But finally, the day arrived when Louise was ready to run a whole job herself from start to finish. Apart from quoting and invoicing (and who wants to do that crap anyway), Louise managed the entire lifecycle – design iteration, client liason, prepress, platemaking, printing, postproduction and handover.

In this blog post, Louise gives an insight into the process. This might be a really useful post for those who are thinking of making a print on the Big Fag Press themselves. As Louise notes in her text below, printing flyers is not at all the Big Fag’s bread and butter. But because the Trampoline Day folks are so damn awesome, we decided to make an exception in this case…

So basically I was approached through Lucas and the Big Fag Press by the people who run Trampoline, about designing and printing a flier for the event on the Press. Trampline is a free art-like event where anyone can come along and give a 15 minutes speech about anything they think is “amazing”.

For something roughly the size of an A5 piece of paper, this job would usually be sent to the Rizzeria or Blood and Thunder, but I agreed to take on the job to see a design through from concept to print as a practise for what I’ll do for my major work.

I was given a basic outline and things I needed to include, so I came up with a design in three different shapes.

My “trapezoid” shape,seemed to be the most resolved, so after a lot of back-and-forthing of emails, fonts and logos, and whether to include an exclamation mark, and how to spell “harbour” and many other things, my final design of the front ended up looking like this:

I then created the map on the back which wasn’t easy, perhaps my orienteering skills need a bit of work, but google maps is a very useful tool! I basically ended up tracing over screen prints of google maps and shifting it around to fit my design.

The next step in the Big Fag Press print process is to layout the design on a metal plate. This is done at Imagination Graphics, a place in Marrickville. The designs need to be converted to greyscale, as the ink in the end is what puts the colour on the paper. Ie, 100% black = 100% blue, 50% black (grey), = 50% blue (light blue).

I decided to put in some more time and save money by making one plate only and putting both the back and front of my design on the plate and turning the paper over to print on the back. This meant registration had to be worked out exactly, which I tried to do myself by mirroring the paper placement, designs and crop marks etc, all from one central line. As you can see the template gets very complex.

In the end, I didn’t trust my layout enough, because although the “snap to” functions and guidelines in illustrator are awesome, Imagination Graphics just has mathematical software which can lay something this complex out easily. For simpler jobs, it wouldn’t be difficult to do this myself, it’s usually just a matter of making sure two plates for two different colours match up exactly with relevant registration marks.

This was my plate in the end: (the design looks blue just because where the design is etched out is always blue no matter what colour you want to print with)

I looked through a few different colours (oil based inks), and chose a warm-ish Cyan.

I then chose my paper, which was 690 x 750, 300gsm, coated, and printed several copies onto scrap paper just to test out where the central line would fall on the paper bed on our machine. It was then a matter of printing onto both sides of the paper and shifting the registration lines a couple of millimetres to make sure back and front would match. In the below image is Pat helping me use the sun to see if our registration was working properly.

I then printed all 50 copies, let them dry, and then printed the backs, all the time fighting to keep a balance of water vs. ink on the plate as it was a very humid day and the plate was drying up quickly.

At one point I had to clean the press blanket ad start again because some flecks of paper began getting stuck to the blanket, and obscuring part of my design. This is the blanket below, it work as kind of a huge “stamp” taking ink from the plate to the paper.

And then began a tedious process of trimming the fliers, but they ended up coming out pretty well (at least I think so).

Pat, Diego and I are attending the Trampoline event on Sunday to give talk about the Big Fag Press – it works out nicely actually, because we do think it’s pretty amazing!

In early March we printed this fantastic hand-drawn map of Sydney for writer, artist, and zine-maker Vanessa Berry as part of her project Biblioburbia: The Library Files, in which she visited and documented thirty libraries around the greater Sydney region. Her exhibition – with Simon Yates – at Firstdraft gallery in Surry Hills has sadly opened and closed already, but you can read more about Vanessa’s library visits and the project in general at  biblioburbia.wordpress.com.

The maps are not yet for sale on Vanessa’s Etsy store, but get in touch with her at Vanessa Berry World if you’d like to purchase one!

…and here’s an image of the print itself (click on the picture for larger version):

[photo by Louise Anderson]
Check details for the launch on the 18th of March on Firstdraft’s website

An Unlikely “Internship”, by Louise Anderson

Now, it’s not many people who can say they know how to and have helped change the blanket on a 4 tonne printing machine (that’s the weight of 8 cars). Actually, a year ago, I thought a blanket was just the rug I use on my bed. But now I know, large offset printing machines use rubber blankets to transport ink from rollers to paper. How did I come by this information? It’s an interesting story.

A while ago in my Fashion Design degree I decided I wanted to take a more artistic route and major in the visual communication/ printwork side of things, and I was told I needed to do an internship. The desire to be part of the artworld always having been somewhere there in my subconscious I seized the opportunity when Lucas Ihlein by chance gave a lecture in a class I was taking, told him I was inspired by his presentation and would he mind if a wannabe artist hung around him for a while. At this point I had no idea he was part of a collective at the Big Fag Press, and that suddenly my degree and my artist dreams would veer down the same path.

Being an “intern” (yes I still do the “_” hand movements when I say this outloud) with a group of artists is very different to what I’ve experienced in the world of fashion where I remember steaming dresses all day long. I could have been the coffee kart chick at a larger magazine company that couldn’t afford to let an amateur like me do any actual work, instead I’ve been welcomed into a small business almost at the point where it’s just got off the ground, making artist contact one after the other and being allowed and thanked to be an integral part of every process from admin, to running the machine, to event organisation and documentation and digital design work. I even got to use my patternmaking and sewing skills to make a cover to fit the press!

I’ve met and worked with artists Michael Stevenson, Jason Wing, Kate Sweetapple, Keg de Souza, Ian Milliss, Fiona McDonald, and many more, not to mention collaborating with Artspace, the MCA, Fremantle Arts Centre, The CrossArt Projects, Firstdraft Gallery and Performance Space, The Paper Mill and of course Mickie Quick, Diego Bonetto and Pat Armstrong. Lucas even paid for a workshop I attended at the Rizzeria. Our big project last year Green Bans Art Walks saw me designing the project logo and T-shirt, and one of my photographs of the event ended up by chance in the City News newspaper which subsequently got me a few freelance photography jobs.

I’m on the brink of being able to run the Big Fag Press by myself (apart from perhaps the weight of some of the parts!), and I’ve learnt so much, as well as being able to consolidate skills I already had in photography and digital design. The opportunities I’ve encountered, not to mention the mentoring, inspiration and (dare I say) friendships I’ve made have been invaluable to me. I’m currently simultaneously doing a few of my own prints on the press, and beginning my final year and major work for my degree, altogether happy to have ended up at this point, in a place I feel I’ve helped, and has helped me.

- – -

You can help Louise raise money to pay for the printing costs of her upcoming ambitious print project, here:

… a great little video by Nick Coppins.

Last year, Nick and his company, Telectran/Aqualux, fitted and provided a fantastic neutral-light, low wattage LED system for the Big Fag’s printroom. It’s transformed the way we work – we can see into every corner and the colour of our prints is “true” (rather than greenish with the fluoro lights).

In exchange, we worked on making some prints with Nick just before Christmas. Pictures soon!

Green Bans Art Walk from Cross Art Projects on Vimeo.

GBAW

[Vernon Ah Kee's offset lithograph printed on the Big Fag, 2011]

Big Fag Press has recently begun printing some limited edition prints for artists working with 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. So far, we’ve printed with Jason Wing, and Vernon Ah Kee. You can read about our experience with Jason here.

Over at the 4A website, you can go ahead and order a copy of these prints for yourself!

Diego Bonetto, one of the directors of the Big Fag Press, has won the 2011 Marrickville Contemporary Art Prize!

Diego’s prizewinning work was an installation comprising one of his famous weed terrariums, alongside a print he produced in 2010 on the Big Fag:

[Diego Bonetto, Terrarium Audit, 2010, in collaboration with Lucas Ihlein]

[Diego Bonetto, Weed Terrarium, 2010]

The print was produced in collaboration with Lucas Ihlein, as part of Lucas’ Environmental Audit project. Both the print, and the Terrarium were produced as part of the exhibition In the Balance: Art for a Changing World at the MCA.

This year, the MCAP was shared between Diego and Georgie Pollard. Congratulations to you both!!

We will be screening Pat Fiske’s excellent Rocking The Foundations with an introduction from Pat herself, and a freshly-produced film documenting the project that the fantastic Justin Hewitson has been filming for us over the past few weekends.

Hope to see you there!

The captions are also compiled by him. Thanks so much Lionel, for the photos and for all your hard work helping out with the project!

Michael Davies, discusses his ‘Map Of Fitzroy Ward’ 1971, and the social implications of & the genesis of the map project. Pre digital endless hours of hand drawn map and Letraset text. Great work with powerful impact on local knowledge of developer land purchases!

Local resident Phillip Boulton (right) drawing our attention to some often overlooked details and stories of Woolloomooloo talking with Lucas Ihlein of Big Fag Press (left).

architect of the community housing at Nellie Stewart Square-Michael Dysart, Nellie Stewart Square is affectionately referred to as ‘The Posh’ by the locals, due to it’s gorgeous environment and safe haven for kids to play, totally away from the streets in the heart of The Loo. The gorgeous stone in the walls was reclaimed from the area itself. Despite interest from Harry M miller to buy two of the houses for premium dollar upon completion- all went to people on the list for community housing and some re-settlement of previously dislocated ex locals.

Key Project member and local Woolloomooloo resident- Stacey Miers (in the green bans t-shirt) discusses some of the history of the housing around Sir Dennis Winston Place.

Artist Christopher Dean discusses the sculpture ‘Aphrodite’ by Margel Hinder, in the park at Sir Dennis Winston Place.

Big Fag Press artist- Mickie Quick discusses the local history of resident/ artist actions in the hood.

Artist Ian Milliss (active community member and artist around the time of the demolition rebuilding of Victoria St), discusses the great local character Mick Fowler (last resident to stay in Victoria St among considerable ongoing violence from developers)near his memorial plaque at the Butler stairs.

Artist Ian Milliss shows an old image of the house where Mick Fowler lived as we stand in front of it at 115 Victoria St, Kings Cross.

The walking group arrives at The Cross Arts Projects

Project initiator and curator Jo Holder- director of The Cross Arts Projects discusses the awesome history of Green Bans and the genesis of the project to celebrate 40 years of Green bans. artwork on wall behind, original watercolours by Fiona MacDonald referencing historical material.

Living legend Jack Mundey (BLF secretary who oversaw 50 Green Bans during his time as secretary including Victoria St and Woolloomooloo.) “ecology has to become part of all planning…and all political thinking”

Peter McClelland President of the CFMEU (current incarnation of the BLF) still taking action to save urban areas for the people.

City of Sydney Councillor Marcelle Hoff and resident Stacey Miers at The Cross Arts Projects launch

Weekend at Firstdraft. Cat and Fran dish out snags at the Launch of Green Bans Art Walk at Firstdraft Depot Project Space

Welcome to Firstdraft Depot!

Opening Speaker- Edmund campion- longtime local priest and secretary of Woolloomooloo Resident Action Group Secretary at time of Green Bans is introduced by Big Fag Artist Lucas Ihlein.

Project artist Marian Hardman (nee Marrison) discusses the photographs she took to document Green Bans back in the mid 70′s- on show at Firstdraft Depot project space and some of the inspiring locals she documented. also mentioned how some things gain significance over time and how powerful it was to be given the opportunity to revisit the project.

Opening Speaker- Edmund campion- longtime local priest and secretary of Woolloomooloo Resident Action Group Secretary at time of Green Bans, shares great stories of the formation of the Woolloomooloo Resident Action Group and the building of momentum, struggle and support for Green Bans.

Great man- Jim Owens of the BLF gave a heart rending speech listing all the men and women who gave so much of themselves in harsh dangerous circumstances to make Green Bans happen, he recalled strong figures and quiet powerful committed men and women who worked tirelessly to protect their local environment for future generations- the rich legacy left for us who can enjoy these spaces now, many of whom have sadly died over the years. Cheers to everyone involved. The impacts of all the hard work makes this a much more liveable city!