First Art/Craft Fair report

Hilary, Laura and Jessica with our two tents and blue bus

The summary of our art sale. It was a great two months of planning, making, and anticipating our first bus participation art sale. We got to the set-up at 8:30, for a 10am start time. Laura, Jessica and I seamlessly set up two tents and the bus interior. It looked great. Then the sky turned gray, the wind picked up and a massive hail storm took out about 70% of the venders while we hunkered down in the bus. My friend Lisa came for a surprise visit from Santa Fe, it was super great to see her. We would not have survived without her help in a mad rush to get everything in the bus to protect it from the rain. After an hour, the hail stopped and we set back up.

Our second set up

Our new spot was an even better set up. But it was cold and windy, and with what sales I made I went over to the Cheesy Grill to get a hot very delicious sandwich.

My first sale was one of my favorite framed prints, the “Industrious Ant” and it was my first use of my new “Square.” We recording the momentous event. You can see I am jubilant by my big mouth grin.

Hilary’s first sale of the day.

By 3pm there were only 3 venders out of 30 left and things started getting a bit weird. We were tired and decided to pack it in too. While very little sold, for anyone, it was fun and a good opportunity to work with two other friends. We are now making art vending plans for the whole summer. I think it will be good fun.

But the best part, making new friends and seeing old friends. First I met two women from Iowa City, we overlapped at the University of Iowa while doing our graduate work, and seeing Melody, a friend from NYC, whom I met in 2012 or was it 2013 at my friend Les and Diane’s Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, it is a small world!

Melody and Hilary

First Artist’s and Craft’s person Fair!

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I am packed with framed prints, unframed prints, journals and my newest cinch bags for Saturday’s fair in Albuquerque at the Octopus and the Fox.

I am so excited, working my friend Laura, we are going to have a great set up with her big blue touring school bus. I plan to posts photos to my FB page, as the day goes on.

If you are in ABQ please stop by, if you see anything you want me to save for you in Saturday’s posted photos, just shoot me a FB message.

Yeah! This is going to be so fun.

Snowshoe Hare Progress

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Snowshoe Hare linocut in progress

During the last amazing week of Da Ping Luo‘s visit to StoneTrigger Press, we hiked, ate, ran and of course made prints! Da is working on a a video series of artists profiles, and I am super excited to be included in that. I can’t wait for it to come out!

I proofed my 24″ x 18″ rabbit onto 27″ x 21″ Fabriano Paper. It is looking awesome! I am going to cut a little bit more on his belly so that it will look lighter, more white, that his back. I am also doing a bit more on the foreground. That will be complete this week.

Da made a great print, He carved a fish and printed it in both black and later orange and red. Here is a photo that he took of his prints along with the source drawing. It is really super, he was a natural.

photo by Da Ping Luo

Stonetrigger Guest in the House!

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Hilary Lorenz wearing a hand printed linocut Pisces backpack

Last night my good friend Da Ping Luo arrived in New Mexico and today we had some fun in the studio. I was very lucky to have Da shoot some of the work I am doing. The latest item is this Pisces backpack, there is one available on Etsy. I am very excited that Da will be here for a week.

This will be super brief because we are on our way to dinner and dinner hour in NM is very short. But in the meantime, here is the new bag.

Pisces hand printed linocut backpack

“Buddy” is back! Now on a cinch bag

Small Print Store, stonetrigger press

Linocut printed bag with hand coloring

Buddy is back and this time he is on the front of a heavy duty cinch bag.

This is a custom bag. It is a delicious pink heavy duty canvas bag with the original colors of the “Buddy” linocut. Because it can be difficult to match the ink from the original print, I took into consideration the color and weave of the bag. Once printed I felt Buddy was lacking a bit of detail, so I went in with a brush and hand painted highlights of white and yellow so that he will really sing!
I also got my nifty “Stonetrigger Press” stamp so that I am able to stamp each bag making them very unique to the press. Each linocut was hand carved and if you want a custom bag, you have over 50 linocuts to chose from and 5 different color bags all from my Etsy Store.

A custom linocut printed bag with hand drawings

Buddy is now dry and ready to be sent to his new home!

The Language of Animals

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Rabbit Linocut beginning, 24″ x 18″

I was a quiet on the blog this past week, but not quiet in the studio. After a big clean-up, I began this 24″ x 18″ rabbit linocut. It is half way carved and I hope to complete it by Sunday. The rabbit will be in my exhibition at Lake George Project Space in Lake George, NY, in November. The title of the exhibition is “The Language of Animals.”

The exhibition will be of large prints and drawings collaged onto the walls similar to my Wave Hill exhibition last fall. The biggest difference is all the animals and mountains I plan to draw and print will be from the Adirondack Mountain region.

The gallery is having a benefit exhibition this summer and I plan to make a whole series of Adirondack Animals in the 5″ x 7″ format I have been printing. Between now and June I will make a new moose, shrew, fox, Canadian lynx, weasel, raccoon, woodcut, beaver, bat, and bobcat. I may also make a new river otter since the last one was so popular. If you have a favorite ADK animal, please let me know. After a short studio break, I will be back in full force doing 3-4 different prints a week!

Four minute video of Cool Printed Bag

Prints, Small Print Store

I am very excited to share the latest addition to my Etsy Store, a demonstration of the cinch bags and how they are printed. You can even custom order your bag color and what linocut you want on it!

The first bags hot off the press:

Cinch Bags, Coffee, Pink, Khaki, Red and Tan

Khaki Cinch bag with Feral Kitty Linocut

Coffee Cinch bag with coyote

Red Cinch bag with Coyote Linocut

Tan Cinch bag with Coyote Linocut

My Daily Print Project

30 prints 30 days, Prints, Small Print Store, stonetrigger press

Bat Linouct

We are now in the middle of March and I have printed and posted 69 items to my Etsy Store, some of which are now sold out. This all started as an experiment to make one print a day, open up an Etsy store to sell inexpensive high quality hand printed linocuts. These prints reach a far wider audience and collector base than the larger and more expensive projects that are made for gallery and museum exhibitions. And quit frankly it has been far more gratifying because of my direct interaction with people. Well, my virtual interaction with people, but never the less, it is far more engaging. In the two and a half months, I had 163 transactions on Etsy, with most people buying multiple prints, some even bought the whole first month’s 30 day set. There were just over 250 prints sold. Of course I would love to double, triple, even quadruple that.

Starting this project is making a tremendous difference in ability to also work on larger pieces and to become self-sustaining. That is my real goal. You see I have lived in NYC for the past 21 yeas, teaching at Long Island University in Brooklyn and coming to Abiquiu, NM in my summers. I bought my NM house in 2010 and built the printmaking studio. It is my goal, to create a solid business where I can move out to NM permanently. So, every time you buy a print, not only are you getting a really great new original hand signed and dated artwork, you are helping me create the dream of living a simple life of making art, walking my dogs, running in the mountains, and enjoying the quiet beauty of New Mexico. Today I put three new prints to my Etsy Store. The super awesome bat, a beaver which I printed over the summer and a fox. If you like my FB page, and follow my blog you will get all the Etsy updates as well as my larger exhibition updates.

Right now my drawings prints and journals can be found at The Gallery at Pioneer Bluffs, KS, The Fuller Art Center, Los Alamos, NM, The Printmaking Center of NJ, and this summer it will be at Lake George Arts Project’s summer exhibition Art @ The Lake, NY which will be followed by a Solo Exhibition in November. And of course at my studio in NM,(until August 1) and on Etsy. Yes, it is an exciting time and I am always looking for new venues, recommendations, collaborations so please keep me in mind and please recommend my store to your friends. I really do appreciate it.

Fox Linocut

Beaver Linocut

Annie the Dachshund Linocut

30 prints 30 days, Prints, Small Print Store, stonetrigger press

Annie linocut on Japanese Kozo

Each time I make a dog portrait I try something different. It may be in the size of the block, a profile vs. full body, changes of paper or changes of color. Each one is very personal. I began “Annie” last week. Annie, one of the sweetest dogs I have had the pleasure of meeting, passed away a couple of months ago. After looking through a number of photos of her, I kept melting in her side looking gaze.

There were a couple of things I knew I wanted. First, I wanted to show the pink and blue blanket, though there was only a sliver of it. Two, I wanted to have a separation between her brown and black. The only way I knew I could that is in a reduction linoleum block. This block got carved and printed 4 times over, pink, blue, brown, then black. Once all four layers were printed, I printed what remained of the block, which was quite a bit, onto 300 pound buff Rives BFK paper. In total I have 18 prints. Some were thrown away for begin off register, too dark or too light. I finished with an assortment 4 color prints on very thin Japanese paper, type types of Japanese paper.

I am beat. It was a super busy week. Spring is here and I had fences to mend, a race to run, orders to fill, grants to submit and groceries to buy. For those of you in the know, grocery shopping involves a 100 mile round trip, so it is time-consuming. But these are complaints, on the contrary, I am so lucky that I am able to do so much and have so much fun. As I await the cinch bags to come in, I am starting on a 22″ x 30″ linocut. I will shoot a photo of the daily carving process. In the meantime, there are 64 items in my Etsy store, so check it out!

Completely out of Printmaking Paper, Now what?

Prints, stonetrigger press

Pigment dyed hand printed backpack

I use my weekends to rest from my intensive printing, I have pulled more than 650 prints since January 1 with 60 new carved linoleum blocks. I use the time to run, attempt to be social, I say attempt so that I don’t have to hold myself accountable to actually being in public, draw and come up with new ideas. Since I have also exhausted my entire paper supply, it is a good time to come up with new ideas. Should I buy more paper OR perhaps heavy duty cinch bags?

I did some mock-up’s today with the coyote and really like them. I love these bags. They are 100% cotton, pigment dyed, heavy cotton webbed straps, a zippered front pocket, 14.5″ wide by 17.5″ tall, 9 different colors. They are really strong, great for books and big enough for picking up groceries, and of course CUTE!

Nine colors of Stonetrigger Press hand printed bags.

I mocked them up with Stonetrigger Press Abiquiu, NM printed under the coyote, but in linocut I can’t print text. I don’t want to go to silkscreen because everyone silkscreens. I want to keep these one at a time linocut printed. I will work out whether or not I have the press name, and it is possible I print it separate or get a woodblock laser cut to print it. Now there is another good idea.

So if you had a bag what color would you want?

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