Constellation Studios Residency!

Small report from artistic residency at the Constellation Studios in Licoln NE I attended this year in September: The residency was held as an award I received at the exhibition Beauty of Mokuhanga at International Mokuhanga Conference in 2017. During my stay at Lincoln I also obtained status of the visiting scholar/artist at the School of Art, Art History and Design at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. The person who made this project possible was Mrs. Karen Kunc, the owner of Constellation Studios and the professor at UNL. Thank You Karen that was a big honour for me.

Carving the 'Savage' block at CS

- It was definitely very prolific time. During 1 month stay I made two large colour Mokuhanga woodblocks, and plenty of drawings while discovering Lincoln. My solo exhibition at Constellation Studios Gallery was a great pleasure and unique opportunity to show some examples of my works in US, and to discuss it at the gallery space. Some pictures from the exhibition below.

Sketchbooks and notebooks from home.

The Moon - woodblock print

one of my drawing stream

tiny book from home

Lincoln sketchbook

Lincoln sketchbooks.

Savage - mokuhanga print + block

- At the UNL - School of Art, Art History and Design we worked with students on the problem of gesture in woodcut. I introduced some of my favourite working methods - especially cutting with knife, or sumi ink printing. I also had a mokuhanga printing demonstration - with my woodblock Savage.

Karen Kunc and students during mokuhanga workshop

Savage - printing demo

- I also had a honor to give an open lecture in the Hixson - Lied Visiting Artist & Scholar Lecture Series on the topic of Negative space in the compositional process. Thank You for the invitation.

- The most important aspect of my trip to Nebraska was of course meeting with printmaker and owner of the Constellation Studios - Mrs. Karen Kunc. It was so great to finally meet You Karen and talk about art, woodblocks, bookmaking and many more topics. I've learned a lot. Thank You for the various opportunities You made possible. Thank You also for the presentation of Your personal approach to color printing in woodblock. That was great and def. extraordinary for me. I'll never forget cotton papermaking and bookbinding micro lecture at the kitchen too :). Thank You Karen and Kenny for your patience and hospitality. I'm looking forward to meet You next time.

at Tam O' Shanter, Lincoln NE

- After my residency I've decided to spend a week in the New York. Walking and drawing on the streets of Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and especially NY Subway. We had a wonderful meeting with April Vollmer too. That's another story tho. The drawings is what remains.

Check out Constellation Studios hompepage.
And their post about my residency.