Letterpress printing can be a slow process, but it can also be very spontaneous. Using a Vandercook proof press with magnet and Boxcar bases it is possible to print in a spontaneous manner composing the image as you print. Stainless steel wire combined with various sticky backed foams can be cut and manipulated  to make shapes and lines quickly and can be altered as needed. P22Blox are shaped modules that can be combined and recombined to forms letters, frames, figures and more. The emphasis will be on experimentation and variation rather than on specific end products. Each participant will contribute a set sized sample print for a portfolio exchange. For more information go their website: Maine Media Workshops

In the early part of the 20th century a group of Surrealists played a parlour game called Consequences where each player writes or draws on a piece of paper, folds it, and passes it on for further contributions. The game, initially done for fun, soon revealed its enriching and creative side.

The name for the game coined by the Surrealists is cadaver exquis, or exquisite corpse, and is the inspiration for Emily’s class. Using a variety of printing techniques, participants will produce various fanciful images that are passed on to the next person for additional input. It’s a collaborative exercise that stretches the usual comfort zone of a single individual. It is bound to throw up many surprises and open up new ways to look at imagery and interact with it.

Participants will execute fanciful or serious images of creatures (human or otherwise) and learn a wide variety of hand printing techniques using stencils, collage, relief printing from wire, hand-made stamps, gelatin printing and other paper decoration techniques. Each participant will make multiples of their images to be exchanged among the group and then each will bind these collected pages in to a book. A multiple set of prints will be made so that each student has a full edition of the results. The prints will finally be bound into a book, or perhaps even something more…

For more information go to the BINDING re:DEFINED website using this link:  full details 2018