Type in “Freeshipping” and get free shipping on any 2 prints or $40 spent at StoneTriggerPress Etsy store now through Monday. This is only good for 5 days, in celebration of the half way point of 30 prints in 30 days.
Tonight at 8pm EST, a new print will be posted right here, along with an extra bonus print! Stay tuned
30 prints in 30 days
Thirty prints in thirty days is a project that I began on January 1, 2015 after listening to a 30 day painting challenge podcast. I carve, print and put one print on my Etsy store at the end of the day for $20. Here is how it works:
1. I hand carve a different 4″ x 6″ linoleum block each day.
2. I hand print on a Charles Brand etching press an edition of 10.
3. I write a blog post announcing the print at 8pm EST, 6pm MT.
4. The print is then available on my StoneTrigger Press Etsy store.
5. After 2-3 days of print drying, I sign and number each print.
6. I package each print in a glassine envelope and cardboard.
7. I put it in the mail to you within 4 days.
8. Shipping is $4.75, that covers actual shipping cost, shipping materials, packaging time and helps off-set the cost of a 12 mile trip to the post office.
9. If you are local you can email me and pick up the prints in person.
10. If you want me to hold prints and I know you, I will.
11. If you are ever unhappy with your print, tell me, I will exchange it.
12. I hope you are having as much fun collecting prints and I am printing.
Hilary Lorenz, Stonetrigger Press
Am I really almost half way there? In the first 12 days, so much has happened. Those of you receiving prints this week will receive them in my new rigid self-sealing mailers. On the inside sandwiched between two pieces of chip board with a Stonetrigger Press sticker on the front you will find a crystalclear brand glassine print holder. I am now printing out all my labels directly from Etsy via the USPS. We are growing up fast here at Stonetrigger Press; it is not really “we” unless you include Conrad and Homer who are not helpful. I am looking at other ways to streamline my mailing because I have 10-15 orders to send out each day before I start carving my blocks. I love packing up stuff so you will continue to see changes. Also feel free to make suggestions! I am strongly considering extending this to 90 days so I need to become the queen of efficiency.
Many people order a few times during the week. I do not want you to pay multiple shipping charges. I can do 1 of 2 things. You can email me prints that you want and I will put a “reserve” on Etsy for you. We can add to that “reserve” listing, then settle up at the end of the week or every two weeks. I can also hold your order and when you order more refund the shipping cost. It makes sense to just send the whole package priority, a whole pound of prints can fit. Until I figure out a better solution I think the reserve will work best.
Ideally I will ship the day after the order, but often time prints need to dry 3 days, then ship on the 4th day. I listed on Etsy that I would mail them 1-3 business days, but I just changed that to 3-5 days. Most likely I will still send them within 1-3 business days. I know I like to get the things I order immediately!
Your preview for tonight, is the title, “The Lizard King.”
Conrad Approved, Steely Blue River Otter
I will keep tonights post short, sweet and very cute. The height of cuteness, this steely grey river otter. This is the first proof off the press and it is looking really good. Even Conrad, my 7 year old Labrador approves, he has a tail like an otter.
It is up and available on Etsy. I will print the whole edition of 10 tomorrow, Sunday and can ship them out on Tuesday as they need to dry.
Steely blue grey river otter
The usual details: Image 6″ x 4″ paper 10″ x 8″ edition of 10 as part of the 30 prints in 30 days series and always only $20. Does not come framed or matted.
I am beat tonight, I had my first ski lesson in about 30 years, and it was amazing……I will write about it tomorrow on adventureartist.wordpress.com/ after I complete by first official snow shoe race in the morning.
Framed River Otter
Moose Head Print
This is one weird looking moose, more like a moose mask on a bear body. Today is the first day I missed my 8pm EST deadline. I was rushing to carve this block, give the dogs at least a 4 mile walk, then run 5 miles myself, and drive 87 miles to get more printing paper. Something had to give.
I got home with an hour to finish. I went into the dark studio with nothing but a headlamp. The studio is primitive, no electricity, no heat, just mud and rocks and glorious windows to aid in the passive solar. I made a few proofs under my headlamps and decided to come back into the house to carve some more. My ink was hard in the cold and clumping up, and frankly too dark to see.
So this guy is just a preview, a “proof” print, not the final. He needs to get a few things straightened out, but that is the way with relief printing. You think your block is done, and good, but when you ink it up you see what you are missing or what you want to change. Tonight I will spend the evening changing it up and the final version will be available tomorrow, along with tomorrow’s new print. Hummmm, what should that be?
If your suggestion is selected, I will send you a free print. So fill out the comments with what you want to see carved. It can be anything. The catch is, I will not tell you what day your print is being made, so you have to check back.
Okay, more carving. See you tomorrow with the finished version.
Seamore
In 2002 I was walking out of the “Q” line subway at Canal Street and saw a woman selling quarter size red-eared slider turtles in clear plastic boxes with palm trees, just like the ones my mom bought me 40 years ago. Back then we got the turtles at the Ben Franklin store in Whitehall, MI. The turtles were on a wall with other pets, one most vivid in my memory was a baby alligator. Of all the pets, she never let me get the baby alligator no matter how much I begged. The red-eared sliders never seemed to grow much larger than a quarter before they died, but this one I was going to do my best to keep alive.
I walked to my studio, then on Suffolk Street, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I was grinning ear to ear with my new turtle. I would call him “Seamore” as in the “Sea”, water, and “more”, wanting more of it. It helps having dyslexia to put such names, words and letter together that make perfect sense to me.
I put Seamore in my dearly departed dog’s water dish that I have kept around and filled it with distilled water. For the first year I kept him only in distilled water and hand fed him “turtle pellets.” Seamore grew. In fact today Seamore is 12″ in diameter and lives in a 60 gallon long tank with a basking light and water to swim.
Seamore is wildly friendly. He will follow people around, climb into their laps and ask to to pet. He will climb into the dogs bagel shaped bolster bed with them and hang out. No one believes this until they come over.
Conrad, Homer and Seamore
When Conrad was a puppy he was not quite sure what to do with Homer, but he did try to play ball.
It seems only fitting that on his 13th birthday, Seamore have a print of his own. I carved the linoblock this afternoon and printed the 4″ x 6″ image on 8″ x 10″ paper. There are 10 prints available on Etsy for $20.
Seamore, my friendly turtle is currently keeping my friend Lisa company in the Bronx.
The prints do not come matted or framed, but if you framed it, it might look like this:
My store on Etsy is titled: https://www.etsy.com/shop/StoneTriggerPress
StoneTrigger Press
In less than one hour, 8pm EST, 6pm Mountain Time, something blue and sparkly, the first print of the year and the first of the 30 prints in 30 days, will emerge from the snowy headquarters of StoneTrigger Press. Stay tuned, it is a fun one
What a fantastic three months. Here are three parting photography of my Wave Hill exhibition. The wall of leaves got packed down to one plastic tub, the bears, coyote, and lean-to rolled up, and the plants piled up. The result; a clean and clear gallery for the upcoming artist in residence. Check out the opportunities folks!
The work from the Gallery at Pioneer Bluffs is down, with some of the pieces still available through Saatchi Art Gallery On-line. You can check that out.
What is ahead? I am working on an edition of 30 prints for a portfolio entitled “Vinyl” curated by Anita Jung to be shown at the Southern Graphics International Conference and collected by Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art at Kennesaw State University. I am also working on pieces for an exhibition at the Courthouse Gallery, Lake George, NY. And I just got awarded a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Process Space residency on Governors Island for Winter/Spring 2016.
As a Process Space participant, I will receive:
In 2016 I will also be jurying the members exhibition for the Printmaking Center of NJ. So I am looking pretty good for 2015 and 2016. I still have a few grant applications out there and I am always looking for new opportunities, but on this day, Winter Solstice 2014, things are looking really bright.
As the Bob Seger “Turn the Page” lyrics go, “all strung out from the road” that will be me, walking into the gallery today at Matfield Green, Pioneer Bluffs, KS today.
My eyes are blurry after 10 hours of driving each day for the past two days, another 4 hours to go today, but I am excited to be back in Kansas. The dogs will be happy to go to Chase Fishing Pond. I will be happy to have another great dinner at Ad Astra in Strong City. But most of all I am thrilled to be back with Ton and Ans at their beautiful gallery. I am still 270 miles away, but the reception is 2-5, I will be there so come by and have a glass of wine and take home a new drawing or print. See you soon.
This is it, the last two days of my exhibition at Wave Hill and at the Printmaking Center of New Jersey. I will be at Wave Hill on Sunday from noon to 4, please stop by to say “hello.” After that I am packing up and headed out west for my next project. I have to say, it has been a grant experience!
Hilary Lorenz at Wave Hill, NY
Hilary Lorenz 