BUCKET EXHIBITIONS
8 x 8 inches is Enough
Hit-and-run print pop-up exhibition
at the Cartel coffee house in downtown Tucson
TEN good framed 8 x 8 inch prints is an engaging pop-up exhibition! And ten framed prints are EASY to carry around in a bucket:
Twelve framed 8 x 8 inch prints
fit in this bucket cooler
Print pop-up show
during the 3 hour drawing group in Albuquerque
(December 16, 2021)
The basic idea is to have short pop-up print shows in small venues, that are cheap and easy to put on. We can show at print studios, or carry the print bucket to a micro-brewery for an exhibition one night, or even have small shows in people's homes. I might board the Rail Runner train in Albuquerque with my print bucket, and find a hit-and-run venue in Santa Fe to show prints for a couple of hours.
Cheap Frames
This idea might hinge on cheap frames. 8 x 8 inch frames only cost $2 at Walmart, and can also be ordered from Amazon.
Frames give the prints an extra dignity. The 8 x 8 inch frames hang on a hole in the back -- no wire -- so they hook easily onto push pins, magnetic hooks, or adhesive Command hooks. This square size hangs uniformly, there is no switching from "portrait" to "landscape" orientation. Plus they are "front loading frames," so inserting a print is as easy as pushing the glass out. Again, the prints are protected by glass, and not plastic. A big thanks to Eric Thomson for giving us this economical framing idea.
Margins
Note that the framed prints look better with a margin. For instance, Henry Morales cut a 7 x 7 inch linoleum square for printing on 8 x 8 inch paper. 6 x 6 inch linoleum squares also give a nice margin to the 8 x 8 inch paper prints.
Henry Morales of Albuquerque, made this print
with a 7 x 7 inch linoleum plate
printed on 8 x 8 inch paper
Pop-up print exhibition
during the drawing group on January 10, 2021
at the Sculpture Resource Center in Tucson
An artist can say a lot inside an 8 x 8 inch print, with a variety content and techniques. We laser cut one of Rex Barron's scratchboard pieces at Quelab, and printed it on a Tortilla Press:
This idea is really the follow-up to the Ambos Lados International Print Exchange. It should be a lot easier to find venues for 10 prints, vs venues for the 158 Ambos Lados prints:
One small BUCKET with 12 framed prints --
on top of TEN BOXES of 158 framed prints
from the Ambos Lados Print Exchange
However we have had great shows of the Ambos Lados prints in -- Dallas, Santa Fe, Silver City, Taos, El Paso/Socorro, and a formal presentation at the IAGO in Oaxaca in 2019.
The best thing that could happen would be if printmakers were to take this idea, or pieces of it, and have Exchange Exhibitions amongst themselves.
The press is just the womb -- as the print only comes to life when revealed to the public.
RECIPROCAL PRINT EXHBITIONS
Smaller prints are also easier to exhibit over LARGER DISTANCES, so that we could have reciprocal print exhibitions say in Oaxaca and Santa Fe of 8 x 8 inch prints. This is an excellent way to exchange different styles and content, which is really the whole point of these BUCKET EXHIBITIONS.
If half of the prints were from out-of-town artists that would make for a better pop-up exhibition. For instance if Horned Toad Prints of El Paso generated 5 prints, and Rezizte Panaderia of Juarez generated 5 prints, they could have two pop-up print exhibitions on both sides of the border, of the same 10 prints.
Horned Toad Prints can also mail prints to Albuquerque and we can have ABQ/ELP BUCKET prints pop-up exhibitions in New Mexico. Then we can send prints to El Paso and have a pop-up show of the same 10 BUCKET prints.
We also need to have reciprocal prints shows between Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. Or California and New York...
The mail is a powerful tool We sent fourteen 8 x 8 inch prints from Albuquerque to Guadalajara in the regular mail, and that only cost $10 (someone said the key is to get a tracking number). Of course, it took forever to arrive:
$10 USD to send fourteen prints
to Guadalajara
We can have reciprocal pop-up print exhibitions in both countries. And there are lots of excellent Mexican printmakers.
PRINT RUMBLINGS so far
NEW MEXICO
The BUCKET EXHIBITIONS idea started when Manuel Guerra drove up from El Paso to print during the August Art Walk in downtown Albuquerque on August 6, 2021:
Later he made prints with the TORTILLA PRESS in Santa Fe, in front of Hecho A Mano gallery at the top of Canyon Road -- on August 7th and August 27th.
They printed with Akua Carbon Black intaglio ink on Rives BFK lightweight white paper.
Tres Gatos Press sent two linoleum plates up from Guadalajara to print on the streets of New Mexico, on the Tortilla Press which they innovated:
Soon we had seven nice 8 x 8 inch prints, enough for a small nice pop-up print exhibition:
Making Prints
We already inspired a few artists to make 8 x 8 inch prints.
Cutting at Little Bear Coffee in Nob Hill in Albuquerque,
Takach Press is a huge printmaking resource located in Albuquerque. They cut down Speedball unmounted linoleum in to 6 x 6 inch squares. I've been passing out linoleum squares ever since:
David Takach and worker
cutting down linoleum in to 6 x 6 inch squares
Marcus Robiason cut a PVC plastic plate at Cartel coffee house in downtown Tucson on January 6, 2022:
Marcus Robiason cutting a plate
at Cartel coffee house in downtown Tucson
Then we printed his plate on a Tortilla Press at the Sculpture Resource Center in Tucson:
Printing with a Tortilla Press
at the Sculpture Resource Center
Final 8 x 8 inch print by Marcus Robiason
David Contreras with a huge PVC linoleum roll for relief cutting,
at Raices Taller 222 in Tucson
We sent knives, 8 x 8 inch paper, plates and frames to Jorge Perez (Yorch) in Juarez, and he got busy right away making prints:
The Sky is the Limit
Prints often swell in to bigger things. Jorge Perez (Yorch) made these prints for our Postre Print exhibition in 2017 in El Paso, and now he painted that image on the banks of the Rio Grande:
The mural is of a campesino and a maquiladora factory worker about the International bridge between El Paso and Juarez. Jorge pointed out that most of the factory workers are women.
The previous print projects we've been involved in:
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