March 21 & 22, Tuesday & Wednesday, 6-9pm
$60
Capture the fluidity of watercolor and painted compositions with an “under pressure” transfer by hand or through the press. Brilliant colors and textures are embedded into good paper for that unusual, printed quality, yet completely unique.
February 25, Saturday 1-4
$60
Design and carve a linoleum block stamp for printing on fabric, such as t-shirts, tote bags, quilt blocks, for repeat patterning, or special design.
February 5, Sunday, 2-5pm
February 12, Sunday, 2-5pm
$60
Learn to handset metal type for the definitive printed statement, bold, refined, conscious of spacing and printed impression. This process gives voice to meaningful words and makes a timely Valentine keepsake.
November 17, Thursday, 6-9pm
$30
A fun and direct use of this ubiquitous toy gives us patterns and designs to print on the letterpress. Blocky text and geometric patterns can be printed, using your imagination and the small flat tiles.
October 8, Saturday, 10 – noon
$30
Join in the renaissance of letterpress today, using the Constellation Studios vintage presses for quality and hands-on directness. We will play with pressure printing, a unique printed “capture” of textures and patterns from stencils.
Here are views of the installation at Constellation Studios of
Surface Impressions: International Juried Print Exhibition
June 3 – August 26, 2022
The LUX Center for the Arts and Constellation Studios will present ‘Surface Impressions,’ an ambitious exhibition focusing on hand-produced relief prints from woodblock, linoleum cut, wood engraving, and mixed media relief prints. This showcase will bring fine art prints to the fore, enabling Lincoln, the LUX Center for the Arts, and Constellation Studios to join in a world-wide conversation about creative innovations in prints. Surface Impressions intends to connect artists and audiences to the 21st century language of relief printmaking as a viable artistic engagement for today.
Seventy-four prints have been selected by Juror Sean Starwars. Fifty prints will be on display at the LUX Center for the Arts, and 24 will be on display at Constellation Studios. This biennial of relief prints here in the center of America will showcase artists from around the country and abroad, all selected from an open call for entries. The works on exhibition focus on the role of the relief print as a means of cultural critique and exploration of this ancient but newly invigorated discipline as practiced and defined by today’s artists.
L to R: Carol Acquilano; Jim Monson; Aric Russom; Tom Virgin; Rich Fowler; Susan Marie Brundage; Nina Jordan; Cynthia Back.
L to R: Alexandria Motiu; Art Brown; Art Hazelwood; James Ehlers.
L to R: Nina Jordan; Brian Kreydatus; Marga Galins; Wesley Kramer; Alexandria Motiu ; Art Brown.
L to R: Claire Bowman; Ximena Medina Sancho; Endi Poskovic; Kristin Boyer
First Prize: Endi Poskovic
Third Prize: Aric Russom
Visit this website for the other prize winners, and details of each artist and their works:
https://www.luxcenter.org/exhibitions/surface-impressions-2022
Small Portfolios from the Constellation Studios Collection
by Rebecca Gilbert, Matthew Wittmer, Sue Coe
+ other small selections.
May 6 – 28, 2022
First Friday Reception May 6, 6:00 – 8:00pm
A special opportunity to view a cohesive series of prints by several artists that each offer visual delights and details. Prints in this presentation format can play with variations on a theme and echo notes that are intended for visual readings. We are fascinated by the attention, skill, and stream-of-story within these series.
Rebecca Gilbert is making an extensive project on the Dance of Death, updated for our times, yet referential to the Medieval allegory. Her project in its entirety will consist of a total of 82 prints, all unbound, to be housed in a clamshell box. 41 are Holbein images that she is faithfully creating as wood engravings and printing along with movable type, and 41 are from her own drawings also interpreted as wood engravings. She has been working diligently on the project for about two years and is just a 1/3 of the way through. She estimates it could be four more years before it’s finished. A selection is presented here.
Rebecca Gilbert is a Philadelphia-based artist. She earned an MFA in Printmaking + Book Arts from The University of the Arts and a BFA from Marshall University. She was awarded an Independence Foundation Art Fellowship and a Winterthur Maker/Creator Research Fellowship; an Artist Residency at Sparkbox Studio, Ontario; a Surdna Foundation Enrichment Grant to support her exploration of wood engraving at the Augusta Heritage Center. Gilbert serves on the board of The Wood Engravers’ Network; and teaches at The University of the Arts and the Maryland Institute College of Art. https://rebeccaprint.com/
Matthew Wittmer created the Run series as a UNL MFA candidate (97-00). These intaglio prints convey extensive and obscure references to film scenes of……you know……running. Beautifully drawn with chiaroscuro effects and a sense of a motion capture, our filmic knowledge is tested.
Matthew has been a creative artist and documentarian of sorts since grade school. His work has been published by Roman & Littlefield, University of California Press, and Independent School Magazine. He was raised in southern Missouri and now lives in southern California. He is currently the librarian for middle and high school students in Sherman Oaks, where he can cultivate a crossroads between outreach and learning. He documents the April 19th Survivors’ Memorial service in Waco, Texas annually. He has demonstrated wire walking and rigging equipment with Philippe Petit for The Walk, a film on the WTC crossing. http://www.stormbound.org/
Sue Coe’s small collection is The Tail that Wagged the Dog, a series of etching, aquatint, and linoleum prints from 1990. Coe is a passionate artist and illustrator who uses her visual voice to speak for animal rights and our relationship with them, as well as social justice issues, all with dark humor, pathos, and graphic intensity.
Sue Coe is considered one of the foremost political artists working today. Born in England, she currently lives in Upstate New York. Coe is best known for her paintings and drawings of animals in slaughterhouses and factory farms. She posts a print each day that follows the latest news stories. https://www.graphicwitness.org/coe/enter.htm
A selection of other interesting small works by various artists will be included TBD.
First Friday Reception May 6, 6:00 – 8:00pm
Small Portfolios from the Constellation Studios Collection
by Rebecca Gilbert, Matthew Wittmer, Sue Coe
+ other small selections.
May 6 – 28, 2022
A special opportunity to view a cohesive series of prints by several artists that each offer visual delights and details. Prints in this presentation format can play with variations on a theme and echo notes that are intended for visual readings. We are fascinated by the attention, skill, and stream-of-story within these series.
Rebecca Gilbert is making an extensive project on the Dance of Death, updated for our times, yet referential to the Medieval allegory. Her project in its entirety will consist of a total of 82 prints, all unbound, to be housed in a clamshell box. 41 are Holbein images that she is faithfully creating as wood engravings and printing along with movable type, and 41 are from her own drawings also interpreted as wood engravings. She has been working diligently on the project for about two years and is just a 1/3 of the way through. She estimates it could be four more years before it’s finished. A selection is presented here.
Rebecca Gilbert is a Philadelphia-based artist. She earned an MFA in Printmaking + Book Arts from The University of the Arts and a BFA from Marshall University. She was awarded an Independence Foundation Art Fellowship and a Winterthur Maker/Creator Research Fellowship; an Artist Residency at Sparkbox Studio, Ontario; a Surdna Foundation Enrichment Grant to support her exploration of wood engraving at the Augusta Heritage Center. Gilbert serves on the board of The Wood Engravers’ Network; and teaches at The University of the Arts and the Maryland Institute College of Art. https://rebeccaprint.com/
Matthew Wittmer created the Run series as a UNL MFA candidate (97-00). These intaglio prints convey extensive and obscure references to film scenes of……you know……running. Beautifully drawn with chiaroscuro effects and a sense of a motion capture, our filmic knowledge is tested.
Matthew has been a creative artist and documentarian of sorts since grade school. His work has been published by Roman & Littlefield, University of California Press, and Independent School Magazine. He was raised in southern Missouri and now lives in southern California. He is currently the librarian for middle and high school students in Sherman Oaks, where he can cultivate a crossroads between outreach and learning. He documents the April 19th Survivors’ Memorial service in Waco, Texas annually. He has demonstrated wire walking and rigging equipment with Philippe Petit for The Walk, a film on the WTC crossing. http://www.stormbound.org/
Sue Coe’s small collection is The Tail that Wagged the Dog, a series of etching, aquatint, and linoleum prints from 1990. Coe is a passionate artist and illustrator who uses her visual voice to speak for animal rights and our relationship with them, as well as social justice issues, all with dark humor, pathos, and graphic intensity.
Sue Coe is considered one of the foremost political artists working today. Born in England, she currently lives in Upstate New York. Coe is best known for her paintings and drawings of animals in slaughterhouses and factory farms. She posts a print each day that follows the latest news stories. https://www.graphicwitness.org/coe/enter.htm
A selection of other interesting small works by various artists will be included TBD.
April 1 – April 26, 2022
April 1 First Friday Reception 6:00 – 8:00
This exhibition presents the workshop investigations of invited UNL art students to engage with monoprinting and “gum transfer” techniques for a three-day intensive experience to create a variety of images and materials for a collaborative installation project for the gallery walls. The students include Joselyn Andreason, Kassidy Linaberry, Mya Levitch, Reid Martin, Katherine Morrow, Javier Rivera. They will respond to new ways of working and the collaboration challenge to push and explore new directions. This process offers unknowns yet feedback, decision-making and problem solving….asking constantly “what about this!” Organized and coordinated by UNL UCARE and Constellation Studios student intern Joselyn Andreason this outreach project intends to step off the edge of traditional presentations to take us into a new vision of “what could be” using print-based media as a vehicle for installation work.
Read about this trend in contemporary prints:
“Ink/The Lexicon of Tomorrow: Print-Based Installation” by Sarah Kirk Hanley
This intensive, exciting hands-on workshop goes from printing color reduction woodcut images that become the pages of a hand bound accordion book. This approach is inventive, with contemporary, creative methods, that can be spontaneous, simple and direct. This expressive medium will be introduced and explored through demonstrations and discussions of cutting techniques, oil-base inks and water-base inks, modifiers, and printing by hand as well as using the press. The goal is for each participant to create an artist book that generates a multilevel sensory experience. Concepts for invention and good fun will be directed in a collaborative atmosphere.
June 3 – August 26 – Surface Impressions: International Juried Print Exhibition, hosted by Lux Art Center & Constellation Studios. Juried by Sean Starwars
Entry deadline: March 18.
https://www.luxcenter.org/surface-impressions-2022-juried-print-exhibition
October 1 – November 30, 2021
First Friday Reception October 1, 6-8pm
New works by Karen Kunc evoke the inexorable tension of our times and the realization of irrevocable change. Created after the personal loss of the artist’s life partner, these striking images of waiting and potential transition offer a contemplative space. The pandemic years coincide with this time of grieving, causing isolation, loss, universal sadness, and greater possibility of change for all. These works-in-progress are the artist’s response to this moment in time and offer a visual metaphor of such transition and a memorial to our loved ones passed.
Kunc’s prints are created through the reduction woodcut process, from multiple blocks that were each printed and carved, then printed and carved again in an evolutionary process. Using selective inking and transparent-to-opaque ink qualities there are unique aspects of revealing and concealing, that mirrors the metaphoric meanings. Also showing will be new artist books, with etchings and eco-printing.
Constellation Studios is a “laboratory” site for testing how these new printworks go together, and how to live with art. Catching sight, passing by, studying over time becomes an immersive awareness, and allows for seeing and knowing what feels right. Join in this experience – an explosion – of color, new forms, and poignant timing.
Visiting at other times by appointment.
Please contact 402-438-0049 karen@constellation-studios.net
2055 'O' Street
Lincoln, NE 68510
hello@constellation-studios.net
(402) 438-0049
