Letter from Director Deborah Maris Lader

NEWS HOT OFF (AND ON!) THE PRESS

Current Events:

Hello everyone!

The CPC elves and trolls and fairies and oompa loompahs are frantically getting ready for the:

18th Annual Small Print Show and Holiday Sale, which will take place this year on Saturday and Sunday, December 1 - 2, 11-7pm, a week earlier than usual! Our crew has been etching and rolling up and exposing (screens) and stitching and stamping and inking up the teeniest little prints you ever did see. And boy are they affordable! While supplies last! Get there first! As seen on TV! (ok, just trying out a few commercial techniques I've been bombarded with lately; I suppose it doesn't really work with fine art...). They've also been honing the holiday menu, which promises to be "exotic" and "varied", and "edible", as is our CPC custom around this time of year. And the best part, is that this event is FREE! Please come and party and shop with us, or just view all the beautiful things on the walls and drink some hot cider.

Exhibiting Artists include:
Hiroshi Ariyama, Shawn Ballarin, George Bodmer, Peter Brickell, Lauren DalPonte, Sue Demel, Theresa Devine, Joel Dugan, Doug Gapinski, Christine Gendre-Bergere, Michael Goro, Susan Hall, Kathy Halper, Elise Hughes, Carrie Iverson, Scott Keifer, Ruth Keys, Jill Kramer, Carol Lader, Deborah Maris Lader, Kim Laurel, Alan Lerner, Sharon Lindenfeld, Siu Jane Liu, Ray Maseman, Kate McQuillen, Bert Menco, Brian Novak, Duffy O'Connor, Dennis O'Malley, Mary O'Shaughnessy, Joel Rendon, Artemio Rodriguez, Jeff Sippel, Jaunith Skinner, Megan Sterling, Bobby Sutton, Jerry Svoboda, Kyra Termini, Anatole Upart, Charlie Van Gilder, Glenn Wexler, Watie White and more!

Most featured artwork in this exhibition will be for sale at less than $100. The exhibit will be forever changing, as the prints are sold right off the wall and then replaced with new ones. The exhibition will run through February 2, 2008.

Thanks to all the artists who participated in our NOW TRAVELING exhibition "Beyond Boundaries: 35 Chicago Artists Connect", which just came down November 4th. If you are a venue interested in displaying this exhibit and adding your own artists to the show, please let us know! Click here for more info and images.

We are happy to announce some of the confirmed stops on the "Beyond Boundaries" tour:

H.F. Johnson Art Gallery at Carthage College
(also featuring the work of Michael Goro, Carrie Iverson, Deborah Maris Lader and Steve Mueller)
Kenosha, WI
October 20 - November 18, 2007

The Larson Gallery at Yakima Valley Community College
Yakima, Washington
January 11 - February 9, 2008

Saginaw Valley State University
University Center, MI
March 10 - April 8, 2008

Western Kentucky University
Bowling Green, Kentucky
April 21 - May 19, 2008

The full Postcard set of the Beyond Boundaries: 35 Chicago Artists Connect exhibition is now available at the CPC and other locations for $20 (Chicago Cultural Center, Powell's Bookstore, Illinois Artisans Shop, and Enjoy in Lincoln Square). These make the PERFECT gift—they are beautiful, sendable, frameable, affordable and collectable and come in a fancy box. They are an unconventional 5.5 x 5.5 inch size, and so are also very ARTY! Your friends will be impressed. If you would like a set of postcards shipped, please send a $25 check or money order made out to Chicago Printmakers Collaborative and we'll have 'em there before santa climbs down the chimney!

Kim Laurel and Fletcher Hayes did a stellar job of designing and laying out the postcards, Catherine Jacobi (of Ted Studios) created beautiful point-of-sale displays and a wonderful cover card (in collaboration with Mary O'Shaughnessy), and numerous artists came out to help with everything else like collating cards and hanging the exhibition.

The CPC would like to deeply thank our current interns Megan Sterling and Kyra Termini for all their commitment and hard work in keeping the shop tidy and beautiful, for their great ideas regarding all aspects of the shop, for all their collating, sorting, greeting, printing, mailing and general good humor, and for stocking our database with a bottomless supply of new entries. They have been our busiest "elves". The CPC is pleased to welcome new Resident Artist Carol Lader. She joins resident printmakerly comrades Cathy Jacobi, Sarah Conner, Theresa Devine, Dennis O'Malley and Anatole Upart. The CPC also welcomes new monthly members Maggie Strauss, Gardiner O'Kain, Shawn Ballarin and Sharon Lindenfeld. We wish Tom Calhoun good luck with his move back to St. Louis. Say hi to Brian Novak for us! The "Friends of the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative" program would also like to thank and welcome new (and renewed) Inky Members George Bodmer, Ruth Keys and Peter Brickell.

Classes:
The CPC is still on sabbatical from teaching many of its group classes, but we have been working with the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) to offer our students group screenprinting classes. Taught by CPC instructor Doug Gapinski, these have proven to be highly successful. Many of our MCA/CPC students will be featured in the Small Print Show this December! Register for the group screenprinting class with the MCA at www.mcachicago.org. The CPC is also thrilled to offer, once again, a summer week-long ETCHING INTENSIVE with Duffy O'Connor during the week of July 7 - 11, 2008, 9am-3:30pm daily. The cost of the class is $500 and we're limiting it to 8 students, so it's NOT TOO SOON to plan your summer and SIGN UP!!!

Without as many group classes at the CPC, our professional members have been able to have much more access to the studio, and so the shop is busier than ever with new and veteran CPC printmakers! The CPC continues to offer private classes in all mediums. Fees are $110 for a 3-hour session one-on-one with a professional instructor. Call the shop or email us to set up your very own private class today! We would also be happy to accommodate small groups of interested students in tailor-made semi-private classes ($85 - $90 per student per 3 hour session).

Gallery visits:
If you don't think we're not having enough fun around the shop, then stop by to cheer us up anytime between 12noon and 5pm on Saturdays, or call to make an appointment. You can buy stuff then too.

Other Stuff:
Special thanks goes out to the following printmakers for their generous donations of prints this year:
John Himmelfarb, Carrie Iverson, Kate McQuillen, Bert Menco and Steve Mueller.

In personal news, my band, Sons of the Never Wrong, is busy as ever, and we've been touring for the past year to promote our 5th CD, appropriately titled "Nuthatch Suite". For more yak on that, go to www.sons.com. The CD was designed by CPC Resident Artist Cathy Jacobi of Ted Studios. The liner notes are suspiciously full of etchings, and if you wanna see them, flip over to my page. It's big in the Netherlands for some reason. The band has also entered the modern era by putting 4 of its band videos (MTV watch out!) on YOUTUBE.COM (search "sons of the never wrong"). Sons composed the music for the extremely successful play "Leaving Iowa", co-written by Tim Clue and Spike Manton, which currently has an open ended run at the Royal George Theater. If you haven't seen it, it's a WONDERFUL and FUNNY play set in the familiar cornfields of the midwest. We recently put out a CD of the soundtrack, filled with both new and pre-recorded Sons songs.

Please continue to write to us and ask us questions and visit us and take private classes and worksessions and keep us informed about what sorts of printerly things YOU are up to. Continue to check out our "Friends of Chicago Printmakers Collaborative" print club so you can choose your own home decor while supporting our programs and artists. Please come see us at the Small Print Show. We hope your winter is stockingstuffed full of teeny weeny prints, fruitcakes and nuthatches. Happy Holidays from all of us inky people at the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative.

peace,

Deborah Maris Lader
Director
November 2007