Printshops in Canada
Barbara Beisinghoff

Je me souviens
Je me souviens is written on every car licence plate in Québec. Je me souviens de mon séjour a Val David 2002. Val David is an artists' village not far from Montreal with well known artists like Bonnie Baxter, Rene Derouin, Jocelyne Aird-Bélanger and the glass making artists Donald Robertson and Susan Edgerley.
At the Atelier de l'île I worked with Paul Ballard and created the series Saffron Pinions with handmade papers (102 x 76 cm). The Saffron coloured rag pulp was poured onto a floating screen and on the atelier's vacuum table.
Water was extracted and letters were stencilled in pulp.
In 2004 I used this technique for my installation Wörtersee (Lake of Words) in Darmstadt.
I pressed words of poems in pulp - made from beech cellulose - onto the stems of beech trees and on the leaves of water lilies and transformed a forest and lake into a book of poems.
My Canadian collaborator, Paul Ballard's own work consists of a treasure archive of tiny books with sophisticated ideas and bendings, its name: Atelier de Poche. 2007 he was invited to the Lithographie printshop Eichstätt in Germany (www.nonbook.ku.eichstaett.de).

Mai 2006 was Mois de L'Art Imprime au Québec and I was invited to Atelier
Circulaire (www.atelier-circulaire.qc.ca), Montreal for a lecture about my artwork. Since most artists talk about their lithographs and etchings, the audience was especially interested in my watermark papers and translucent installations like Clairevoyant’s Space a response to Christa Wolf's novel Cassandra.
85 artists are members of Atelier Circulaire. Some of them have their own rooms in the atelier: René Donais specialized on huge etchings. Isabelle Desjardins told me about the famous Kurotani papermaking village in Japan and worked with the Kobayashi family in Kadoide village in Niigata region.
Manuel Lau, Canadian artist who was born in Lima, exhibits his colourful woodcuts throughout the world. (www.manuel-lau.net ) Maria Chronopoulos, the director, will come to the Frans Masereel Center in Belgium in August 2006. (www.wvc.vlaanderen.be/fransmasereelcentrum)
The atelier has an exchange with the Open Studio in Toronto (www.openstudio.on.ca) and with Concordia University, the one of the four universities in Montreal which has the best printmaking facilities in Montreal.
The Canadian printshops are run by local artists and invite artists from near and abroad. Printmakers can apply for a residency. Printshops are supported by members' fees, by municipal grants, provincial grants, and the Canadian Council of the Arts. Another great place to do printmaking in Canada is Malaspina Printmakers Society (MPS) in Vancouver. (www.malaspinaprintmakers.com )

Atelier Circulaire is situated in Rue Gaspe in Montreal's most vibrant quarter, Mile's End.
I had a chance to witness Montreal's Museums Day. At the CCA, the Canadien
Centre for Architecture I witnessed Sense of the City offering a sensorial approach to the city.
In the Museum of Fine Arts of Montreal Brian Jungen's masks were on show. Brian Jungen is a young first nations person, whose masks are made from Nike sportswear. The preceding exhibition had shown Anselm Kiefer's work.
At the MAI, Montreal's Intercultural Arts Centre, Pablo Neruda's El Fugitivo was transferred into a movement from the darkest corner of the theatre to the open night sky, where the public sat on the sidewalk of the street, while the performer climbed down the façade from the roof of the building.

Lucky NBC (Newfoundlander by Choice)
For the month of June 2006 I am artist in residence at St. Michael's Print Shop in St. John's, Newfoundland. You pronounce: [Njufenlend] like understand.
Newfoundland and Labrador is written on every car license plate. The government of this province is in St. Johns. From the printshop’s windows I have the most marvellous view to Signal Hill with Cabot Tower. On the other side of the Harbour the green-white-red flag of independent Newfoundland is flying on South Side Hills. Newfoundland had been an independent country for 79 years after having been a British colony. Newfoundland is the youngest
province in Canada.
www.heritage.nf.ca People in Newfoundland are proud of
their beautiful country and of the vast amount of artists in their country.
There is another flag flying St. John's, Cultural Capital of Canada 2006.
St. John's is host of the Magnetic North Theatre Festival this year and the Sound Symposium Festival will follow.
Apart of these festivals live music is on stage every night at The Ship or in other places of town. A speciality in Newfoundland is the lively culture of storytelling.
In the Crow's Nest, formerly an Officer's Club, the St. John's Storytelling Circle is gathering and is open to lovers of a good yarn.
I like the old town. I have never in my artists' residencies been invited to so many houses to have tea or a dinner with fresh lobster or to look at artwork. I got to know the writers Kevin Major and Bernice Morgan. Kevin's children's book Ann and Seamus was set on stage as opera and his novel No Man's Land is performed in Trinity at The Rising Tide Theatre. During the film of Bernice Morgan's novel Random Passage a movie set was installed in Bonaventura on Bonavista Peninsula, which you can visit.
I stay with the artist Pam Hall in a magical house, where purple finches build
nests from ribbons and threads and where dancers appear all of a sudden out of
a trunk www.neighbourhooddanceworks.com.

Every morning I walk from Monkstown Street to the Georgetown Bakery in Maxse Street and from there downtown to Harbour Drive with a fresh poppy seed bagel.
Summer is the time of restoration for the colourful Victorian clapboard houses. At the moment a painter on a scaffold brushes radiant light blue on the facade to our Printshop. Downstairs is the Eastern Edge Gallery and around the corner the Leyton Gallery.
St. Michael's is member of the Maritime and Atlantic Printmakers Society MAAPS and invites 6 artists for residencies each summer: three Newfoundlanders, two Canadians and an international artist. I was the lucky NBC from abroad 2006.
Each artist in residence offers a workshop. Last month's artist introduced the photo transfer technique. I worked on the viscosity technique on intaglio plates.
The etching press and the table, where I rub and roll inks onto copper plates is next to the high window in front of the harbour and when I look up I see Rebel's Pride, Newfoundland Explorer and Cruise Hanseatic with their red light colour balls, entering and leaving the Atlantic Ocean by the Narrows.
Many people stroll along to look at the most spectacular ships such as the North Cruise expedition ship Lyubov Orlova, which was heading towards the Arctic.
Beside the spectacular view St. Michael's has got further treasures: enormous lithography stones, a rich variety of rollers and helpful artists, who are around the NBC: Ya-Ling Huang and Jennifer Morgan.
Ya-Ling, Taiwan-born Canadian artist does field study about keys in lithography. She got a
scholarship at St. Michael's for this year and is an ambitious photographer. Jennifer Morgan is mentoring the printshop and the visiting artist program.
She established a healthy alternative instead of penetrating solvents to clean up inks: an emulsion of vinegar and oil.
St. Michael's Board of Directors has hired Mike Connolly as director. He and his wife Tia take care of the printshop and its artists. Tara Tidwell Bryan makes outstanding artists books (www.TaraBryan.com) and Scott Goudie mezzotints. Scott has been two times invited to Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin.
On 30th June the last day of my residency, I printed up to 12 pm. I have completed seventeen editions, each consisting of a bunch of 30 sheets from 28 small plates for an artists book Wenn Bilder ver-rückt werden oder Mit Goethe den Farbenkreis durchlaufen (To run through the colour circle).
Further interesting websites for artists books, paper and printmaking in USA and Canada: www.wsworkshop.org
www.snapartists.com
www.dieudonne.org
1st July, Canada Day: Sunrise ceremony, candles and fireworks at Quidi Vidi Lake. It is hot but there is always a fresh wind in NL. Summertime’s mild weather may extend up to September, while May and June tend to be rainy. Winters have snow but are not as cold as in mainland Canada.
In Newfoundland's new museum The Rooms ( www.therooms.ca) the art of Christopher Pratt is on show. Another exhibition shows Labrador born Michael Massie's elaborately etched silver teapots and Janet Cardiff's sound installation.
St. John's also is home to Memorial University of Newfoundland. (www.mun.ca)
I met Kent Jones, who teaches printmaking at Sir Wilfred Grenfell, MUN's Corner Brook campus, on the west coast of the island. There are so many reasons to be NBC! Newfoundland is not a crossroad. It is a destination.

Neufundland, Flucht- und Angelpunkt
Der Bildhauer Luben Boykov ( www.culpturebyLuben.com )und die Malerin Elena Popova aus Bulgarien suchten 1990 politisches Asyl in Neufundland, als ihr russisches Flugzeug auf dem Weg nach Cuba in Gander auftankte.
Im Flughafen von St. Johns steht Luben Boykovs Skulptur Embrace, die an die vielen Tausend Menschen erinnert, die nach der Katastrophe am 11. September 2001 auf den Flughäfen von Neufundland und Labrador Zuflucht fanden, nachdem alle amerikanischen Flughäfen gesperrt waren.
In L’Anse aux Meadows überragt seine Skulptur Meeting of two Worlds den Siedlungsplatz. der Wikinger unter Leif Eriksson, den Sohn von Erich, dem Roten und erinnert an die erste europäische Landnahme um 1000 n.Chr.
1497 landete der Europäer, John Cabot (anglisiert; ital. Giovanni Caboto) mit seinem Segelschiff Matthew in Bonavista und nannte das neu gefundene Land newe founde islande. (Neufundland_und_Labrador)

Neufundland – so groß wie Deutschland – hat nur ca. 500 000 Einwohner.
8.500 davon zählen sich zu den Mi'kmaq, das heißt 'my kin-friends.' Die Mi'kmaq-Kultur war im Winter abhängig von den Caribous im Innern der Insel. Erst nach deren Dezimierung wurden 1885 durch die Immigranten Elche auf die Insel gebracht. http://www.geocities.com/pilip/reserve.htm) Der Siedlungsschwerpunkt der Mi’kmaq liegt in Zentralneufundland an der Mündung des Conne River. In kalten Wintern fahren Schneemobile oder Pickups über die zugefrorene Bucht nach Bay d’Espoir oder St. Albans. Conne River (Aosamiaji’jij Miawpukek) wurde 1987 vom kanadischen Staat als Reservation anerkannt. Die ‚First Nation People’ dort brauchen keine Benzinsteuer zu bezahlen und werden für ihre Arbeit für die Gemeinschaft bezahlt. An jedem ersten Juliwochenende seit 11 Jahren findet in Conne River ein Powwow (=Schamane) statt mit farbenprächtigem Grand Entry.
Von dem Powwow hatte ich vom Master Printer für Lithographie in St. Michael’s Printshop Jerry Evans gehört. Er hat erst als Heranwachsender von seiner Zugehörigkeit zu diesem Stamm erfahren. Inzwischen ist das Selbstbewusstsein dieser Nation gewachsen und die Kinder in Conne River lernen die Mi’kmac Sprache in der Schule. Der Inuit Stan, der aus Labrador zum Powwow gekommen war, sagt mir die Zahlenreihe auf deutsch. Die Herrnhuter Missionare (Moravian) haben ihn das gelehrt.
Um Neufundland fließt der Labradorstrom, der im Sommer driftende Eisberge mit sich führt und im Südosten bei den fischreichen Neufundlandbänken auf den Golfstrom trifft, was seit alters her Fischfangflotten aus der alten und neuen Welt anzieht. Der Kabeljau (Dorsch= cod) war bislang die Haupteinnahmequelle der Neufundländer in den unzähligen malerischen abgelegenen Fischerhäfen (Outports) mit natürlichen Hafenbecken wie Harbour Breton und Fortune im Süden, Salvage im Norden und Brigus in Conception Bay.
Zu den Sommergästen Neufundlands zählen Humpback Wale, die gut am Kap Bonavista beobachtet werden können zusammen mit Paradiestauchern (Puffin), die in Erdhöhlen auf Felsen brüten. Die Wale tummeln sich am Ufer, wenn Wogen von Sardinen (Caplins) die Küsten im Juli erreichen.
Ständiger Gast ist der Wind. Im Westen gibt es Blow Me Down Mountains (Blas-Mich-Runter-Berge) und Dächer brauchen in Neufundland nicht steil gebaut zu werden, weil Regen und Schnee horizontal darauf fallen.