We’re shutting the studio down for a few weeks for some much-needed creative refueling. We will be camping next to that beautiful lake pictured above, with limited connectivity, but will be able to check in periodically. You can still email us (print@levigatorpress.ca) if you want to sign up for our fall classes.
See you on August 16th!
The staff for Up The Mesh Count have been in the studio printing up covers for the project zine. Here they are all chilling in the drying rack after a long day of printing. They look pretty rad, and they glow in the dark!
Up The Mesh Count is funded by Ontario Arts Council and the City of Windsor Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
Find out more about the project here: Up The Mesh Count Facebook page
Levigator Press opened its doors one year ago today! Thanks so much to all of our amazing friends who helped us to get this far.
No festivities today, but join us this Saturday, March 19 from 1-4pm for a free colouring party and snacks! We’ll have some new colouring pages made up to give away, and you can use our stuff or bring your own!
Hey everybody! I am so excited to finally get to share this with you. Beginning in March 2016, we will be offering a membership programme at the studio! We’ll be accepting just a small number of members to start out, with hopes of expanding as we carry out our wish list of studio upgrades. In our first (almost) year in Walkerville, we’ve had so many great supporters coming in and taking multiple classes, taking private instruction, and renting use of the studio, and becoming a member will make all that easier and more affordable. And you’ll get to be a part of something really fun!
Here’s how it works: you can sign up for a 3-month, 6-month, or 12-month membership, whichever works best for you. Membership is $25 per month, and for that you will get:
-two hours of studio rental or one hour of private instruction time free each month
-20% off the cost of all additional studio or private instruction time beyond your monthly free allotment
-20% off supplies and materials purchased from the studio
-50% off registration for group classes (no limits!)
-space to store your supplies and equipment in our studio instead of lugging it all back and forth
-the opportunity to piggyback on studio supply orders
Your studio time allows you access to and use of:
-letterpress equipment and type
-Nolan proof press
-Adana platen press
-intaglio press
-Chandler and Price paper trimmer
-woodcut tools
-bindery equipment and tools
-screen coating darkroom
-exposure table and washout facility
-screen printing table
-wood shop (table saw, mitre saw, drill press, jigsaw, sander)
To make the membership more awesome, we’re working on some major studio upgrades including: reorganizing the basement to have more functional (and separate) wood shop and screen preparation areas; constructing screen storage and cubbies for member use; building new, larger inking surfaces for relief and intaglio printing; setting up a dedicated screenprinting station; installing a better washout area for screens; purchasing a multi-colour t-shirt printing press.
And! Anyone who signs up for a 12-month membership between now and May 30th will be eligible to take part in a group show of our members, scheduled for the week of May 28-June 4 2017 at the Artspeak Gallery (Arts Council Windsor & Region). The show is already booked and Levigator Press is covering the gallery rental, so all you have to do is come to the studio and make some amazing work!
There aren’t a lot of spots available, so if you’re interested or want to learn more, give the studio a call!
We’re pleased to be working with Windsor based artist and art educator Michelle SoullieĢre on her new project Up the Mesh Count: Screenprinting For D.I.Y. Musicians, funded by Ontario Arts Council and the City of Windsor Arts, Culture, & Heritage Fund. We will be teaching local musicians how to screen print their own promotional materials and how to build their own screenprinting equipment, and producing a how-to zine on screenprinting to be distributed locally. Windsor is about to experience a D.I.Y. screenprinting revolution!
More information will be made available shortly, including where you can sign up for the workshop sessions (taking place in April, June, and September of 2016).
The project is also hiring! We need a studio technician to work with us throughout the project, and an illustrator to help with the zine. You can check out the contract postings here: Up the Mesh Count Studio Technician and Illustrator Posting
These sweet little journals measure approximately 8.5cm x 10cm x 2cm thick (3.5 x 4 x 0.75 inches). They’re small enough to stuff in your bag and sturdy enough to stand up to a good deal of travel and enthusiastic use. The exposed spine is sewn with a combination of the “Coptic” link stitch and a climbing woven stitch, and allows for the book to lie fully open. They feature a mix of reclaimed papers for the textblocks, and are covered with colourful press proofs from our studio.
These are fun to make, and deeply satisfying for an artist with a bad case of horror vacui.
You can check them out in our studio, or here in the Levigator Press Etsy shop: Levigator Press on Etsy
We’re pleased to have our little shop included in the Windsor Independent Last Minute Local Shopping Guide (although we’re a tad alarmed that December 8 is considered “last minute”: we don’t start buying gifts until at least the 20th!). There are a lot of other unique small local businesses in here too, all worthy of your time. Check it out!
Thanks to everyone who came out to see us during the Windsor Essex Open Studio Tour! We had a blast and met some great new people.
Our new pottery line, in collaboration with The Pottery Cupboard, got great reviews. Here are the finished prototype pieces:
During the tour we also played with tile designs, drawing images in clay slabs with the etching needle and then pressing letters using letterpress type. We’re thinking of offering a tile making class in January if anyone’s interested!
Nicole (of Mercantile 519) worked on some knit patterned slump bowls:
We also did screenprint and block print demos. Here are some of the things we printed:
This weekend we’re inviting Dayna Wagner of The Pottery Cupboard and Nicole Drouillard of Mercantile 519 to join us in the studio as part of the Windsor Essex Open Studio Tour. From 10am to 5pm on Saturday and Sunday, we’ll be doing nonstop demos in pottery, printmaking, and knitting, with loads of fun stuff planned. If you’re in the neighbourhood, drop in and check us out! It’s worth taking in the whole tour, which encompasses Windsor, Belle River, Amherstburg, and LaSalle.
We’ll also be debuting the first pieces in two new lines of pottery the three of us are working on together, and making more pieces right on site. Here’s a little preview of the cups I was drawing on a few weeks ago, fresh out of the kiln:
We’ve been very grateful this week for the generosity of the friends of Levigator Press. We’ve had people bringing us paper, bookbinding materials, candy, their old phone books (print studio essentials!), a lovely pair of antique irons to use for bookbinding weights (thanks, Bev!). And tonight we drove out to the county to pick up a little cabinet of type from a barn, courtesy of our friend Julka. It’s left over from a Serbian language newspaper that used to be produced in the Ford City neighbourhood. We’ve barely had time to peek into the drawers yet, but we’re going to get a lot of good use out of this!
