2 Late Fall-Early Holiday Sales!

Announcing 2 upcoming art/craft/gift sales

that I am participating in, with my hand-printed

               T-shirts and scarves!!--

•Waldorf School of Philadelphia Holiday Sale
7500 Germantown Ave., Eagles 2 Bldg., Phila., PA.
(on New Covenant Campus, across the Ave. from the Trolley Car Diner)

Friday 11/16/12, 6-10 pm, and Sat. 11/17/12, 10 am-5 pm

•Midtown Village Holiday Craft Sale at
William Way Community Center, Ballroom, 1315 Spruce Street,
in Center City Philadelphia, PA:   Friday, November 30, 2012, 5 - 8 pm;
Saturday, December 1 & Sunday, December 2, Noon - 5 pm

 

Look at all those Super-Cool T-shirts---Get ’em, hot off the press!!

          More events to come in December proper!!

Philadelphia Open Studio Tour -October 6 & 7, 2012; AND Art Market at Tyler School of Art;

That's me, the Printmaking (or should that be Paper-cutting) “Gem”----just kidding!
Not puttin’ on airs or graces here, even
with the lovely pink pearl statement, along with the rad art-worker T-shirt...
    But, I am putting on 2 super T-shirt sales starting this weekend:
Philly Open Studio Tours at Mt. Airy Art Garage, in their newest indoor space permutation--
(now with fresh new artist studios!)
11 W. Mt. Airy Avenue in Philly--12-6p on 10/6 and 12-5p on 10/7/12.
    The fun continues next weekend at the first-ever Art Market at Tyler School of Art
(Temple University) at 2001 N. 13th Street at the Tyler Building in Philadelphia---11a-7p on
both 10/12 and 10/13/12--I am table #6 there! This show/sale helps benefit
scholarships for Tyler-- always happy to help out some art students, yeah!

More shows to come in November and December for your shopping and gifting pleasure,
be sure to stay tuned!

Screenprint Image of O&W Station in Middletown, New York

The latest T-shirt! An image of the historic O&W railroad station located in Middletown, New York.
The original photo was taken by my brother, Glenn Schwass. I love the Victorian architecture
style of the building. (Unfortunately it is abandoned and in bad shape at present, so perhaps this T-shirt image will help preserve its memory longer...)

I am currently getting ready for Fall craft sales, and anticipate selling my wares at
the Tyler craft sale (Tyler School of Art at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA) on October 12 and 13----
as well as participation in other to-be-announced art & craft sale venues from now through
the Winter/Holiday season. Time to be busy!
The above T-shirt design will very likely show up during at least one or 2 of these sales--
along with some new designs and some re-discovered older ones!

finally, the 2nd annual mt.airy night market!

I will be at the Mt Airy Night Market this coming Thursday
8/16/12--at the Mt. Airy Art Garage, 11 W. Mt. Airy Ave--
just steps from Germantown Ave.
I will have some new scarves! some more silk
now too....
As well as my usual cool shirts! Stop by if you
are around the area! The Art Garage will
have live music that night!

  The vibe of the Night Market
last summer was very cool, so we expect great things.
And this year, it's not just about the food!!

Discharge Printing on Dark Silk

I just finished these discharge prints on black silk scarves.
This black dye has blue-ish undertones in it--so it turned out kind of like a
dark-field-cyanotype-batik effect. When the printed fabric is held up to light,
it is even more beautiful. I got to be more painterly in my working back selectively
into the first round of printing on the silk, as I discovered accidentally what would
further lighten the printing. The black dye is likely an acid dye, as it is hard to
get a solid black dye on silk. I plan to continue experimenting with dyeing
and discharge printing on different weaves of silk, since I have always loved
silk fabric.

Satin Devore’ scarves on their way!

Here is an in-progress view of my first foray into doing the Devore’ process of
burning-out patterns on silk/rayon scarves---which will then be dyed!
I print the fabric etch onto the scarf; it removes the rayon and leaves the
silk part of the cloth blend behind.
I am so psyched to do this process!! Stay tuned for the next step---full color!

Mt. Airy Village Farmers' Market: Our Biggest Market Yet! Now with LS-Drew Graphics!!

Mt. Airy Village Farmers' Market: Our Biggest Market Yet!: We like to ask the patrons of the market how they would improve the market if they had the ability to do so. While we know that our mark...

At “Art for the Cash Poor” Last Weekend

I am holding my latest design, “Inventions,” comprised of my first laser cut
relief print (the building image below the xenon bulb --which is on my February 2012 post, in greater detail) -- and various types of light bulbs on both front and back of the shirt. Part of the back of
the shirt can be seen on the front of my table to the left of the coral and red shirts in the center. My table was in the “Icebox” at the Crane Building, (site of a former plumbing fixture factory,
converted to artists' studios) at 1400 N. American Street in Philadelphia.
(Photo by Glenn C. Schwass)

June-Moon-Swooning! Prepping for more summer Craft Sales

 

I will be at “Art for the Cash Poor ” at the Crane building,
with my rad scarves and shirts!
  On Friday  6/8/12, from 5:30-8:30 pm (the Preview, which is a ticketed event)
and Saturday 6/9/12 from Noon-6pm (which is free).
This is up just above the Northern Liberties area, at 1400 N. American St., Phila., PA.

Other T-shirt news----I'm in the Mt. Airy Art Garage June Members Show,

“Just Chillin’ ” from 5/25/12 to 6/17/12---11 W. Mt. Airy Ave., Phila, PA.

Wed-Sun-- 12-6 pm.

Mt. Airy Art Garage is poised to be part of this year's Night Market in Mt. Airy

in mid-August---I will be in that when plans solidify! Last year's Night Market

Crafts Sale Season Ramps Up!

And me along with it!! I will have my Rad T's and scarves (new colors, new stuff!) at Mt. Airy Day on Saturday 5/5/12, 11am to 5pm, on the Cliveden Mansion grounds, 6400 Germantown Avenue, Phila., PA.
Also in the spring Book Party in CBS Auditorium at 320 S. Broad St.,
              Phila., PA., Tues., 5/8/12 4-7pm
     And, I will be at “Art for The Cash Poor”, Friday, 6/8/12 pm and Saturday 6/9/12, all day
at the Crane Building, 1400 N. American St., Phila., PA --more details to come!

Laser Cuts --a new toy for relief printing on shirts!

Wow, a new year and new images to print!
I just had some laser-cuts made onto thin sheets of
masonite.
The laser follows a vector path from a digital image and
burns away the masonite or other suitable material, so
the artist doesn't have to grind or cut a matrix-- but of course, there is an extra cost to doing it via laser!
I plan to print these onto T-shirts, using my
lovely Brand etching press and water-base fabric inks.
The detail obtained by the laser cutting is very fine.
This will entail some careful inking and printing.
However, I feel that printing onto fabric with these textural images will be forgiving enough. I may still mix it up with screenprinting too.
At right is a preliminary ink-up of one of my images,
with a sweet new brayer I just received.
The masonite is inked up in red for contrast--(I like it because the building almost looks like it's on fire here.)
At the top is the drawing the laser cut came from.
This is a drawing based on my daily train commute on
the Chestnut Hill East Regional Rail Line to my neighborhood of Mt. Airy. The building shown is an abandoned factory, the Van Straaten and Havey Building, built in 1919, near the Wayne Junction station and the Wayne Mills textile buildings, (which are still in operation). I have been studying this building in passing for the past 3 years, drawing and photographing it. I love its beautiful crashed-in skylight, and its massive piers built into the spaces between the windows. It reminds me of a heat-sink with cooling fins. Actual prints onto shirts soon to come!
Postscript: As of November 2012, this building was actually torn down. I am so bummed out about that; but it was probably best, for the safety of the neighborhood at large..... and perhaps another nice
space will eventually be built in its place. However, now I am very happy that I thought to preserve the image and memory of this building in my artwork!!

It is still about the body/Back in Time/Time is of the essence...

This was my MFA show postcard image from December 2003.
These pieces were body-printed by me onto leather
with white latex paint.
(I read a lot about Yves Klein, but opted to
run my entire show myself!)
They were intermediate steps to my final
thesis installation (which was a similar
project, except the body prints were done on
flat black 16"x16" patio pavers, which were then
smashed and strewn around the floor).
My work at the time of entrance into graduate school involved me making constructed-surface found-object wearable art, and doing performance (mostly singing) while wearing this work.
It changed halfway through, to being more concerned with
installations documenting the fleeting nature of
our bodies' existence, hence the title of the
installation, “Perishable.” It was a particular challenge to find the best metaphor
in the materials and their placement to express this concept.
For many years, however, and all during my grad school time, I see the main thread
has been my addressing the body in some way--
as my T-shirts now do, in the form of wearable prints.
Sometimes it is necessary to take a brief look back to better know the path ahead.