USA Research Trip

I completed a research trip to the USA in August / September / October 2018 to look at all things creative and crafted. I visited, galleries, studios, shops, spaces, people and places. Check out the 'People and Places' tab for informal reports on the different places I visited (or see below) and my 'USA Sketchbook' tab for other travel miscellany.

PLATETONE

Platetone is a community print studio who believe in empowering artists through studio access, workshops and exhibitions. I visited them after they had just moved to a new location - they have facilities for etching, relief, plate lithography, screen printing, book work and paper making. Studio members have access to these facilities as well as a community of fellow artists and craftspeople. They are very in touch with the local community putting on events and open days as well as offering artist in residence and internship opportunities.

GRAND PALACE

Grand Palace is a screen print and design shop based in Nashville who print totally rad apparel and posters (check out their shop for their own range of awesome screen printed merch) They started out screen printing using the facilities at Fort Houston but are now based in The Hill Creative Community which houses other creative businesses such as Original Fuzz who make custom guitar and camera straps. There was a real sense of community and collaboration about the place with Grand Palace screen printing material for Original Fuzz straps as well as working with other local businesses and creative organisations like Hatch.

TURNIP GREEN

Turnip Green is all about "fostering creativity and sustainability through reuse". They have four main areas of operation: a donate what you can retail store, an eduction / outreach programme, a green gallery and an artist support programme. In the past 2 years they had educated 45,000 people through their recycling and zero waste workshops in schools and workplaces. It was a truly inspiring to visit this organisation and hear about all the brilliant work they are doing.

ISLE OF PRINTING

Isle of Printing is the brain child of Bryce McCloud and their philosophy of using the "positive power of creativity to make our world a more interesting place" is something that shines through on all of their projects. They work a lot with other local community business such as Noelle and Pinewood Social to make engaging public art and their HQ in the Pie Town district of Nashville is a veritable treat of creativeness for the eyes - a Willy Wonka's factory of print!   

ELEPHANT GALLERY

Elephant Gallery was the last place I visited in Nashville and I am gutted I didn't find it earlier as it is such a brilliant and inspiring space. The gallery puts on group and solo shows in any medium or style throughout the year. I visited when their 'Clown Show' was on - an open submission show about you guessed it - Clowns! I just loved how the work on show almost took over the whole building allowing you to get totally submersed in the subject matter and feel the passion of the artists and the people running the space. In the back of the building is Anteater, a shop run by the gallery also well worth the trip!

  

FORT HOUSTON

Fort Houston describe themselves as being "like a gym but for people who build stuff with their hands" They are a true makerspace and membership to their facilities gives you access to a full scale wood shop, metal shop, photo studio, screen print station, office space, co-working space as well as the onsite cafe, gallery and shop. Josh, one of the owners, showed me round and explained how the space has grown over the years and is used by different creatives, often to start up a business, very inspiring to find such a well equipped, accessible space!

VANDERBILT DEPARTMENT OF ART

I was very lucky that when I was in Nashville, Carlos Hernandez and Bill Fick were passing through town as part of the Speedball Roadshow. Hosted at Vanderbilt University's Department of Art, I got to see Carlos and Bill talk about their work then take part in a brilliant printmaking workshop which is best described by Carlos as a 'Print Orgy' where we combined screen-printing, mono printing and lino printing. A truly inspirational couple of days - was so great to meet and chat with Carlos and Bill and thanks to Mark from Vanderbilt for being so welcoming! Hopefully see y'all in the UK soon!

FRIENDLY ARCTIC

Friendly Arctic is a print and design shop based in East Nashville. They are (as their name suggests!) super friendly, not only to visitors from the UK, like myself but in their eco-friendly business philosophy and community mindedness. Nowadays they print all kinds of things for clients across the US but they started out 10 years ago, in true DIY fashion screen printing t-shirts for local bands out of their garage. I had a great time looking round the space, shooting the breeze with Brendan and checking out their awesome gig posters - head over to their online store to grab yourself one or something from their merch range.