The Art Bus, and Printmaking … with road repair equipment!

Spent a lovely Saturday afternoon on the Art Bus Tour! It was great to see such a range of work in one afternoon – print media at SNAP, the Member’s Show and “Naked” Show (figurative works) at Harcourt House, then down the highway to Sherwood Park, and finally back to SNAP for some festivities …

The exhibition at Sherwood Park’s Gallery @ 501 was terrific … I attended the opening on Friday, but found myself eager to spend more time with the exhibition. My congrats to Sean Caulfield and Royden Mills for a beautiful, thought-provoking body of work. Well worth the trip!

The tour ended up at SNAP, and their Block Out Fundraiser … which is where the road repair equipment and printmaking come in!

The ingenious April Dean, Executive Director of SNAP, managed to secure a permit to block off a bit of Jasper Avenue so that some large-scale prints – 4′ x 8′ – could be inked and printed with an asphalt roller!

It was actually quite exciting to see this whole process from start to finish … there were some moments where I think most of us were holding our breath, hoping that nothing happened to the plates under all that weight. And of course, it’s always exciting to see a print being pulled – it’s the ‘great reveal’ that comes at the end of all the time and effort spent creating the plate  -but it was especially so with such large work!

There was also great music, food, and drink at the event, and a sale and silent auction of some beautiful (and cheeky) print works … including “art critic panties” (which I hope I won)!

All in all, a great art-filled day!

I’m looking forward to all the other art events this summer, including the next tour, coming up in July! I don’t think there will be steam rollers involved (m)any of those, but who knows … might run into some road construction, which won’t be nearly as fun.