experimental printmaking

Ultrices

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to spend a few days collaborating on a book with Leah Mackin, who's work I've admired for a long time. That book is Ultrices, an artist's book about place, systems, and chance. Each book is unique, this is a selection of page spreads from the edition. The book is available for sale, details in the link if you're interested.

Colophon: Ultrices is a collaboration about place, systems, and chance by Marianne Dages and Leah Mackin. Conceived, drawn, printed, and bound by the artists at Huldra Press in Philadelphia. 2016. Variable Edition of 40 books.

The text was generated using the pdf and Google Translate as chance operations. Its source is Sigmund Freud's essay, "The Mystic Writing Pad."

Available for $140, please contact if interested.
Each book is unique, this is a selection of images from the edition. There is a gallery of more images at my website HERE.



Lost in Transit

A few shots of my work up at SOIL Artist Run-Gallery in Seattle, WA, part of the terrific group show Lost in Transit. Thank you Ricky Yanas for these great photographs!


:: Left to Right, Alexis Nutini, Douglas Witmer, Me (Inheritance), Me (Ocean), and Ezra Mauch ::


:: Inheritance, Lead and Fine Woodworking Magazines, 2015 ::


:: Left, Ocean, letterpress on paper, 2015 ::

Lost in Transit explores mythologies of disappearance, the anxiety of travel, and the precarious nature of man-made structures in the work of eighteen Philadelphia artists. Using H. John Thompson’s 2014 sculptural project Holding Our Own (2014), the focus of which is the legend of DB Cooper, the only unsolved airline hijacking in US history, as a jumping-off point, the members of each gallery were prompted to dig into their own bodies of work (new and old) to find formal and contextual similarities that would link them to this loaded subject. In doing so the exhibition acts as a kind of detective tale looking for clues, piecing together bits of information, and attempting to follow elusive threads of continuity and synchronicity within a diverse collection of styles and practices.

The exhibition includes pieces by Marc Blumthal, Marianne Dages, Christina P. Day and Ricky Yanas that engage in the distortion, breakdown, and absence of their subjects. Prints and sculpture by Alexis Granwell, Leslie Friedman,Terri Saulin Frock, and Tamsen Wojtanowski suggest complex and elusive languages that exist outside the realm of logic and rationality. A selection of suitcases made especially for Tiger Strike Asteroid Philadelphia’s space in December’s Artist-Run at The Satellite Show Miami Beach will also be included. These subversive objects hint at the tricky nature of contemporary navigation and travel while also referring to the gallery’s own institutional history.

Together, the works selected for this exhibition form a conceptual trajectory that moves viewers in and out of iconic and banal imagery, ethereal and hardedge forms, light and dark spaces, and into a search for something that may have never been there.

Artists: Todd Baldwin, Marc Blumthal, Mark Brosseau, Lewis Colburn, Christina P. Day, Marianne Dages, William DiBello, Leslie Friedman, Terri Saulin Frock, Alexis Granwell, Ezra Masch, Alexis Nutini, Joanna Platt, Kayla Romberger, H. John Thompson, Douglas Witmer, Tamsen Wojtanowski, Ricky Yanas

A couple more shots of the show in its entirety. The show looks incredible, I wish I could see it in person! Thank you to everyone at SOIL and Marc, Ricky, John, and Mark and everyone else who worked so hard to plan, install, and make it happen.



Website Updated, & More News

:: Marianne Dages, Cloud Copy, transfer paper, paper clay, letterpress, 2015 ::

I recently updated my website, to reflect some of the work I've done in the last six months. There is lots of new work, new arrangements, new prints, and two new editions, A Single Frequency and Poems for Passing Ships. 

I am also working on a new book, as yet untitled, involving mirrors and text.

:: New book ! ::

Back in January, I was interviewed for a segment about the art of the book for the WHYY program Articulate with Jim Cotter. 

The segment which includes footage of my process and work, will air two more times.

- Thursday, 7/30 at 10:30 pm
- Sunday, 8/7 at 1 pm.



:: Clip with Articulate with Jim Cotter ::

If you don't have WHYY, you can still watch the full episode HERE, just the segment on books as art HERE and an interview extra with me about the value of art HERE.

This July, I will be assisting a Jana Harper's class, The What & the Why: Books as Idea Generators this summer at Penland School of Crafts. 

 :: Books by Jana Harper ::

The class runs July 5th - the 17th, there may even be a spot or two left, check HERE if you're interested in enrolling. I'm really looking forward to this, Jana is an amazing artist, this is going to be a fascinating class, the kind that will supply you with ideas for years to come.

And last but not least, if you missed the Summer Newsletter, with upcoming exhibitions and publications, you can read it HERE and sign up HERE to receive future ones every couple of months.