New thoughts

Details

 

Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 10/25 and 10/26

I will be opening my studio up to the public from 12-6pm on October 25th and 26th as part of POST, Philadelphia Open Studio Tours. This yearly event is hosted by The Center For Emerging Visual Artists and it is a great opportunity to meet working artist's in Philadelphia and get a rare glimpse at the studio's in which they work.

This year, I was so lucky to be interviewed for Paperclips215 by Aimee Gilmore and have some beautiful photographs taken of my space by Keristin Gaber. I really enjoyed my conversation with Aimee, an artist herself. We talked about the history of letterpress and about language and about the tools I use in my shop and what they do.

So I hope you'll come visit the Huldra Press studio the weekend of October 25th and 26th at Globe Dye Works. I'll have a small exhibition of recent projects up on the wall and a little something on the press to print and take home. There will be many other interesting studios to visit in the building and in the neighborhood as well, you can see a list here.

And you can view a little more info about my studio and the address HERE.

Hope to see you there.

Photographs by Keristin Gaber of PaperClips215

Line

half-sleeping

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Bone Connotations

Magical Notebooks and Clamshell Time Trials

This week, I made some books and boxes for myself, something I don't do that often. It's fun and good practice, I often make things for myself to try out something I don't normally do or brush up on techniques. I made myself a notebook with a "magical symbols" print I made while at Paper Book Intensive for end papers. 

:: egyptian inspired symbols, relief printed end papers ::

:: rounded spine with cloth headband, the cover boards are beveled to fit the curve ::

:: embossed leather, it was one of my samples from Paper Book Intensive ::

In order to solve my problem of not enough flatfile storage space, I've also been practicing my clamshell boxes, in various sizes and shapes, and seeing how fast I can make them. It's like doing time trials to qualify for the imaginary Bookbinding Olympics. 

:: Deep clamshell box for storage ::

:: ephemera storage problem solved ::

When I'm in between projects or not feeling the thunderbolt of inspiration, getting my hands moving clears my head and reboots the thinking process, and if not, I have a new notebook and some fancy clamshell boxes!

Reason

:: Marianne Dages, Reason, letterpress, lead, cord, fur, silk, found image, 2014 ::

Reason

In this life
there is no reason
but the heads of dolphins
diving, diving
burn the tree
to its bones
heap its wood
and sign to me
-
wood
wood
mouth
-
so we can remember
that there is no reason
but the heads of dolphins
diving
diving

:: Marianne Dages, Black Column, 2014, letterpress ::

:: detail of Black Column ::

Current Projects

I'm trying to spend some of my summer time in the studio experimenting with type and looking at language as a visual thing and make images that look like writing but can't be read. Also working on the beginnings of a collaboration with Justin Staller, which will explore this line between the readable and unreadable.

Citadels

Citadels

The fabric of the sky 

and early fall 

Indescribable color 

burning in the chest

House

A dream I've had several times.  I live in a little house inside of a community garden. In the dream, the garden is in a park near a river where I grew up and the setting is always a warm and humid summer evening with crickets singing. There is industry nearby, old abandoned factories and junkyards but the park is quiet and the garden is down a long dirt road. A few other people have chosen to live in the garden. The house is small and rustic with robin's egg walls. It's a very nice house, except the hallway to the kitchen is too narrow for a person to pass through.

I was standing in a wet marsh and I was with a medium brown dog. It was revealed that the dog's true name was Horus. When he heard his real name, the dog grew in size and became immensely strong. I remember holding him around the neck and chest trying to calm his shaking fear.

Mushrooms growing in peach pits. A primordial toothed and legged serpent guarding them, silhouette recessed in the mud.

This one is tied with the left hand.

Alum Aleut.

:: 

Vertical

Today I spent my time in the studio cleaning up, photographing work, making envelopes to hold prints and drawings, and finding places to store them.

Vertical.

In college, I turned a Bolex film camera on its side thinking I could film a vertical image that way. It didn't work. 

Marianne Dages, Dictionary Drawings, 2013

June, Collaboration with Amze Emmons 
for the 2013 SP Weather Station Portfolio