It’s time to show off the Beneficial Insects book progress! Bernheim will feature six completed engravings from the Beneficial Insects book project in the Visitor’s Center during their annual Bugfest event. To further celebrate, Joanne Price, in collaboration with Bernheim, will be offering two bug-related art activities including a butterfly book and a paper bee mobile! Participants will walk away with a hand-printed original print that is custom decorated and assembled by you!
BUGFEST is Saturday September 16, 9am–4pm
Beneficial Insects: A Work in Progress by Joanne Price Exhibit in Bernheim’s Visitor’s Center September 8th–October 31, 2017. Bernheim is open everyday 7am–8pm. FREE admission to all Monday–Friday
Only $5.00 per car, minivan or motorcycle, $10.00 per van, RV on Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays
The Beneficial Insects artist’s book project was conceived of and started in 2014 with Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest’s “Local Use for Local Artists” (now called Regional Artist Program) support and continued with an Artist-In-Residence opportunity at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts (Minneapolis, Minnesota) from July 27 through August 9, 2015. Then, in January 2017, I received a Kentucky Foundation for Women’s Artist Enrichment grant that boosted the Beneficial Insects project with financial support.
This project is very slow and time consuming because of the process necessary to create the illustrations. Each illustration is hand drawn and then transferred to a printing block. Then the image must be engraved/carved so that it stands in relief. The first of the print matrices to be created is called a “key block”. The key block is then transferred to 3-4 separate blocks and each is engraved/carved based on the color that will be printed from it. Then each block is printed together—one on top of the other—to create the final image. After several color trial proofs, the image is hand-printed, one color at a time, one piece of paper at a time. Each image has taken an average of 4 months to complete.
The page sizes are 6 inches high by 7 inches wide, and 36 pages with 10 multi-color relief engravings. There will be a limited edition of 30 letterpress books and a possibility of a commercially printed version. Joanne Price is the author, artist, printer and binder for this exciting project.
