Friday’s events started with a lecture by Gaylord Schanilec – founder and proprietor of Midnight Paper Sales. He is an excellent speaker and provided technical information for us engravers as well as general information about his art process and ideas.
Rooted in Minnesota, Schanilec is best known for his own writing and illustrations on regional topics as wide-ranging — and esoteric — as St. Paul’s now-demolished High Bridge, Mississippi waterfalls and “Mayflies of the Driftless Region.” An award winner at the 2005 Oxford Book Fair, the “Mayflies” book involved four years of research … and features 13 pristine engravings detailing every aspect of the insects, down to the veins of their translucent wings. “His work is so quintessentially Minnesotan it seems bred in the bone,” said Patrick Coleman, rare books curator at the Minnesota Historical Society. His observations of flora and fauna are so keen that “fly fishermen and other people really melt,” Coleman said. (Excerpted from “A bookmaker, unbound” by Mary Abbe, Star Tribune, February 2013)
WEN member R.P. Hale shared his amazing musical talents at the opening reception, playing his custom made hammer dulcimer. Hale is an interdisciplinary artist, craftsman, musician and scientist (organic chemistry, astronomy, physics), and educator. So many talents at incredible depth – In short – R.P. is a modern day Renaissance man!
The WEN Triennial Exhibition shines, thanks to Stockton University’s Exhibition Coordinator, Denise McGarvey, and is supplemented by the work of conference attendees on tables.
Michelle Post talks about Stefan Martin’s wood engravings during the opening reception. Michelle Post apprenticed with renowned wood engraver Stefan Martin in 1976. Martin was an engraver for the Sanders Engraving Company in Chicago.
