19 September 2010

Printmaking in a Cornfield

Mikesmaze2010Southeast

This weekend I took a drive through the pumpkin patches and apple orchards of Hatfield and Whately to Sunderland MA to see Mike's Maze at Warner Farm. Designed and cut by artist William Sillin, these huge cornfield mazes have been an annual tradition at Warner Farm since 2000. I was excited to hear that this year's maze was an homage to Andy Warhol the printmaker!

InsideTheMaze

Here's the view from inside the maze. Fortunately, you get a map to help you get around. In this maze, there are 16 "printing stations" which, if you find them all, allow you to make CMYK reproductions of four famous paintings.

Yellow1

Each station consists of a wooden platform with a lid that holds a rubber stamp and an ink pad, plus a sign indicating the correct orientation for your printing paper.

At the entrance you're given two sheets of paper plus a board to use at the stations. When you find a station, you place your paper and the board in the orientation indicated…

Yellow2

Then close the lid and push down to print.

Yellow3

Yellow4

As with all printmaking, it's a lot of fun to watch the art emerge. Here's how mine looked after an hour or so in the maze:

Finals

15 comments:

erasercarver said...

What a wonderful post, thanks for tweeting about it. Sounds like an amazing and inspirational trip. The prints created as you explored are stunning.

Elizabeth Seaver said...

Wow! That is a fabulous experience!

I went to school in the area and would love to come back for a visit. Such a beautiful time of year to do so!

Ellen Shipley said...

This is the kewlest idea! What fun.

Doris Madsen said...

how wonderful - to have printmaking in the cornfield - a perfect pairing

Sharmon Davidson said...

I've never heard of anything like this before- it looks like a tremendous amount of fun!

Ryan MCFC said...

So great! This is much cooler than the regular old corn mazes we used to go to in New Hampshire. I think it is excellent that they are introducing so many people to printmaking like that. I was blown away by the results. I've never tried making CMYK stamps, but now I really want to. Thanks for sharing!

Nicole Geary said...

That's amazing! Also, I love your new web design. <3

Terry Sargent Peart said...

That must seem like magic to non-printers! Because even we all think that it's just too cool.

Celia Hart said...

What a top idea!

Thank you for blogging about it Annie.

Celia

Kim Rosen said...

Wow! I can't wait to go this year!

Snail Cloth said...

That is sooo neat. I wish I lived closer and could do that. was it hard to get it to register right?...you are experienced but I wonder if someone that wasn't as experienced would come out pretty close to your results.

betsy best-spadaro said...

So very cool!

Sherrie York said...

WOW! I wanna go there NOW! When does the bus from the west head out, does anyone know?

Annie B said...

@Cosmic Arcata - The biggest problem people seemed to have with it was figuring out how to orient the paper each time, cuz sometimes it needed to be upside down.

Anonymous said...

What a great idea! I want to go!