Wednesday, December 31, 2025

SUMMARY 2025


BUCKET EXHIBITIONS
SUMMARY 2025

2025 was a busy year for Printmaking!


We had a very active printmaking year in 2025 with lots of PRINTMAKING EXHBITIONS and EVENTS.  The Highlights were Exhibiting at the University of Juarez in Mexico, and pushing EXQUISITE TESSELLATION Prints at the Southwest Print Fiesta in Silver City, New Mexico:




MONTHS

CLICK on the Image or Text below to read to a more substantial blog post:

JANUARY







FEBRUARY





MARCH





APRIL





MAY





JUNE
















JULY 





AUGUST











SEPTEMBER







OCTOBER 





NOVEMBER








DECEMBER

December was the time to write SUMMARY POSTS about 2025 Printmaking:

I also learned about this great PRINT FRIEND video about Printmaking in Oaxaca:

EXQUISITE TESSELLATION SUMMARY -- 2025

DAVID SMITH discovered the single Aperiodic Monotile that we are using to make the artistic collaborative EXQUISITE TESSELLATION Prints.  We are just one of the many ART PROJECTS that David Smith blogged about based on his tessellation shapes:

TESSELLATIONS:

We pushed the EXQUISITE TESSELLATION Print Project all year, culminating in Silver City where we made big collaboration Steamroller Prints, ran two tessellation workshops, and had an exhibition at the SOUTHWEST PRINT FIESTA in October 2025:


** MAJOR EXHIBITIONS **

SOUTHWEST PRINT FIESTA
Silver City, New Mexico













***

TUNEL GRAFICO
JUAREZ, MEXICO

We also showed 163 EXQUISITE TESSELLATION Prints in the TUNEL GRAFICO exhibition at the University of Juarez in Mexico from August 22, extended to November 15, 2025:


INDEX of BLOG POSTS












We cut out both SMALL and BIG tessellation tiles, by laser cutting Linoleum, and CNCing Expanded PVC Foam:


** TESSELLATION TILES **

SMALL LINOCUTS

 2024 SUMMARY
The linocuts are all 7 inches at the widest --
(the linocut would fit in a 7x7 inch square)


 "HAT" FILES
 for LASER CUTTING

 
SINGLE Tiles

MULTIPLE Tiles

Vector files for a 12 x 18 inch linoleum plate (though I think these files have to be resized so that the tiles are 7 inches at the widest):











BIG LINOCUTS
for the STEAMROLLER

TESSELLATION TILES

We also cut small stiff foam EXQUISITE TESSELLATION tiles -- from Expanded PVC Foam -- for quick tessellation workshops.  Visitors can gouge into the stiff foam with ball point pens, quickly and easily, and we can quickly print those with a Tortilla Press or Portable Press.

HOWEVER we CANNOT laser cut the stiff foam, as it has PVC in it, and laser cutting will produce poisonous CHLORINE GAS.  So we have to cut out the stiff foam tessellation tiles on the CNC:

Expanded PVC Foam -- Tessellation Tiles

VECTOR FILE to upload to the CNC:
VCARVE FILE -- the CNC file with the layout for 24 x10 sheet (1/8 inch thick), to cut out six Ein Stein "hat" tessellation shapes, with a 60 Degree V Slotting cutter bit:









The Expanded PVC Foam tessellation tiles have to be cut on a CNC, as cutting on the laser cutter produces poisonous CHLORINE GAS:

CNC cutting TESSELLATION TILES



ALTERNATIVE TESSELLATION SHAPES


There is a whole family of aperiodic tessellation monotiles that can be derived by altering the "hat" shape that DAVID SMITH discovered. This YouTube  -- Aperiodic monotile animation -- shows how the "hat" shape easily morphs into other different shapes that tessellate as well:

So we experimented with other tessellation shapes after creating them with a program online:


VCarve file: 



At first we tried using a "Drag Knife" on the CNC to cut out tessellation tiles from Expanded PVC Foam.  However this did not work well, at least on our first try.  I am sure there is a way to do this better, but it was a lot easier using the drill bits:





OTHER
** INNOVATIONS **

We ordered a "hat" shape die on Ebay from the Ukraine hoping to punch out tessellation tiles from both linoleum and Expanded PVC Foam.  The die is too thick to run through the FISKARS FUSE Die-Cutting SYSTEM, and we have yet to try using it with a Leather Cutting Press:





The EXQUISITE TESSELLATION linocuts print nicely on the sleeve of a t-shirt...where your rank would go on your Navy uniform:




We had the idea of making ceramic tiles from the "hat" tessellation linocuts. So Aaron and I experimented at Quelab with making a mold from my linocut. The idea would then be to make slip castings from the mold or something.  We also considered punching out "hat" shapes from leather hard dried clay, and letting the artists scribe into the clay directly, before cooking in the kiln -- which might be the best approach:



There is still so much to experiment with in 2026.

SUMMARY 2025

EXQUISITE TESSELLATION SUMMARY -- 2025 Printmaking Techniques and Innovations -- 2025 BUCKET EXHIBITIONS SUMMARY 2025 2025 was a busy year f...