episode twenty-four | jill graham

Published 2 October 2019

Miranda Metcalf  Hello print friends, and welcome to the 24th episode of Pine Copper Lime (Hello, Print Friend), the internet's number one printmaking podcast. I'm your host, Miranda Metcalf. I release an episode every two weeks, and on the off weeks, I publish an article on the Pine Copper Lime website, which features images and maybe a bit more information about the artist I'm going to interview. Episode 24. You know what that means? This little podcast is coming up on her first birthday. So you best believe that's gonna be a party. I'll be doing some great giveaways on the PCL Instagram, so make sure you're following me there (@helloprintfriend). Link in the show notes, as always. More than anything in this first year, I have been completely surprised and delighted by the generosity of Patreon supporters. Truly, this podcast cannot be made without you. And I know that most people listening to this are artists, which means you, like me, like most of us, are not exactly flush with cash. But this community has been showing up and showing your support. Even if it's just $1 a month, it adds up quicker than you might think. And in terms of keeping morale high around the PCL studio, that cannot be measured or expressed properly. You all are amazing. And if you want to join that dream team, check out the show notes. And if giving money away for free ain't your thing, take a gander at the PCL print gallery. There you can trade your cold hard cash for beautiful prints and help support this podcast and the artists who make that work. Next month I'm going to be traveling to Thailand to meet with some of those artists, and I'm hoping to produce a short about the print scene in Chiang Mai. Because let me tell you, the things they're getting up to there are incredible. There are print studios throughout the city and even talks of a printmaking museum opening up in the next few years. There's so much to be excited about and I'm so looking forward to sharing it with you all. Printmaking forever, shun the non believers, join the party. My guest this week is Jill Graham, Tamarind master printer and technician at the NSCAD lithography workshop. Graham shares her journey of starting out in Montreal, setting up a lithography workshop in a remote part of Ontario, traveling to South Africa to train a colorblind master printer, waiting over 10 years to attend Tamarind, and surviving and thriving in the Toronto art scene as a single mom. We also talk about her reinstitution of that lithography workshop at NSCAD with an eye to intersectionality and collaborating with First Nations artists on Cape Dorset. You are also going to see how to gracefully dodge your interviewer's requests for hot goss regarding famous artists with which you've printed. So sit back, relax, and prepare to up your litho game with Jill Graham. Hi, Jill, how's it going? 

Jill Graham  I'm good. How are you? 

Miranda Metcalf  Good. Thank you for joining me.

Jill Graham  It's a pleasure. I feel really nice to be included among the people you've been interviewing. Thank you so much.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, of course, I've been excited to talk to you for a while. We've had some back and forths, I know you've been really busy, I've been running all over Australia. So I'm super pleased that we finally found a little window where our schedules line up and we can get you on record talking a little bit about yourself and your practice. So I know you basically through the internet, the way a lot of people in the print world know each other, and by reputation, and by our mutual friend Jenny Robinson. But I would love for you to introduce yourself and let people who maybe aren't familiar with you just kind of know the basics of the who you are, where you are, and what you do.

Jill Graham  Sure. I'm here in Halifax, Nova Scotia at NSCAD University, literally sitting in the print shop. And I'm the technician here at NSCAD, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. I teach occasionally, mostly intro lithography, and I'm a master printer here for the Litho Workshop Contemporary Editions, which is a new grant project.

Miranda Metcalf  And so tell us a little bit about where you grew up and kind of what role art had in the early part of your life.

Jill Graham  I come from a music family. So my father is a professional percussionist, as is my brother. So it's a bit of an odd thing that I ended up in visual arts. But printmaking, really early on, at high school, I had a terrific art instructor. She had invited a graduate student to come in, she was a fantastic pastel artist, and she really took a shining to me. And I really liked her a lot and spent a lot of time in her art room. But she brought this master student in who brought in a small press, and we did linocuts. And I got caught with the bug really early. So 16, maybe 15, 16 years old, and it always stuck with me. But I actually wanted to be an interior designer. I think that's what I had decided to do. I don't know, I don't know. But I applied, we have CEGEP in Montreal. So I'm from Montreal, Quebec, and CEGEP is two years that you do before you go to university, and it's a great opportunity out of high school to sort of explore what path you think you might want to go on career wise. And I actually applied for interior design, but yeah, no, I didn't get into that. I got into Fine Arts. Fine Arts, and printmaking, again, just really took over really quickly.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, yeah. Well, the print world's happy that you were not taken out by interior design. 

Jill Graham  I think this is the first time I've even mentioned it! It's so weird. Yeah, I've never even thought about that until you asked me. But, yeah, Fine Arts. So that was it for me. And I took a lot of printmaking. Printmaking, drawing, and painting were my focuses through CEGEP and then into Concordia University for my undergraduate degree, also in Montreal.

Miranda Metcalf  What do you think it was about printmaking that captured you? Because a lot of people have their sort of initial print moment where they're just like, 'Oh, this is what I need to be doing.' And for you, as you said, it happened pretty early. And it happened just with linocut in a high school class. But do you have any sense of why it captured you even at that young age?

Jill Graham  I think it was sort of all of it. And it still is all of it. It's the ink. It's the tools. It's the presses. You know, I I studied Fine Arts and made my own art. So that's where I began. And the idea of drawing and creating an image and then translating that into a print just has always really, really appealed to me. So yeah, it's all of it. I think the labor aspects are very important to me as well.

Miranda Metcalf  Oh, that's really interesting. Can you talk about that a little more?

Jill Graham  Yeah, I think the notions of working with the materials for long hours, translating somebody else's work as a collaborative printer, just very quickly appealed to me. And it's the idea of the time spent, the rituals of movement, the repetitiveness of it. I would be a great factory worker. Because I actually enjoy anything that I have to repeat over and over. It just suits my personality for some reason. But yeah, the idea of work put in and the product not necessarily - well now, never - being mine, because I really don't make a lot of my own work at all. Occasionally. But that residue of collaborative effort, and the idea of time spent working on somebody else's concepts, it all just still gets me. 

Miranda Metcalf  I really like that. And I think that that connection between printmaking and labor and production, and then there's also kind of the commercial side of printmaking and its history, and still to this day... it's all kind of interweaved, I think, in this really interesting way. When you said you'd be a good factory worker, it kind of reminds me of that, that history that printmaking has and the real kind of labor and craft that's interwoven into it that you maybe don't have so much in something like oil painting where there's more of a sense of like, oh, this is this is a fine art, everything is very tortured and deliberate. And printmaking has that lovely, very grounded, craft element to it that I think appeals to a lot of people. The idea that you can get just really good at this set of hard skills. 

Jill Graham  Yeah, you're touching on it there.  I've always said, if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it to the best of my abilities. And I'm a very headstrong person. So I think training to a certain level and pushing beyond that is just really important. The performative aspects of it as well, again, it's not my work, it's not my end product, but the residue of that collaborative work together, I'm fine with that not being mine. I'm okay that that kind of leaves after a while, but a lot of the artists I've been working with recently will ask me, and when I'm in a project, it really is mine. I'm attached to it like it's my work. And I'll put really long hours and as much into the work that I need to to make sure that it's coming off just the way they want to see it come off. And so that I'm proud of it as well. 

Miranda Metcalf  That kind of reminds me of a conversation I've had with I think at least one other collaborative printer on the podcast about this idea around collaborative printing. Basically, it's just sort of, are collaborative printers artists? If you have any particular thoughts on that, I'd love to hear them.

Jill Graham  Yeah, I think there's a pull. I had a colleague once say to me, 'Oh, here's an application for this print exchange,' or exhibition, whatever it was. And I looked at her and said, 'Oh, no, I don't really make my own work. I'm a printer.' And she said, 'Oh, well, where's the fun in that?' And I was so offended.

Miranda Metcalf  I'm offended!

Jill Graham  Yeah, I was really offended, and shocked that someone would even think that way. I think my training - I do have an undergraduate degree in Fine Arts, so all of that is just super helpful. Because you need to be able to speak the same language, you're developing a language with the person that you're working with already. There has to be that connection there so that you're on the same page, you're searching for the same things that they are. So all of that training is a huge asset. I just have no ego in terms of thinking of what I'm going to produce next. Because it's not there for me. The next project is what's of interest to me. So for me, that's just really simple. I get hooked into the next artist, the next project, and not my own work. So it's a bit freeing, in a sense, and then that goes back to the labor aspects. I mean, where I invest is more in the physical side of the act of printing the work.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah. So as you mentioned, you did your undergrad in Fine Art. So how did that transition happen, where now you're just full time collaborative printmaking? What was that journey like?

Jill Graham  From Concordia, there was an internship program that they had just launched the year that I was graduating. And so I was one of the first two students that enrolled in that. It was basically just an independent study, but you had to secure a professional internship, essentially. My professor at the time at Concordia, Barbara McGill Balfour, had worked at Vinalhaven in Maine and printed for Leon Golub, Robert Indiana, David Rabinowitch, and she used to talk about her experiences as a printer to us. And that would have been when I first heard about Tamarind as well. And that just seemed really appealing to me. It piqued my curiosity, because I think I tended towards the technical side in my own work anyway. I was always working with strange registration and rolling Japanese papers to get it through the press. And that helped me when I worked with Jenny just recently.

Miranda Metcalf  Oh, I bet.

Jill Graham  But I went for it, anyway, and ended up at Atelier Circulaire in Montreal, working with master printer Christian Le Poul. And he had studied with Bob Rogers, who was a professor here at NSCAD University. And after studying with Bob, he went on to work with Perry Tymeson and Maurice Sanchez as well. So Christian was a really cool guy and a really knowledgeable printer, and he took me in. I think I was his first apprentice, probably, and man, I was really eager. I was graining stones and registering paper, you know, any little job that he would throw my way. I did this for about three months and just loved it and saw the the printer side of things, finally, for myself. In Canada, it's frustrating. We don't have Tamarind, we don't have Crown Point Press. There's nothing like that that exists. So I found this internship to be the best possible thing, and then there was nothing else, like what could I do after that, right? Nobody was really printing. So I was left with this big big high after getting all this experience, and then it was like I just got dropped, kind of thing. What was I going to do next? I graduated, and next was a job as a technician. I moved to Elliot Lake, Ontario. Northern Ontario, little out there, literally one road into the town. And I was hired to set up print studios there and work as a technician. And White Mountain was an academy that was a collaborative effort involving the North Shore Tribal Council, Serpent River First Nation, and the City of Elliot Lake. And they had big dreams, they were making this art academy in the middle of nowhere. And they brought in a really stellar group of people, artists, instructors to teach, and timing was just right, and I got a call. And I went and built a lithography studio, I finished a design and build of the etching studio, and then I designed and built the screenprinting studios there as well. So yeah, it was a great opportunity. And I was there as a technician, but I actually very quickly ended up teaching. I had a little more technical experience than they knew of, and I ended up teaching classes there as well. And then that contract ended, they kind of shift their priorities. It was always a struggling institution, they needed the right combination of professors and technical people, and I was out. So I packed up and ended up in Toronto, and thought, okay, well, I'll be an artist! I was going to finally try, and Toronto in Canada is kind of like moving to New York in the US. Like, you're going to try it, see what happens. And Open Studio is in Toronto, and Open Studio is, next to Atelier Circulaire, the largest and most well known printmaking facility in Canada, and certainly has a long reputation. And I thought, well, this is where I'm going to go and I'm going to make my own work. And then I ended up getting a job. So I ended up getting hired as the Technical Director at Open Studio. And this was a dream job. This was where I knew everything was going to kind of come together because I had the opportunity to print. And so finally, I was at a place where I could collaborate with artists. Open Studio is multifaceted. It's got gallery spaces, professional facilities, screenprinting, relief, and lithography. Runs a very competitive visiting artists program and education program. And so I was in charge of a lot there as Technical Director, and the most exciting for me was the visiting artist program, which meant that I could collaborate with artists, and then the custom printing as well, so contract printing, a lot of artists would come through contacting me about different projects. And so it was a terrific job. And I loved it. For ten years, I worked there.

Miranda Metcalf  So the Atelier Circulaire, you were talking about how in Canada, they don't have the Crown Point or the Tamarind. Would you say that that's probably the closest in the Canadian art system?

Jill Graham  No, there's nothing really like those places. Tamarind's an education program, training printers, and Crown Point will also train people to a degree, but these are high end production facilities that collaborate with big names in the art world. And it just doesn't happen in Canada quite the same way. There's private studios, so there's people that I know in Montreal that will accept contracts, but it's just very different. Artists print for themselves. Printmakers make prints for themselves in Canada, and there's few and far between where there's actually contract printing happening. And certainly publishing just doesn't happen an awful lot. It's just a different system.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah. Why do you think that is?

Jill Graham  I really don't know. And it's really interesting for me, and a little bit part of my research. There were publishers, and Open Studio would have been at the forefront of that back in the '70s. They were publishing a lot more because there was a lot more money being thrown at art, basically. And so you're saying, would Circulaire have been that? I would say Circulaire, guild Gothic in Montreal. Certainly Montreal is a very vibrant cultural community, and printmaking has a long history there, and their ties are a lot more European. So there definitely is collaborative printing happening, but just not in the same way that it happens in the US. And then I would say that in English Canada, Open Studio would have been it.

Miranda Metcalf  Where does Tamarind fall in this arc? Had you gone to Tamarind yet at this point? Or was it after Atelier Circulaire?

Jill Graham  No. So Tamarind was always at the back of my mind, but what I haven't mentioned yet is that I'm a single mother. Well, she's grown now. But through all this time, I had a daughter. And when I was in university, she would have just been two years old when I started. So you know, as much as I wanted to go to Tamarind, I just couldn't bring a small child with me and it just didn't feel like I could do it. And the other interesting thing is, Sarah Dudley, who is also a Tamarind master printer and owner of Keystone Editions in Berlin, she and I were at Concordia University at the same time, and we struck up a friendship. And we both had huge ambitions to go to Tamarind. So that year that I graduated and did this internship, I knew she was going to apply. And I thought, well, I've got my daughter to think about, and if Sarah is applying, there's just no way that Tamarind is going to take two of us from Canada, from the same university. It's just not going to happen. And very practically, I just decided, no, I think I'm going to backburner this plan. I'm going to just keep saving for it and see what happens. And so I kind of really let it go for a long time. And it was only in 2012 that I went to Tamarind. So I actually left Open Studio after 10 years of working there. Strange coincidences, my whole story is all about coincidences. I don't know if people will pick up on it. There's going to be a lot of overlap. But it was after I went to the Impact conference in Australia that I mentioned to you, that happened in Melbourne. I don't know what clicked for me. I was always happy at Open Studio, but it was a struggle. I wasn't making a lot of money. It's an artist run center, so it's not a professional facility. They don't hire trained printers, they don't keep trained printers on staff. And I was supplementing my income by teaching Pilates. So I was running around the city of Toronto, teaching Pilates, printing for artists, teaching lithography. And I had a full time job as technical director at Open Studio. And after you do that for several years, some of your joy gets sucked out of you. Although all these things were all things that I loved, and I started them all just because I loved them, I turned them into ways to make money. And it was my life. And it started to feel like an awful lot. And I went to the Impact conference, and something just clicked. And I said, 'You know what, now is the time.' I applied for graduate programs as well, and then I applied to Tamarind. And when I got the letter from Tamarind, that was a decision made, basically.

Miranda Metcalf  You packed up your bags, and you went down to Albuquerque from...

Jill Graham  Yeah, from Toronto. Yeah, I moved to Albuquerque, survived the first year. Anyone who knows Tamarind knows that it's an extremely grueling, grueling year of your life, but fantastic. And because I was already printing and juggling so many things, it was just a joy to me to have life simplified and be able to focus on lithography. So I just I did what I do, kind of thing, and threw myself into it completely, and then was invited to stay for the second year.

Miranda Metcalf  So I feel like, just from being in the print world and knowing the good people at Tamarind and people who have been through it, I feel like I have a pretty good sense of what that first year is. I'd love to hear a little bit more about the second year and what kind of specific training you got that differed? 

Jill Graham  Maybe not the best person to ask, because again, I was printing professionally for a number of years. So I think my experience is very different from maybe some of the younger people, certainly, who have stayed for the second year. But it's printing. You're contract printing, you're working on Tamarind's editions, and you're collaborating with artists that come in. And I was so fortunate, Bill Lagattuta was the master printer when I was there, and it just was the best fit. Bill and Jill, and we got along great. I'm a grumpy old man at heart, so we suited each other just perfectly. Bill could have his little grumpy edge, although he's just the loveliest man. Yeah, just a lot of printing and learning from Bill. I mean, again, I'd apprenticed early on, and so I knew what that was like, to work that intensely with somebody and be on your toes assisting, and so I found that very comfortable dynamic with Bill and was trusted to take on collaborating with the artists that come in. So that's the big difference, is that you're working with their roster of artists that are invited in throughout the year. Lesley Dill, Hung Liu came, just really fantastic artists, and to watch Bill in his element and learn from that is really the big difference. I mean, you have contact with Bill and the senior printers when you're in the first year, but never on that same level kind of thing.

Miranda Metcalf  And so you've gotten to work with some pretty well established, well known artists, and I want any hot goss that you can tell me on the record. That's really what I'm trying to ask. Not gonna beat around the bush.

Jill Graham  Well, you won't get it from me. A printer never tells! Yeah, I won't. But sure, there's great stuff that happens. Sometimes you love the artists you work with. And like I said, I'm always so attached to the work, so even if there's personality conflicts, it's never happened to affect the work. And you know, there's haven't been any huge personality conflicts for me. Some people I like a little better than others, I'm sure. But yeah, I don't know who you're thinking of. I got to collaborate with some terrific artists in South Africa as well. Upon finishing up at Tamarind, you need work, right? I thought I was gonna go back to Open Studio and quickly learned that promises that were made were not going to be kept. Life takes you on these paths, and I interviewed at a few places and would have loved to stay in the US. I would have just loved to stay with Bill. But that wasn't going to happen. And he was contacted by Mark Atwood at The Artists' Press in South Africa. And they were looking for somebody to train a printer there. And Bill said, 'Well, I've got the perfect person for you,' and put us in touch. The printer that they were working with had trained at Tamarind, but he left to form his own studio. And the person that had been working as a sponger, his name was Jackie, and he'd worked as a sponger for nine years. And Mark felt that he would make a terrific printer. But he didn't want to leave his family and travel to Tamarind. So their idea was that they would bring somebody from Tamarind to The Artists' Press. But what they were sure to tell me, and confuse me with, is that Jackie was colorblind. 

Miranda Metcalf  Oh, wow. 

Jill Graham  So I went to train a colorblind printer in White River, South Africa, which is just pretty amazing. So I worked intensively with him for three months, I stayed there and got to edition for William Kentridge and Diane Victor and Claudette Schreuders. Just a fantastic experience. And Jackie was amazing. Mark had bought this spectrometer, which is a tool used often in commercial photography, I think, where they'll check the color reading on different, I guess printed things, I'm not really sure exactly how they'd apply it. But we were able to check the color using the spectrometer, and Jackie has an amazing ability to see tonal value, much better than me. And so he could see when the ink was shifting. And with my help, he learned to check enough and keep an eye on things and did really well. He's got patience and just a great personality for it. So, big six-foot-something guy, and here's me teaching him how to print with these massive rollers. It was really funny. And it was Jackie and Jill, and so of course we had such a kick out of that.

Miranda Metcalf  That's so sweet. Yeah, I love it. And so that was three months after Tamarind?

Jill Graham  Yeah, from July until October. But in the meantime, I had gotten this job at NSCAD here. So they delayed my start. They permitted me to delay starting until I got back. So I literally flew in from South Africa - I ended my time there by basically doing the circumference of South Africa and seeing as much as I could - and then flew into Toronto, unpacked a bag, repacked a bag, and then flew to Halifax and ended up quite sick in the process, but started work here in the fall of 2014.

Miranda Metcalf  So that means that you're coming up on five years at NSCAD?

Jill Graham  It will be, yeah, it will be. It's gone by really quickly and really slowly all at the same time.

Miranda Metcalf  I understand that, for sure. And so I would love to hear a little bit about your role there at NSCAD.

Jill Graham  Well, I'm the printmaking technician. So I run the studios, and I help students with their work, and I stock inks, and I repair the presses, and keep all the professors happy. So it's a good job. And the bonus is, I think my colleagues Mark Bovey and Ericka Walker knew when they hired me, and we had discussions about it, that I would want to come and print. And so very quickly, I've been able to bring in some of the artists that I have long collaborative relationships with, Endi Poskovic, from Ann Arbor, and then Joscelyn Gardner, who I've worked with since 2007. She's come twice now to continue our work together. And then the aspirations to revive the NSCAD Lithography Workshop, which has a big reputation for something that ended way back in the late '70s, early '80s. But people still really remember the work, of course, and it was very impactful in Canadian art history. So very interesting for me to figure out a way to get publishing happening back here again.

Miranda Metcalf  For people who aren't familiar with it, I'd love to just, before you talk about the rebirth of it, the Renaissance that you're in the middle of, I'm just personally curious about what was it sort of like before? You said it had this big impact in Canadian art history and ended in the '70s, but anything more particular about it, I'm always keen for hearing the backstory.

Jill Graham  Well, NSCAD University is one of Canada's oldest independent cultural institutions. And Garry Neill Kennedy joined NSCAD in 1967 as President. And Garry Neill Kennedy was aware of print publishing. He definitely knew of Tamarind. And he thought this would be a great model to set up here in Halifax, which is a real kind of dream. But the way NSCAD was functioning is that there were a lot of artists being brought in to teach. And so when they were coming, Kennedy was attracting cutting edge stars from across Europe and North America to lecture and teach and collaborate with students, but he would get them to participate in the workshop. And it was Jack Lemon that Kennedy brought here to set up the original studios. And Bob Rogers was working with Jack Lemon at the time, and Bob was set to go to Tamarind, but he left Tamarind and continued his studies through Tamarind but he did them with Bob and he did them here at NSCAD. And some of the artists that came were Joseph Beuys, Eric Fischl, Vito Acconci, Sol LeWitt, Michael Snow and Joyce Wieland, Claes Oldenburg, and John Baldessari. And it was very much conceptual art. So the focus was completely on conceptual art, because of course, it would have been big at the time. So the printers had their work cut out for them, trying to figure out how to collaborate with some of these artists, and some work was really remarkable that came out of the program.

Miranda Metcalf  With that history, you knew you wanted to kind of revive that and start the publishing again, and you were able to get a grant for it. Is that correct?

Jill Graham  Yeah, I think we wanted to revisit, but we didn't want to do the same thing. I'm not as interested in focusing on one type of art or artist. And so focusing on conceptual art just wouldn't be a concern right at this time. And we felt responsible for correcting a little bit of what had happened back then, which is that it was a lot of white male dudes. 

Miranda Metcalf  Shocker. Yeah. 

Jill Graham  Yeah. I mean, Joyce Weiland's "Oh, Canada" piece, if you don't know it, it's on our little website, but she mouthed the words to "Oh, Canada" while kissing the stone. And as you know, a lithographic stone is sensitive to grease. So the lipstick that she had formed the mouth impressions on the stone, and then they were printed in her favorite lipstick color. And it's a very iconic Canadian print. But she was one of I think maybe two or three female artists. Maybe the only one included in the program. And so we felt like we were going to do things a little bit differently. And yeah, we received a grant in April 2017 called a New Chapters Grant, and it's through the Canada Council for the Arts. And they've funded, well, they fund a huge amount across Canada, but this in particular is a pretty big deal for us. And we proposed to produce a folio with eight artists from across Canada, and they range hugely in the work that they do. There are women involved as well. And a really important part of the project as well is working with studios in Cape Dorset, Nunavut. So again, talk about the coincidences in my own career, Wallie Brennan was one of the printers here at NSCAD for the original lithography workshop. And he had traveled to Kinngait, which is this studio in Cape Dorset, up until I think 1980. He had gone in the mid '70s and helped to establish the lithography studios there. So I believe there was a press there already, but he went and kind of helped to make the studios a little more professional, and they work with local artists. It's a co-op. So it's called the West Baffin Eskimo Co-Op. And they encourage people from the community to come in and draw. And from those drawings, they'll transform them into either stone cuts, etching, some relief print, or lithographs, and they're very well known for their published lithographs that are sold through Dorset Fine Arts and Feheley Fine Arts in Toronto. And so this is something that NSCAD had formed a relationship many years ago. And the interesting thing with me being back is that that relationship has been re-established. And through this grant - which is just fantastic. So I was able to travel to Cape Dorset, Nunavut. And if anyone hasn't figured out where that is, you got to look on the map, because it's way way out there, and really interesting. So I traveled there. So it's Dorset Island near Foxe Peninsula. And it's the southern tip of Baffin Island. And I was able to go there this fall, or this past fall, so September 2018, and stay for two weeks. And part of the grant is that I went there and I worked with one of their printers in lithography, helping to sort of up train him. And then I was able to work with Shuvinai Ashoona, who's a really well established artist in Canada, at least, and getting a big reputation internationally as well. And it was just a mind blowing experience. The printers there are fantastic, they are holding their own, but I mean, you don't come across anyone else working in arts when you're there. So he's not aware of certain changes that would have happened or little tricks of the trade that might make his life a little bit easier. He's kind of stuck in production mode. And so there's William Ritchie, Bill Ritchie, is the shop manager up there. And he also - here's the overlap again - he studied here at NSCAD and he went and did the first year of the Tamarind program many years ago. And he's been at Kinngait for a number of years. And he's great working with the printers, but again, he's not training as a printer anymore and doesn't have contact collaborating regularly with a variety of artists. So he felt that the printer there, Niviaqsi, could use a little bit of up training, essentially. And it just became the most interesting exchange, really. I just feel really fortunate to have gone and lucky that, hopefully, I'll be able to continue the relationship and travel back again. And then as part of the grant, they both, Niviaqsi and Shuvinai, have come here now. They just visited us in April. And that was fantastic to see them here, working in our studios and creating a print. So finally, I made a print with Shuvinai in Cape Dorset, and then we've made one for the folio here as well.

Miranda Metcalf  As you said, it sounds like there is a chance this is going to be kind of an ongoing, continued collaboration, even after this initial project probably comes to its completion this autumn?

Jill Graham  I would hope so. I think it's a great working relationship, in terms of training Niviaqsi. There's a certain amount of trust that you have to build, little bit mistrusting of someone from the south coming up and just telling him what's up, which is absolutely fair enough. And so we've got a terrific working relationship now. And I think it would be silly to end things too quickly. If there's a need for him to expand on his skills a little bit and I can help with that, then I think it's a win-win for all of us.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, absolutely. And so what do you have kind of left on your plate for this eight person portfolio? Who's left that you're going to be working with?

Jill Graham  It's eight different artists. I've started all the collaborations now. So we have Ed Pien, Brendan Fernandes, Amy Malbeuf, Jordan Bennett, Derek Sullivan, Shary Boyle, Shuvinai, and then Ericka Walker. So I've just begun proofing for Ericka Walker, who's faculty here at NSCAD. And I can't show images, but there's a lot of little teases on the Instagram. So that's been fun. Everything's begun, everything's well underway. A bunch of the editions are completed. I just finished Shuvinai's last week. And so I've got three editions underway this summer. So the crunch is on.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, no kidding. And it's gonna, you said, come to an end in September?

Jill Graham  Yeah, we were supposed to launch in June, and for whatever reason, we were granted an extension from the Canada Council. The folio will be launching at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, and that's going to happen in December. So when the exact dates and information's available, I'm definitely going to post it. Because I feel like I've been teasing people for, well, it's been two years, right? And two years of my life too. And I'd like to see it culminate into a nice release of the prints. But yeah, it's going to be something to watch out for. And the work is just great. It's just such a variety of work. It's been fascinating to see the overlaps. I get a lot of questions about, do I see any similarities because I'm the printer involved in it? Which I always feel is a little, it's a bit of a strange question. For me, I never really accept that I would bring all that much to a print. I've had great conversations about this, so don't get on me. But there's some interesting overlaps. Each print is just so different. And I'm really excited about them, I think it's gonna be really well received. And it's just such a huge deal in Canadian printmaking, which is, I still kind of have to pinch myself a little bit that we got the grant to begin with. I think we were all really shocked. And I think everybody that's involved has just been really fantastic and excited about it.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, that's really, really something to look for. I'm sure it feels like it's been a long time coming to get to share openly about everything you've been working on. But I know I'm really excited to see it.

Jill Graham  Yeah, well, there's still a lot to do. So I'm excited, nervous, and like kind of scared that I'm not gonna pull it all off.

Miranda Metcalf  I hear you there. That's like me every day before a podcast comes out. 

Jill Graham  I bet! Pressure's on.

Miranda Metcalf  Pressure's on. Thank you so much for coming on and telling us your story and all the exciting work that you've been doing. It's been a real pleasure.

Jill Graham  It's my pleasure. I think often, in telling how my career has turned out in printmaking, it's been important to me to let people know that you don't necessarily have to be a gallery artist as a printmaker, that there's so many other ways to enter the field if it's something that you really love. And I've worked completely technically for so long now. That's my thing. But there's so many other important jobs and roles that people can play to maybe fund making their own work. It's not of interest to me to make my work at this stage, really, but I've made my living in my field. And that's just fantastic when somebody is able to do that. So I'd like for young people who want to be involved in printmaking to think in those terms as well, that there might be something else out there for them.

Miranda Metcalf  I love that, and I do think that that's really significant, because I think that it's something that is really rich and tangible within the world of printmaking that not necessarily is there in other sides of the art world. You know, obviously with a bunch of caveats. But I love that, because there's so many different doors into this, if you've got the passion for it, and I think it is really important for young people to hear. 

Jill Graham  Exactly. Yeah, I don't think everyone's gonna be a master printer. It's not for everyone, but there's definitely a lot of cool things you can do out there with your training. 

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, that's great. I think that's the perfect place to close. I'd love to ask you where people can find you and follow all these projects and the best way to see what you're up to.

Jill Graham  You can find me on Instagram, it's @jillgraham.ink. And we have a website, litho.nscad.ca, if you want to check out the website that's specific to the grant project. 

Miranda Metcalf  Very nice. So we can follow you there and see all your adventures. I love it. 

Jill Graham  That'd be great.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah. Well, thank you again. And I will be in touch when I know when it's coming out. And so we'll talk soon. 

Jill Graham  Terrific. Let's keep in touch! 

Miranda Metcalf  Sounds great. Thank you again, Jill. Well, that's our show for this week. Join me again in two weeks' time when my guest will be Reinaldo Gil Zambrano. We talk about growing up in Venezuela, leaving home at 16 to attend art school, and building up and nurturing an incredible printmaking community in Spokane, Washington. And that episode is going to be another double release in Spanish and English. This episode, like all episodes, was written and produced by me, Miranda Metcalf, with editing help from Timothy Pauszek and music by Joshua Webber. I'll see you in two weeks.