Printmaking in Quebec

The ateliers at Engramme are located in the Sainte – Roch quarter, one of Quebec City’s oldest nieghbourhoods. Though it used to be a district of immigrants, artisans and workers it has been in the process of transforming itself into what Soho is to New York. Like the art district of the Big Apple, the quarter was once an area of factory buildings. ‘Wall – Dog” murals abounded in the industrial area when tobacco ads for Sweet Caporal cigarettes and other ads covered large expanses of brick wall. These days, that part of the city is revitalized. Ste. Joseph Street has miles of bookshops, theatres and shops where every form of craft can be purchased. I found a good source of canvas and other art supplies. There is a nearby art college as well. It was built in an old corset factory.
The Dufferin Expressway cut through the district in the late sixties and left a scar. The nineteen – seventies and early eighties was a dark period as everything moved out to the malls and the ‘burbs’. Nobody lived in the district then, but by the late eighties, revitalization had begun. The train station and waterfront was given a facelift. A farmers market installed and even the overpasses were adorned with colourful murals. A large garden and park filled an empty lot and warehouses became offices, stores, galleries and artists’ lofts.
There are two hundred artists’ studios in the area. I visited one belonging to Manon Bourdon who showed me her etchings and etching press. She now owns the loft on the top floor of an old factory building, which she purchased through a condominium plan that favours long term, low payments. Though the stairs to the studio are an exhausting climb, the view from the large window is worth it. No one in Quebec City needs a gym. Just ascending the steep hills and the thousands of steps that often separate the streets by massive cliffs would keep anyone in shape. Manon was very proud of her etching press, which she told me she had bought for three thousand dollars. It resembled and is likely an early version of the Praga presses we use at the P.E.I. studio.
Manon is an artist who exhibits both nationally and internationally. Her prints are very impressive some exceeding six feet in length, printed in sections. Her subject has often been sirens and I was very much excited by these massive dimensions and the quality and texture of her work in black and white. All this energy from a tiny elfin person on a comparatively small etching press. Manon would be an outstanding artist anywhere. She was just one of the many talented artists I had met on my stay in the city.
Manon was also very helpful in aiding my communication skills in French. It is my belief that a French-speaking person trying to learn English has an advantage. The Francophone trying to speak English is forgiven all mistakes because they sound so sexy. While the Anglo trying to speak French just sounds stupid! This is only a theory. I found nothing but helpfulness, understanding and tolerance from everyone I met, despite my language handicap.

Le Complexe Meduse

Engramme is located between Cote d’ Abraham and Sainte – Vallier Street. It is a part of the Complexe Meduse. The complex includes nine renovated buildings. My apartment was on the sixth floor, half way up a steep hill near the park and a television station. This complex was part of the catalyst for the ’artistic intrusion’. There are studios and galleries for music, photography, painting and printmaking as well as publishers and offices for arts organizations. Cafes and restaurants also are



Part of the wedge shaped buildings that are joined in much the same way as the NSCAD waterfront buildings. These changes have brought over six thousand people to the distinct, described by many as a hive of activity both day and night.

Printmaking at Engramme

I have saved this section for the last because I wanted to set the stage and describe how the arts has brought new life to this part of the city and has transformed a dying district for new activities that boost the economy through tourism while at the same time benefiting the arts community. The Charlottetown community could learn lessons. There is more to the economy of tourism than red – headed kids and long – dead politicians in top hats.
I diverse, printmaking is what I was there to do in this beautiful city of Quebec. Partly because of the weather and the fact that I wanted to devote myself to the job at hand, I saw very little of the many art galleries and concert halls. It snowed and was cold during the fortnight of my stay. It can be very hard to get around in such times and as a result I saw very little of the active community life there in Sainte – Roch.
The Engramme Gallery is at the sharp end of the wedge. It is lit by large, floor to ceiling windows on both sides. Movable panels are used as walls to display the art. Denise Pelletier’s etchings were displayed there in an exhibit she calls ‘ Pli et Pluie ‘. Her prints have a beautiful Zen- like quality to them and showed clearly the power of black and white. They were beautifully hung and I felt her work is of very high quality. She is one of the artists whom I shared the etching studio with on a daily basis. Each morning she traveled an hour and a half by bus and devoted the entire day to inking and printing her work. I learned a lot about traditional use of tarlatan and the careful wiping of the plates that gave the beautiful tonal texture of her work. She is one of over a hundred artists who are members of the studio complex. They pay one hundred dollars annually and all have storage space for both their art and tools in the three main studios for serigraphy, lithography and intaglio printmaking. This is where I centered most of my activities. The studios are well equipped with modern up – to – date presses, acid rooms, arc lamps, vacuum tables and everything needed to produce works on paper. An art supply store carries everything needed and a good selection of paper.
I will take a little time here to describe the two studios where I spent most of my time. I was trained as a professional lithographer under master printer Bob Rogers from nineteen- sixty-nine onwards through the early seventies. We printed lithographs from stones for well-known painters and artists from all over the world. The lithographic studio at Engramme was the best I have seen anywhere and I have worked presses in Toronto, Wolfsburg, in Germany, St. Michaels in Newfoundland, Holguin, Cuba and Montreal. It is an excellent workspace, well lit with natural and artificial light. It is not the largest studio, but the most efficient. Everything in perfect order and ship-shape. A very good selection of stones and a perfect sized studio for the membership numbers they have. One of the two presses is a familiar Charles Brand (all of them now out of production). It has a twenty by thirty-six bed and a chain – reduction gearing, built in New York to last forever. These are the types of presses I was trained on and spent long hours rolling up stones on.



The Griffin press with a sixty-nine by thirty-nine bed was the machine to fall in love with. Built in Oakland, California it combines beauty and function like the custom-built motorcycles that are a tradition where the Griffin Machine Company comes from. It is a dazzling blue and gold with embossed details and smooth action with double chain reduction. I hope to some day have a close relationship with that machine but, I had come prepared to do intaglio printmaking.
The intaglio studio is a match in size to the litho if not a little larger. Again, the lighting was excellent. Three Conrad etching presses are the focus of the room with workstations with large glass inking tables for each. These presses are not pretty but they do operate very smoothly. The largest has a forty by seventy bed and is the one that I was assigned. The wheel alone must have exceeded six feet in diameter. It was a pleasure to use and worked very smoothly. Sian Lile was assigned the thirty-two by sixty-inch press and Denise Pelletier used the smallest Conrad with a fifty-two by thirty-inch bed. These are very efficient machines built in Whitehall, Michigan, U.S.A.
The studio is in a modernized but very old stone building. It is well equipped with an assortment of rollers and heat-stoves, aquatint boxes and every sort of support equipment needed. A number of relief prints are made here as well. Everything was again totally clean and ship-shape. A very important consideration when producing prints. Pauline Hebert, who was making lithographs there, gave me assistance with the aquatint box and my experiments with that process. I chose to work with line etching, aquatint and dry point during my stay at the atelier. As one of two artists in residence, I was required to exhibit my work and give a presentation with Sian Lile an artist from Wales. She is a recent graduate from The University of Wales and a very fine young artist. She takes a lot of inspiration from maps and charts combined with history and myth. She has also done a series based on playing card images. There was a lot to be learned from everyone there. At the opening of the presentations, I met with Evelyn and Madeleine who had been visiting artists in the studio of the P.E.I. Printmakers Council in past years.
In French, our titles were God-like. “Residence de Creations” and my creations dealt with the mythology of mermaids and sirens. Northrop Frye was quoted as saying “Within every mythology there lies within a profound truth.” Indeed, mermaids and sirens have existed in creation myths of many lands far beyond the time of Christianity. The truth within has much to do with the fact that all life is known to originate in the sea. In Finland, mermaids arise from the creation myths. The first woman, whose name was Aino, was said to have drowned herself in a dispute with the first man and was transformed into a mermaid. Throughout history of human beings, in all lands stories arose about sea sirens and even “Crocles” in the rivers of the Congo. In East Africa, mermaids are called “Mami Wata”. There are “river mermaids” in the Rhine River in Germany. In the Mediterranean Sea, Parthenope (Maiden Voice) was a siren in ancient times. There was also Triton, the son of Poseidon, a merman. Ireland abounds with pre- Christian myths of “silkies” and mermaids. They almost outnumber the fairy folk and Leprechauns. After the arrival of St. Patrick, mermaids are used in the decoration of churches to symbolize desire and lust. In China, Japan, and India and throughout Asia, mermaids go back to pre-recorded time. To me, they perhaps represent beauty and an aspiration unattainable. This is perhaps what mermaids meant to sailors throughout the world, who used the image to decorate charts or carved them as figureheads for vessels and decorated their bodies with tattoos of mermaids.
On May 19, 2005, some woodcuts and the etchings of mermaids will be exhibited at Mermaid Gallery at 131 Grafton St. in Charlottetown. “Mermaids The Exhibition” featured some of the prints I produced in Quebec and in Charlottetown. I will keep my tail in the water and keep swimming against the tide.

Karl MacKeeman,
ANSCAD





This report covers a term as artist in residence at Engramme, from February 27 to March13, 2005 with gratitude to the departments of culture for the provinces of Quebec and Prince Edward Island.