our inking tables and other work surfaces will live...

Parts of our neighbor's new old press, which has an amazingly huge star wheel.Lauren, after we completed our first workstation, for water baths and blotting paper.

moving week. Wanna help?

Hello printers! We need you!

Lauren and I have two wonderful printmakers joining us on our inaugural journey. We have room for 2-4 more people who want to be monthly shares! If you love printing, don't have access to an etching press and need it, and hope to be working in a shop regularly, call us! We aren't personal studio spaces, just the shared shop, so this works best for someone who keeps their studio at home, or in another space and needs shop access from a few times a month to a few times a week.

BYO is located in a loft above Liberty Cycles, a vintage motorcycle restoration shop. The space is filled to the brim with old Hondas, Triumphs, Beamers and Harleys, in various states of decay and life. There are two woodworkers in the space, a metalsmith, a miniature skatepark in the works, another printmaker extroadinaire, and ExtraExtra Gallery.
We are a hop, skip, or jump away from:
Philadelphia Brewing Company
Atlantis, the Lost Bar of Kensington
RocketCat Cafe or BellaSera…

After snow delayed our plans we were finally able to get into the new studio space to build some walls and do some cleaning. Special thanks to Sam and my Dad for all of their help. I love my Dad's expertise in the building field-he figured out that we could shoot nails right into the steel I beam to build our walls-awesome! Since then Katie, Sam and Eric continued our spackling efforts and also painted, more pics to come?.....

I should have posted this about 6 months ago...

Lauren and I had grand plans for this weekend. More wall building, shop vac-ing, packing and some moving. We had even enlisted the help of new BYO member Eric. Unfortunately, at least a foot of heavy wet snow has settled over Fishtown, with more coming down. It looks like I'll be spending the day uploading old artwork to my website, and Lauren is at home making cookies and sledding. Lucky New Jersey, with hills and shit.
Some neighbor's car, and Oxford Street:

Hello all!
Lauren and I spent out Saturday in the studio.
Welcome, BYO Studio business cards, to the world!
This is batch #1, a combination of woodblock, linocut, rotary letterpress, and intaglio! All-in-one! Some are lino and rotary letters printed on old intaglio proofs, others are printed over a woodblock background. All the way to the left, prints of an old Rx (prescription slip) letterpress block, printed on the etching press like a woodcut. So crisp!
Many more to come....Lauren spend all day working on a hand drawn silkscreen of beautiful curly-q's and scrollwork and a very nice and feminine "BYO." Next: more printing!

And restructuring!

But let's start at the beginning.....

Welcome to BYO Studio, a shared printshop based in Philadelphia that provides shared access to printmakers who need access to a press.

BYO was loosely established in 2008 as the brainchild/inkling of me, Katie VanVliet. After graduating from Moore College of Art & Design in 2007, I eagerly sought a volunteer opportunity to work in a Philadelphia printshop in exchange for press access. After having very little luck, and finding rental prices at educational institutions too high for a young artist, I vowed to start my own shop, where young artists like myself could come and make a print, on their own schedule, and their own budget. I wanted to get this done by the time Philadelphia would be hosting an international celebration of printmaking; Philagrafika 2010.

Well, I saved and saved and saved, and was able to buy a small scale, but professional grade etching press from Conrad Machine Co, built to my specifications. BYO s…