Badger Press – Best Of

As the current Badger Press team face their final three months of tenure, they are looking back on two years of activity with some “best of” courses. The three directors will each teach a session, Gocco, Relief Printing and Letterpress respectively.

Currently there are a number of interested parties keen to take over the running of the Press and owner Mike Griffiths would like the facility to continue to operate and continue to serve artists and printmakers with high quality facilities.

If you’re keen to get involved or think that you might want to run a busy little studio, then please get in touch, this is an amazing opportunity to be at the heart of artistic activity in Hampshire.

The team will be having farewell drinks on Friday 2nd December at The Priory Inn just opposite Claylands Road, Bishops Waltham. Please feel free to join them and keep an eye out for some exciting new projects from the three of them. As Stephan Casper (one of the Badger Press team) says: “We’re leaving the Press better off, we’re so proud of all our artists, so much amazing work, exhibited locally and internationally. We have all learnt so much, we’re definitely going to take our energy elsewhere, we’re moving on and we’ve got big plans.”

Strong Island wish them every success for the future.

Badger Press – Summer Open Day

Badger Press will be opening its doors on Saturday 23rd July and inviting you all for a cup of tea and a visit of the studio. There will be an
exhibition of work from Badger Press artists and opportunities to find out more about courses and activities.

As they gear up for a busy summer, they will be running their popular Summer Pass for £50, ideal for students, artists, designers and anyone else hoping to enjoy the studio. For more details visit http://badgerpress.org

If you’d like to exhibit any work you’ve created at the Press, please feel free to email them at info@badgerpress.org for more info.

Badger Press – Summer Courses

Our friends Badger Press have some new exciting courses coming up. Be aware that these tend to fill up pretty quickly so book soon to avoid missing out. You can also see their work at the Strong Island exhibition at The Round Tower from 16th April.

“We’re looking forward to a busy summer at Badger Press. There are new
workshops in letterpress, cyanotype photography, and experimental
printmaking processes such as hydro plate and solar plate. We’ve also
increased the number of screen printing sessions due to the high demand and
soon be starting up an evening print club.

We’ll be holding open studio and dishing out passes for experienced
printmakers, artists and designers to come and use the studio as often as
they can. Courses can be booked online at http://www.badgerpress.org

The Summer Newsletter is available to download at http://goo.gl/27iSW

See you all at the Strong Island Exhibition!”

Screen Print below by Jordan Pryke

Badger Press Looking Forward to a great 2011

Badger Press is celebrating the end of great year with a new team in place,
enjoying improved facilities, new print processes and easier access for
artists and designers. Now established as a community interest company, the
Press works not-for-profit to promote printmaking and provide facilities for
artists in the area.

They’re steadily building up a reputation for bright new printmaking, and
have been visited by some talented people, from Southsea’s ilovedust,Peagreen, illustrator
imakethings, and London/LA duo Binary and the Brain.

Courses for 2011 are detailed on the ever expanding website along with listings for
exhibitions, printmaking news and tips. New for 2011 are a series of evening
courses, digital sessions and an exciting “Print and Possibilities” Day
which aims to break the ice for illustrators, designers and artists looking
to explore different printmaking techniques.

With new projects planned, perhaps even a big Strong Island collaboration on
the cards, the future looks bright for Badger Press. “We want people to get
stuck in, no matter what your background, there’s something for everyone at
Badger Press. “

Badger Press’ Summer Jamboree

You’re all invited to visit Badger Press on Saturday 28th August for their Summer Jamboree! Badger Press will be exhibiting work by Badger Press artists, offering a look round and the chance to try some taster sessions. They’re also hoping to have some live music, a prize draw with the chance to win original artwork, free courses and some lovely gifts donated by kind friends. There will be drinks and cakes, and a few surprises as always for what promises to be a special day at Badger Press.

Badger Press have also added details of Autumn courses to their website and available to
download here (PDF). Also keep an eye out for early bird offers and news at www.badgerpress.org.

Badger Press – Gocco Printing 2 spaces left

Stephan Casper from Badger Press emailed me earlier to say that they are running a Gocco workshop this Sat 26th June at their studio and have 2 spaces left. “Artists Andrew Groves http://imakethings.co.uk and Simon Dovar from http://www.binaryandthebrain.com/ are coming down with their machines. It’s £40 for the day, a great opportunity.

You can print postcards, flyers, invites, tickets, print onto t-shirts or fabric, create patterns….almost everything with these wonderful little japanese machines.” Contact the press to book one of the places via their website.

Student Summer Passes at Badger Press

As University workshops and college classrooms shut over summer, Badger Press have decided to throw their doors open and provide refuge for all those printmakers, designers and illustrators that would still like to get into the studio.

Passes cost £50 and provide open access to the facilities at Badger Press. The Pass is valid between 1st June and 30th September and holders can use the facilities for an unlimited number of sessions, subject to availability. The pass is valid for a full or half day. Costs for consumables (paper, inks and screen emulsion) are additional.

Come and get a pass at Love Your Bike Day, and enter a draw for an immediate refund!

For more information visit here or email: summer@badgerpress.org.

Badger Press New Website & Summer Activities

Stephan over at Badger Press got in contact with us about their new website going live plus their upcoming spring and summer activities including:

“We’ve been invited to join Love Your Bike day and we’re going to have a stall at the event and fill it bike designs, prints, tees and cycle bags that have all been printed at our studio.

Other highlights include a “Print Gocco Day”, with illustrators Andrew Groves and Simon Dovar; We’ll be one of the few places in the UK to teach both hydroplate and solarplate etching.

There’s a Summer Open Day with an opportunity to visit the studio, try your hand with some taster sessions, listen to some music and visit an exhibition of work created in our studio.

Our Summer newsletter is out now and available to download from our site – http://tinyurl.com/badgersummer”

The new website can be found at badgerpress.org.

Badger Press

A little off of the Island but sure to be of interest, Badger Press got in contact the other day about changes and new course plus an open evening tonight:

“A new team is taking over management of The Badger Press, an open-access printmaking studio in Bishops Waltham. We’re having an open evening next Friday 5th February between 4 – 9pm and inviting people to join us for a cup of tea and a slice of cake, visit the studio and find out about the courses we’re running.

The studio itself was founded in 1982 and covers screenprinting, collagraph, monoprint and Intaglio processes. The new team will continue to provide facilities and courses, and will work to support artists in Hampshire with exhibitions, guest speakers, trips and arts events. We’re keen to establish ourselves as a creative voice in the region and talk about printmaking, which we love and cherish, with everyone we meet.”

You can find out more about Badger Press at www.badgerpress.org and directions for the open evening here. Badger Press also have a Facebook page and are on Flickr.

Best of luck to Badger Press from us at Strong Island.

PRIMARY – Extended & Improved

We have some great news about our PRIMARY phonography exhibition (find out all the details here) that we can now announce:

- The deadline for submissions has now been extended to Sunday 4th March. We have had some incredible submissions but want to set aside more time to make the exhibition something really special.

- The competition is now open to up to 10 submissions from each individual. With the ability to capture many photos on your phone over the next two months we we want you to not feel restricted to just three. The same rules apply about the photos conforming to compositions using the primary colours though. If you have already submitted feel free to send more photos over as and when you please.

- The exhibition will be hosted by Albert Road’s own Bonzo Studio who are also partnering up with us in the creation of the exhibition space. More news on this soon!

- Finally, we will be running a competition as part of the exhibition where the best three photos submitted will win some incredible prizes. We will be announcing the prizes available very soon but got to say, these will be the best prize haul we have ever offered.

- We will be putting together a poster for the exhibition that will be on sale on the opening night. The poster will feature some of the best submissions and all profits from the sales will go to a local charity (details to follow soon). Due to this we need to say that any photos submitted to PRIMARY will involve you giving us permission to use them for commercial purposes, if you do not want your photo used in this way simply let us know via email.

Well, that is it for now! We really hope to drum up as much coverage locally for PRIMARY in the next couple of months so if you could Facebook/Tweet/+1 about the exhibition we would really appreciate it. We would love this exhibition to be a real reflection of the whole population of Portsmouth with everyone taking part and feeling involved.

It’s going to be a Strong Movember – Closed at £725

Righto chaps, it’s time to clean shave your boat race and get that mighty moustache on the grow in support of Movember for The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. For 30 days of November you can help support and raise awareness through selflessly parading your top lip for charity.

You can sign up yourself, as I’m sure many of you already have, or you can join the Strong Island team and seek out sponsorship as a team. Through the Strong Island Movember page you can ask people to join the group, make donations, upload photos and post updates via the MoSpace page, Facebook and Twitter.

Head over to www.mobro.co/StrongIsland if you would like to get involved and grow a Strong Moustache to help raise awareness, or simply head over to www.uk.movember.com and sign up to personally raise money.

The funds raised in the UK support the number one and two male specific cancers – prostate and testicular cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partners, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together, these channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

Poster: Tristan Savage