Lower East Side Printshop and Dieu Donné

The class finally met again for the first time in about a month. Between Hurricane Sandy and the Nor'easter, this whole semester has been a giant mess. Every class is scrambling to get work done, and it really isn't working out and just causing tons of unnecessary stress for both professors and students. So it's really great that this terrible semester is almost over...
So for our first trip in ages, the class stayed in Manhattan. 
We visited the Lower East Side Printshop, which is lovated on W 37th St. and 8th Ave.

This printshop is a really great resource for everyone! Whether you're an just out of school trying to find a place to work, or a well established artist wanting to make some prints for the first time, you're welcome here. The shop also has a great residency program, where 10 applicants become key-holders for a year! 
Our tour guide was extremely friendly and welcoming to the class. We started the tour in the great public work space, where you can rent time to work. They have a huge amount of resources available. 24/7 access to the darkroom, solvent room, and of course the work studio, with two beautiful etching presses.

They also do contract printing. This is where we met the master printers of the shop. Both of them were willing to talk to the class about their experiences of working in printshops, or putting up dry wall. They told us how they came to have the title "master printer", which seemed to be by accident for both of them. 

We got to see some prints that were made in their shop.

Our next destination was one block away, on W 36th St and 8th Ave.
This was Dieu Donne, a paper making studio. It was so interesting to see an actual paper making studio! I have never had any interest in taking the school's paper making class due to the fact that it more sculptural based. But, if it was like what was going on at Dieu Donne I would definitely rethink that decision. 

Our tour guide was an intern at the studio. He said this was his first tour ever, and it showed. This had to be our fastest visit ever! I'm still not really sure how anything really happens in that shop. Do they have residencies? Do people rent time to work there? I have no idea.


But, they did seem to make some beautiful work there. While showing the class the studio's portfolio, they had a beautiful watermark piece from Chuck Close. I don't really know who any of the other artists he showed were, but trust me, they were nice.

Chuck Close it that grey one in the back

They also had some paper they made for sale. It was really nice paper, but for $20 a sheet, I passed.