BY ELIZABETH NOLAN
for Salt Spring Arts
Artcraft is welcoming a talented group of artists to the Mahon Hall stage for the second Showcase Exhibition of the summer with the Salt Spring Island Printmakers Society (SSIPS) — and Salt Spring itself will be the star of the show titled Of This Place.
July’s Showcase celebrates printmaking in many forms along with the wellspring of much creativity. The artworks created for the exhibit are meant to inspire islanders and visitors to see, understand and treasure our island home.
“As printmaking artists, SSIPS members look for concepts and ideas that honour what they care about,” the group explains in their artists’ statement. “When discussing ideas for the Showcase it was clear that we are all passionate about our home place. How to share that passion with others? Of This Place was born!”
Started 12 years ago as a small group of printmaking enthusiasts, the society now has 71 members and a fully equipped studio at the Salt Spring Island Multi Space. Workshops, shows, school programs, and community and members events are all aimed at creating new learning and a better understanding and appreciation of a fascinating and surprisingly diverse medium.
Printmaking in fact encompasses many different techniques that will be seen in the show, such as linocut, wood cut, collagraphs, drypoint etching, monotypes, silkscreen printing and more. (All works made by this group are hand-pulled, original prints, rather than digital copies or reproductions.) The group has amplified its inclusive nature by working with Gulf Islands Secondary School art classes on a project headed by Johanna Hoskins. Two feature walls of mini prints will showcase artworks by 31 students and 17 society members.
“The first theme we started with was that of living here now, we’re of this place — regardless of when we came or who we are. How do we celebrate our home relationship to this magnificent island?” said printmaker Nora Layard. “And the second is collaboration. We started with ideas and our members worked together to create an entirely collaborative show . . . and we’ve tried to include as many people as possible.”
The ways Salt Spring is visually interpreted in the show are as varied and as plentiful as the participation. The printmakers have meanwhile been stretching their skill sets with a couple of special projects. Four members — Wendy Andrews, Deborah Miller, Pamela Plumb and Phil Vernon — have gone big with a collective triptych of an iconic Salt Spring landscape. Producing it meant creating a fluid design together, then figuring out how to print off the three massive fibreboard panels measuring three feet across by six feet high. (They got a special roller and created a custom-made registration board to help keep the paper in the right place.) Fifteen members additionally signed up to help carve out sections of the grid.
“How did it get to be this big? It’s been a really interesting stretch of our capabilities. And what works ‘here’ may not work ‘there,’” Plumb observed.
Another innovative take on the medium saw artists printing their designs onto long fabric tubes called drogues. Donated by Lori Waters, the tubes are usually used to keep marine instruments and/or boats in place on the high seas. These will be both hung and set onto special stands.
People who are curious about the art of printmaking can look forward to learning more during the exhibition, which runs daily at Mahon Hall from July 4 to 28 during Artcraft hours, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. All are welcome to the opening reception taking place from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, July 4 and to the artists’ talk on Sunday, July 6 at 2 p.m.