It's here: Lucky number 13. Kalamazoo Calendar Project celebrates the thirteenth year of collectively producing handmade, original, limited edition calendars.
What it is.
12 artists living and working in Kalamazoo come together to collectively create a new beautiful thing that didn't exist before.
12 people spend months:
- making decisions together,
- individually conceiving and designing,
- and collecting and divvying paper.
They spend (almost, sincerely) countless hours:
- wrestling with the tempestuous process of stretching, coating, and burning images onto screens,
- hoping those screens don't rip or catch fire,
- hoping the emulsion wasn't too old to cover the screen evenly and completely,
- and (maybe) crying a little when they realize the screen didn't burn properly three times in a row (each try accompanied by hours of coating, drying, and burning).
Each color its own screen, each color requiring 500 separate walks through:
- setting paper in just the perfect spot to line up with the screen,
- applying ink to the screen with a squeegee,
- lowering the screen to paper,
- passing ink through screen with squeegee
- and hanging paper to dry without dropping it, without smudging it with a finger, without catching floating lint or pet hair.
The 2017 calendar is the collected result of 31 screens, which means approximately 15,000 passes with a squeegee, which can be translated to roughly 150,000 separate aches and pains, though you might want to check our math.
Why it is.
These 12 artists not only love to make things, they love taking in the furious and fantastic energy Kalamazoo feeds them on a daily basis and converting it into some distinct thing, something now that we can contemplate for months and years to come.
Where it is.
Right here at Brakeman Design, 8a – 5p, M – F, but especially for the Art Hop Dec 2 from 5 – 9 pm. We ship them, too, so send us an email if you're out of town.
In December and January (while supplies last) it will also be available at these neighborly and big-hearted locations:
Bell's General Store
Bookbug
Fourth Coast Cafe & Bakery
Pick one up from these local friends and be sure to buy some of their wares, too, because they've got the goods and they support Kalamazoo in any way they can. Aren't we lucky?