Featured Artist, Kyle Smith

      I went to Kyle several months ago with my idea for the The Black-Eyed Press and asked if he might be interested in helping me to build a local collaborative printmaking studio. I didn't know if I should expect much, but I had an eager reception and lots of enthusiasm. I know printing is a huge part of creating "The Life You Love' for Kyle. I've know this young talented artist through our art classes together at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside and better through interactions and critiques in Parkside's printshop. Kyle is very dedicated sometimes spending hours with a saw shaping copper plates, trust me this takes a dedication most of us don't have. Since he understands the print equipment through serving as the shop technician there, it makes perfect sense for him to slide into a leadership role as the Shop Guy at the Black-Eyed Press LLC. I promise you will all come to appreciate this young man, his straight-forward technique and his passion for printmaking. Read-on and if you have the chance please post a welcome aboard to Kyle.

To the Point:The Artist Statement for Kyle Smith

On average, I’m no ordinary artist by any means.  Knowing as many artists as I do, I know that I am different in how I see artwork and how although I may like some artist’s work, but I never really let it influence any of my work.  As to having no real outside influences, almost all of my work is based off of my life and events in it. When people look at my work the message or purpose usually is pretty obvious because that’s how I like to work. When I look at other art work, I like the ones that are easier to interpret and to the point, so that’s what I use for my art. I became an artist because it is the one true way I have always been able to express myself through something instead of my words. Throughout high school and the start of my college experience I was mainly focused in following my older brother’s footsteps into graphic design. It was until my 3^rd year in college that I started taking printmaking, and my interest shifted from the computer to the print lab.  But before this and along side of this, I have also grown to appreciate many other types of studio art including working with wood to make furniture and metals to make chain mail.

            After learning all they processes in the print lab, I established a fondness of Intaglio using copper plates and relief with linoleum plates. My passion is more with the intaglio printing, not only am I allowed to use my computer still to create images that I want to put onto a copper plate, but since I have never had great hand drawing skills I am able to trace a drawing of mine and transfer it directly to the copper and etch it into the plate making a perfect image that I couldn’t have drawn by hand. Any printmaker knows that there are two ways to put an image onto a copper plate one with dry etching which involves just directly free handing your image onto the copper and acid techniques which I am more fond of because the put a deeper line into the copper and you can make so many shades and textures on the image making it more realistic. Mainly I like my images when they are just the basic line etch because I am usually unsure of how using other techniques will change how my image looks.

            While creating my work, I like to document each step so I can see how the work that I am doing effects what I already had on the copper. In order to do this I take a picture of each proof that I make so that in the end I can show people what I did and how many steps it took to get it how it ended up. With every image, as I said before, is usually a part of my life with some images being on smaller scrapes of copper just random pictures that I just come up with on the spot. As my future with printmaking continues, I wish to be able to be a little more expressive with my works and work on my recent line of holiday cards that are pretty generic to say the least so that the buyer can personalize them for whoever they want them for or for a small fee I can paint them and personalize them for them. Whatever comes of it, I know that I will be printing for as long as I can while working on other forms of art on the side as a hobby.