UL Lafayette College of the Arts to honor master printmaker Brandon Graving with lifetime achievement award

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Artist Brandon Graving poses in front of “Ephemera: River with Flowers,” part of the collection of the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation, and “Small Bursts of Knowledge” an abaca sculpture on the right, in her studio space at the Beaver Mill in North Adams.

NORTH ADAMS — By the time Hurricane Katrina destroyed Brandon Graving’s live/work space in New Orleans, the artist had already been driving the 30-some hours between The Big Easy and North Adams for decades.

Graving first came to the Berkshires in the early 1990s for a residency with the former Contemporary Artists Center in the Beaver Mill. That residency lead to a job with center which then lead to a studio space on the second floor of the mill. Eventually, she got into a yearslong rhythm of working between the two cities.

“I used to drive straight through because I was always working in my studio up to the very last possible minute,” Graving said, whose truck was equipped with a large art storage unit to help transport the work she made here back down to a gallery in New Orleans.

Graving, a sculptor, is also a master printmaker — someone who is so expertly skilled in printmaking techniques that they are hired to oversee the production of hand-pulled editions and other special projects. Master printmakers often own and operate their own shops where they complete any of these for-hire projects alongside their own works, while also maintaining an educational and/or artist-in-residence program.

Works on view in Brandon Graving's "Dance on a Blue Stage: I Love You — Tell Everyone" at the Real Eyes Gallery, in Adams.

"This selection of monoprints and sculpture," Graving writes in her artist statement, "encompasses unique works created very recently and many never exhibited or revised works from the past two decades."

Foreground: Today, 2020, abaca cast over a stick, stainless steel, steel rod, porcupine quills collected in Cameroon, Africa, and Cam wood also collected in there.

"The exuberance and delight expressed in the monoprint 'Dance on a Blue Stage,' depicting a possible fantasy of dancing across the sky with your loved one, helps describe the gratitude I feel for the global community; celebrating that connectedness which keeps us alive."

"The suspended forms are animated by the ambient air currents, turning after you are still. The movement of the sculptures challenge the space occupied, engaging our focus on our own bodies as the sculptures change the space in front of us."

In foreground: Kiss No. 3 — Just Bursting.

On wall: Wish No. 238, 2007-2021, cast abaca over crape myrtle tree branch, stainless steel, glass, plexiglass and hand-painted vellum.

"These current sculptures tend to be minimal in color but the embossed monoprints often have saturated color areas."

Seen here:

Right: Three Small Explosions or Epiphanies, 2021, abaca, stainless steel, vintage pink porcupine quills, lead, egret feathers and hand-painted vellum.

Left: "Precipe: Sapphire,"deeply embossed monoprint on paper mounted on canvas and stretched over cradled panel. Handmade inks using interactive pigment, encaustic and cold wax.

"This allows me to have nearly translucent, seemingly fragile areas, be incredibly sturdy; structure and surface simultaneously."

Seen here: Orlando, 2003, abaca, stainless steel, hand-painted vellum.

tRuth, 2007-2021, a scuplture made of abaca, hand-painted vellum and stainless steel, hangs in the Real Eyes Gallery in Adams. In the background are (l-r) "Empherea: Flowers with Golden Bullets," and "Precipe: Sapphire."

A close-up of Brandon Graving's Wish No. 238.

The sculptures in this video are from a group of works called Wonder; included here are four suspended/ kinetic works and one large wall piece. The spine of the wings and other works are cast from crape myrtle trees felled by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The sculptures are then fabricated with archival quality abaca paper pulp over a steel armature and then finished with individually torn translucent paper tendrils.

While these sculptures appear fragile and delicate, the abaca paper surface is incredibly hard, strong and durable adding to the conceptual information about these works. With close inspection, the surface reveals the individual placement of fingertip-like pieces to create a complex textured structure. The kinetic aspect of the work allows them to exist in space as we do; they interact with the ambient air currents and become directly involved with the movement of viewers while producing a dance of shadows. The current individual works are 4-feet, 20-feet and 60-feet long and interact with each other as these do within this film. The larger 60-foot work is fabricated in three parts and deconstructs itself only to reform above the viewer's head.

The nuanced piano music by Omar Sosa is so often heard streaming from my studio while fabricating these sculptures and also during studio visits by viewers to see the completed works. I was so happy and honored to use it here.

— Brandon Graving, artist

"I fabricate much of my inks using pigments, metals and bones; this allows me to control where the inks become suspended within the print paper as it is under pressure from my specialized presses which create actual dimension during the printing process."

Seen here: "Fireworks and Ruby Flowers," 2003 and 2013, Deeply embossed monoprint on paper mounted on canvas and stretched over a cradled panel. Handmade, light interactive inks, encaustic and cold wax.

"The materials chosen in my work physically embody the concepts asserted here. The primary substance used for casting the branches of the sculptures is abaca, a fast growing plant which produces extremely strong fibers."

Seen here: Wish No. 238, 2009-2021, abaca cast over crape myrtle tree, stainless steel glass, plexiglass and hand-painted vellum.

"Abstracted, simplified and specifically chosen aspects of landscape or organic systems, juxtaposed aerial views with close up perspectives in these very large scale monoprints encourage the viewer to relate to them physiological and rewards them for coming in close for more details."

Seen here: "Mother: Aerial View," 2018, Deeply embossed monoprint on handmade paper with resins and inks. Four panels.

A visitor to Real Eyes Gallery in Adams view works by Brandon Graving.

A view of "Dance on a Blue Stage: I Love You — Tell Everyone" at Real Eyes Gallery, 71 Park St., Adams.

Kiss No. 3 — Just Bursting, a kinetic sculpture by Brandon Graving, is juxtaposed against "Flight Plan," a series of five deeply embossed monoprints on paper.

Small Bursts of Knowledge: Yes, made of abaca, stainless steel, polymerized Ficus leaves, crystal, pearl stamen and hand-painted vellum, is part of a series of small sculptures by Brandon Graving.

Graving, a sculptor who originally trained with brass, creates kinetic sculptures with abaca paper casts of tree branches felled by Hurricane Katrina.

Kiss No. 3 — Just Bursting, a kinetic sculpture embellished with glass beads and hand-painted vellum, hangs in front of "Mother: Aerial View," four panels of embossed monoprints on handmade paper with resins, glass and inks.

"Precipice: Sapphire," 2000 and 2021, an embossed monoprint on paper, mounted on canvas and stretched over cradled canvas is made with handmade inks using interactive pigment, encaustic and cold wax.

Two monoprints, "Window on Jade Land," and "Window on Sapphire Land," are part of "Dance on a Blue Stage: I Love You — Tell Everyone."

After Hurricane Katrina, Graving permanently settled in North Adams in 2007, opening Gravity Press Experimental Print Shop, conveniently located under her second floor studio space at the Beaver Mill.

Gravity Press now produces editions for some of today’s leading artists and some of those editions are in major museums across the country. Most importantly, however, the experimental approach of Gravity Press allows Graving herself to make massive works. She built what she calls the “monster press” from railroad tracks, allowing artists to create woodcuts on a full 4-foot-by-8-foot sheet of plywood. A 4-foot-by-8-foot painting is considered large, but a work on paper at that size is considered gigantic. And the monster press could print even larger, maxing out at 5-foot-by-11-foot sheet of paper.

Artist Brandon Graving talks about one of her sculptures in her studio space at the Beaver Mill in North Adams.

“I printed what I believe is the largest monoprint ever made by a single artist," she said. "While dear Bob Rauschenberg did make a longer print, he also had much help mixing paints. Mine is called ‘Ephemera: River with Flowers’ and was on view at the New Orleans Museum of Art when Katrina hit New Orleans. The work was safe and is now in the permanent collection of the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation. One of the narratives in this work was how water can start small and powerfully take over, as happened in New Orleans during this exhibition."

It takes a lot of grit and stamina to maintain any artistic practice over the long haul; Graving has both in spades. She’s been rewarded for it a few times already, having earned a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, and a Gottlieb Foundation Grant, among others. As prestigious and career-changing as those awards are, there’s something special about the award she’s about to receive next month: The Spark Lifetime Achievement Award. Presented by her alma mater, the University of Louisiana College of the Arts, the awardee is chosen by a nomination and review process. Previous awardees have included saxophonist Richard (Dickie) Landry, artist Keith Sonnier, and architect Jim Garland; Graving will be only the second woman to win the award in its 15 years.

“I’m excited. I haven’t been back to NOLA since COVID,” Graving said in reguard to her homecoming trip. She will attend the March 2 ceremony with her partner David Deming of Williamstown.

The Spark Award will be accompanied by a retrospective of Graving’s 40 years of dedication to and success in the arts.

Artist Brandon Graving stands in the Gravity Press Experimental Print Shop at The Beaver Mill in North Adams, with a huge embossed viscosity monoprint called “Echo lll” a Sister Print in the collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art.

“I think about the future and don’t think a lot about the past, but I’ve found lately I’ve been doing more of that,” she said. “And as I’m coming out of the COVID funk, I feel I have the energy to really do a more intense level of work again.”

Gravity Press Experimental Print Shop is open by appointment only and is currently scheduling print projects by email at gravingart@icloud or 413-664-8056.

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