I will be holding space and tabling for the Chicago Printers Guild at Chicago Art Department on Saturday, Dec 10. 11 pm – 8 pm Come out and see over 20 plus artists’ and printers’ work!
Detroit Art Book Fair 2022
Another fantastic Detroit Art Book Fair is in the books! I enjoyed tabling with is Press for the first time due to COVID in 3 years! We've collaborated for over a decade. Getting to sling printed matter with my droog felt great.
The Detroit Art Book Fair is an annual event that takes place in Detroit's Eastern Market neighborhood. Each year, the fair brings together dozens of independent publishers, artists, writers, and collectors to present their books, zines, and prints to the public.
Thank you all for the support.
DETROIT ART BOOK FAIR VIII
Flatlands Press Detroit Tour 2022 October
We will be traveling to Detroit this October.
Oct 15, 12pm-6pm Oct 16, 12pm-4pm
The Detroit Art Book Fair is an annual event that takes place in Detroit's Eastern Market neighborhood. Each year, the fair brings together dozens of independent publishers, artists, writers, and collectors to present their books, zines, and prints to the public.
Founded in 2013, the fair eventually moved to Trinosophes, where it remains today
Trinosophes
1464 Gratiot Ave
Detroit USA
Zinemercado at Comfort Station 2022
I had a blast Zinemercado at Comfort Station.
Flatlands Press tabled with @chicagoprintersguild this year, offering Guild members an opportunity to share their work at this RAD venue.
We released LEXICONS by Rubén Aguirre and sold out of all the copies we had on hand. The good news is, that it's still available at Flatlands Press online store (HERE)
Special shout out to Alkebuluan @alkebuluanm of The Black Matriarch Archive, who held down the table with Jack Spector-Bishop and myself. Alkebuluan sold her own work and was featured in this year's Zinemercado zine.
LEXICONS
in Artist Book
LEXICONS Rubén Aguirre
LEXICONS is a hardbound book by Rubén Aguirre, designed and published by Flatlands Press and partially funded by the National Museum of Mexican Art. Photographs by Analumaria Lopez, Ruben Cantu, and Michael Tropea. It includes a selection of murals, paintings, and sketches curated by the artist and an interview by Brandon Johnson of Almighty & Insane Books. Additionally, the book comes with a companion zine of exploration sketches and abstracted forms for Ruben’s paintings.
Order Now
Zinemercado at Comfort Station
LUZ: SEEING THE SPACE BETWEEN US
Long-time Pilsen artist Diana Solís is publishing a photo book, Luz: Seeing the Space Between Us, marking her return to photography after 2 decades. New portraits of Solís’ home & community, along with reproductions of her archival photos, will appear in the book which will be published by Flatlands Press and launched on September 24 of this year at the National Museum of Mexican Art. This project was made possible by 3Arts and donors to the 3Arts Project (3AP). In the forward to the book, photography writer and art historian Deanna Ledezma (Ph.D., Art History, UIC) writes, “The bilingual title Luz: Seeing the Space Between Us evokes light (or luz in Spanish) in multiple forms. For Solís, whose practice began with analog photography, the word will always be associated with how a photograph, at its origins, is a record of light emanating onto light-sensitive material. [It] can also be interpreted as a project brought into being by a longing for lightness during the pandemic and a wish to reconnect with communities temporarily disassembled.” In her introduction, Solís says that “these portraits became moments of reemergence for those of us in Pilsen. By coming together with friends and community members in this way, I called on the sensibilities I have developed as a teaching artist working with youth and adults in classroom and community settings since 1979.” Diana Solís is a Mexican-born visual artist, photographer, and educator whose work includes painting, illustration, printmaking, comics, public murals, and installation. She is inspired by Mexican and Chicano culture, memory, cautionary tales, oral and personal histories, queer identities, and narratives. It was the 70’s at Casa Aztlan Solís and as part of Mujeres Latinas en Accion (MLEA) that Solís got her start as an artist and as a teaching artist who is committed to sharing her knowledge and process in collaboration with youth, immigrant families, and adults and supporting them to create art from their perspectives.
To learn more about the book follow @pilsenita on Instagram or go to
Community Care Day In Harrison Park
Join volunteers from the Love Fridge Network, Saturday, July 23rd in Harrison Park for a day of community care.
Please join us in the park from 1-4 pm. We will share fresh cold-pressed juices while we discuss updates including opportunities for food rescue and new additions to the network.
If you’ve been wondering how to get involved, or are involved already and want to do more — come to the park and say "Hello". Hear from current volunteers, ask questions, and get your boots on the ground! See y’all there.
Peace
Alkebuluan Merriweather talks to Sixty Inches From Center.
Alkebuluan Merriweather, founder of homagetoblkmadonnas talks with Sixty Inches from the Center about their practice and sharing archival work on social media. Read the full article here.
Alkebuluan Merriweather. Photo by Samantha Cabrera Friend.
New Prints by Alkebuluan Merriweather.
3 limited edition prints of Alkebuluan Merriweather’s collages: Finally Free, Black Girl Take Pride In Your Hoods, and For Black Girls Who Dream of Space, are now available.
For Black Girls Who Dream of Space
Finally Free
Black Girl Take Pride In Your Hoods
Edgar Serrano: Rumors of My Demise.
Flatlands had the pleasure of collaborating with a peer and comrade, Edgar Serrano on a limited edition 4 color risograph posters. The prints are based on an image from Edgar Serrano's artist book: Rumors of My Demise. The book was released at the show's opening on October 30, 2021. This Limited Edition print is only available through Brief Histories (whiles supplies last).
In a recent interview with Brandon Johnson of Zingmagazine, Edgar talks about his latest show.
Brief Histories /Rumors of My Demise: Press release
Rumors of My Demise
Edgar Serrano's artist book, Rumors of My Demise, published by Brief Histories Press (2021) is a limited-edition visual anthology of Serrano’s research, inspirations, and interests – from cultural icons and anthropology pages to street life, memes, screen savers, and ideologies of the individual.
Brief Histories
115 Bowery, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10002 USA
Gallery hours: Wed-Sat 12 pm–6 pm and by appointment.
www.briefhistories.art
gallery@briefhistories.art
+1 (347) 951-0267
Instagram @brief_histories
2nd Edition of Black Matriarch Zine is now available!
The second edition of Volume One of the Black Matriarch Zine is now available. The First edition sold out and we are happy to be able to continue to distribute Alkebuluan Merriweather’s tribute to the Archive of Black Matriarchs.
“Thank you to everyone that purchased the first round of zines. We raised $638. Donations were made towards 360 Nation, Black Art Library, and three incarcerated individuals whom I work with within the Illinois Deaths in Custody Project.
The next round of zines will be used to continue the archival work of Homagetoblkmadonnas. A donation will be made towards Brave Space Alliance once we officially sell out.
Brave Space Alliance is the first Black-led, trans-led LGBTQ+ Center located on the South Side of Chicago, dedicated to creating and providing affirming, culturally competent, for-us by-us resources, programming, and services for LGBTQ+ individuals on the South and West sides of the city.” ~ Alkebulaun Merriweather
Terrain Biennial 2021
Echoes: Sight, Sound, Touch is featured this year in the Terrain Biennial.
Projections can be viewed on Saturdays and Sundays from 7–9 pm,
October 2nd - November 15th, 2021
Echoes: Sight, Sound, Touch is a collaboration between Eric von Haynes and Lisa Armstrong. A call-and-response between the artists, the work tracks growth and healing over time. The installation explores the forms of sound, light, and print in the reconstruction of memories.
An Exploration in Slow media, images that evoke memories are distilled and sequenced for projections in space. The artists interlaced tones from plant biofeedback, as well as field recordings, to create a layered soundscape resonating with the floating images in space.
The work asks, how are memories stored in the mundane? How do we grow and heal over time? And what are the memory markers that help us construct meaning?
Lisa Armstrong is a multi-disciplinary designer, artist, and instructor Her work focuses primarily on themes of time, space, motion, and the tensions between artificial and emotional intelligence. She currently teaches as a Lecturer of Visual Communication at Loyola University Chicago, where she serves as Co-Director for the Ralph Arnold Gallery. She also performs as part of the electronic music collective, Chandeliers.
Founded in 2007, Flatlands Press is owned and operated by Eric Von Haynes. Eric is an artist, whose work synthesizes old and new printing methods and aesthetics. While design and printmaking are his passions, he is energized by collaborations and the ideas and challenges that come from working with a community. Flatlands has created art objects and printed ephemera for artists worldwide. One of the core tenets at Flatlands Press is community building and making the invisible visible.
LETTERS TO CHICAGO: AN EXHIBITION
presented by Almighty & Insane Books
at Co-Prosperity, 3219 S Morgan, Chicago, IL
August 6 - 8, 2021
Friday, August 6
Gallery hours, 12-7pm
Saturday, August 7
Gallery hours, 12-7pm
Sir Charles book signing & exhibition reception, 5-8pm
Sunday, August 8
Gallery hours, 12-5pm
Mario “Liv It Up” Luna book signing & afternoon of house music, 1-4pm
In 2019, Sir Charles and Almighty & Insane Books collaborated with risograph printer Flatlands Press to create the book Letters To Chicago. Within its pages Sir Charles's lettering work is paired with mid-20th century photographs from the archives of Chicago’s Urban Renewal Department. Documenting the process of identifying “blighted” buildings/neighborhoods and targeting them for destruction/replacement, these photos preserve images of bygone structures in the oldest parts of the city. This initiative displaced many from their homes for the sake of municipal infrastructure projects, a new university campus, public housing, and private real estate developments. With a mind to current parallels, Sir Charles’s letters, symbols, and messages ghost through this history demonstrating a new lettering mode combining calligraphy with graffiti hand-styles that is both deeply indebted to and an integral product of his native city of Chicago.
This exhibition celebrates Letters To Chicago through a display of its individual pages on the walls of Co-Prosperity to continue a conversation around this history and related subjects of identity, displacement, and community. To support and deepen the historical context, ephemera from the archive of Almighty & Insane Books will be on view, including a small selection of social athletic club dance cards from 1901 to 1930 and gang compliment cards from 1960 to 1980, along with 1980s Chicago house music memorabilia courtesy of DJ Mario "Liv It Up" Luna. There will also be an archive of Made In Chi-Town With Love apparel designs on display, representing a contemporary small creative business from Chicago founded by Sir Charles and Michelle Vega, who teamed up to create a brand to continue the dialogue of inner city challenges many of our youth continue to face. Their brand has grown widely and their story has now reached international levels, but has never lost its focus or message.
Finally, there will be new works on canvas by Sir Charles, following in and expanding on a series of “scrolls” he made in 2020. These commission-based scrolls incorporated messages of unity, love, forgiveness, and growth, hand-lettered in ink over patches of paint and other pigments on loose canvas. The new work will reflect an evolution of this process, and a movement forward from the original Letters To Chicago project in which the exhibition is rooted.
Echoes: Sight, Sound, and Touch
Lisa Armstrong and Eric Von Haynes: Echoes: Sight, Sound, and Touch
Echoes: Sight, Sound, and Touch on Saturday, July 17th opened at Boundary; collaboration with Lisa Armstrong. Since the world reopened, my first exhibition was a pleasure working with Lisa and creating a space and vibe with them. The audience and space are bathed in warm hues from the projected images created using risograph prints and a gift is offered to all that attend the show.
Seed paper that will sprout wheatgrass and a flipbook is offered.
July 17 - September 4, 2021
Echoes: Sight, Sound, and Touch is a collaboration between Lisa Glenn Armstrong and Flatlands
A call-and-response between the artists, the work tracks growth and healing over time.
The installation explores the forms of sound, light, and print in the reconstruction of memories.
An Exploration in Slow media, images that evoke memories are distilled and sequenced for projections in space. The artists interlaced tones from plant biofeedback and field recordings to create a layered soundscape resonating with the floating images in space.
Handmade seed paper is an offering to participants during the exhibit to take and grow at home. Documenting changes over time in plant matter, the work asks, how are memories stored in the mundane? How do we grow and heal over time? And what are the memory markers that help us construct meaning?
The show is on view every Saturday by appointment thru 9/4
Grab a flipbook and some seed paper upon your visit.
Peace.
Future Days Masks
Flatlands Press in collaboration with our sister studio, Hoofprint, has created a series of four screenprints. This series is a study of Masks inspired by meditations and reflections on the ancestors. They are meant to reveal more than they obscure and attempt to bridge the future and the past. The first mask in the series, The Seeker, is available to purchase and all proceeds minus the cost of shipping ($20) go towards the Raise It Up Fundraiser sponsored by CPG, on behalf of the South Side Community Art Center. This fundraiser will provide improvements to the ceiling and lighting in the Dr. Margaret Burroughs Gallery.
The South Side Community Art Center (SSCAC) is the oldest independently-owned African American art center in the United States. Founded by Margaret Burroughs and other African-American artists in 1940, the SSCAC boasts connections to printmakers Charles White and Elizabeth Catlett, photographer Gordon Parks, and the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize, Gwendolyn Brooks.
To learn more go to Raise It Up! CPG for South Side Community Art Center
The Black Matriarch Archive Zine vol. 1
Volume One of the Black Matriarch Zine is now available!
The Goal of the Black Matriarch Zine is to honoring black women and the role they play in shaping black families, as matriarchs. Members of the African diaspora submit images and video documentation of black elders, whether they may be grandmothers, great-aunts, godmothers, or caregivers. The goal: “to create an ongoing archive commemorating the black women in our lives who were crucial in our upbringing.” ~ Alkebuluan Merriweather
20% of the proceeds made from this publication will go mailing zines to the incarcerated in Illinois and to the Illinois Deaths in Custody Project. Illinois Deaths in Custody Project seeks to document, archive, highlight and mourn the deaths of all people in custody in Illinois.
Alkebuluan Merriweather is a Chicago based artist, zine maker, an unconventional archivist in training, and image-maker. In May of 2019, she received her bachelor’s degree in Art History from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Currently, she is a graduate student within the Museum and Exhibition Studies program at UIC. Her practice often derives from personal narratives and as a Black woman she views art as a form of self-care and therapy. Alkebuluan aspires to be the second Black woman Doctorate within her family. She hopes to pursue a Ph.D. degree in either Black Studies, English, or History. Alkebuluan is also the founder of the Black Matriarch Archive. Black Matriarch Archive seeks to create an ongoing record commemorating the black women in our lives who were crucial in our upbringing. Image by Patrick Lentz
Flatlands Press in collaboration with our sister press Hoofprint Press is creating the next print in a series of masks that I began in 2016. This print will pay homage to the work of AfriCobra and will be available for purchase in the next few weeks. Proceeds from the sale of the print will go to the Raise It Up Fundraiser Sponsored by CPG, on behalf of the South Side Community Art Center. This fundraiser will provide improvements to the ceiling and lighting in the Dr. Margaret Burroughs Gallery. The South Side Community Art Center (SSCAC) is the oldest independently-owned African American art center in the United States. Founded by Margaret Burroughs and other African-American artists in 1940, the SSCAC boasts connections to printmakers Charles White and Elizabeth Catlett, photographer Gordon Parks, and the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize, Gwendolyn Brooks.
Pictured prints are previous Mask in the series.
Chicago Love Fridge Tote Bag Fundraiser
The Love Fridge Tote Bag
To raise funds toward the continued mission to provide food around the chicago area, WE have created a Tote to raise awareness and offer donors a keepsake.
Designed by Lisa Armstrong and Printed at Bitmap Press.
Donations for the Totes have closed. Thank you for all the support!
Support the Love fridge via our Open collective page.
Beautiful Day at Comfort Station / ZINEmercado 2020
Thank you, Chicago for all the support today at ZINEmercado #zinemercado2020! Great DJ sets amplified what was a beautiful fall day in Comfort Station.
Sold out of many titles, which made packing up a breeze.
Oscar & Pablo
Chema Skandal! hanging prints
The Love Fridge Magnets
