Frans Masereel Centrum & Belgium in Review
Saturday, July 17th, 2010
I cannot praise the Frans Masereel Centrum residency program and everyone there who make it possible enough. My three weeks at the Centrum were amazing. Besides the beautiful land & people of Kasterlee, Belgium, the residency is packed with presses and incredible artists. I was lucky enough to work in the same studios with artists & printmakers from all around the world, from South Africa to Japan and Germany. The atmosphere of hard work and camaraderie propelled all of us to create. I was inspired not only by my physical and geographic location, but by the amazing prints that others were pulling off the presses. I completed a portfolio of 18 letterpress prints using the footnotes of Borges’ short story Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, an AZERTY keyboard, and naive Flemish Translations (images of the project to come!)
The “C. Fremaux & Fils, Bruxelles” press that I used during the residency. This all-manual press gave quite a work out, but we bonded nonetheless.
Fellow resident Chris Diedericks at work on a litho stone. Chris made an amazing trio of litho prints which were a joy to watch being created. Chris was just one of the bunch of residents that were inspirational and fun to work alongside.
The print shop of the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp. This famous print shop was the longest running in history (1550’s – 1875) and is now a mind-blowing museum. It has two of the oldest letterpresses to exist, alongside drawers of type that were cast in the foundry just upstairs. I could rave for hours about this museum, if you go to Antwerp, it is a must.
I also went, twice, to the Nationaal Museum van de Speelkaart (National Playing Card Museum) in Turnhout. It has a huge building full of beautiful lettepresses and litho presses. It also has all of the other steam- and man-powered machines to make cards since the 1700’s. Playing cards factor heavily in the history of printmaking and this museum shows a good part of that history. Another recommended spot! Below is an image of one of their letterpresses (which a boy of 14 would run all day during production.)
The travel and fees for my residency at Frans Masereel Centrum were funded in part by the Regional Arts and Culture Council.
