Our SILLIS project (funded by the SSHRC) is now completed. We published a 4-volume print-on-demand set of books entitled: "Mapping the Bay of Islands"; each volume authored by Marlene MacCallum, David Morrish, Pierre LeBlanc, and Clifton Meador. We now all look forward to new independent projects and future collaborations utilizing the skills and equipment we obtained during the past three years of research. Stay tuned for more.

Our SILLIS project resulted in our doing a four-plate CMYK color photogravure registration printing demonstration at Open Studio in Toronto during Printopolis, a city-wide printmaking symposium and multi-venue exhibition. We brought two students with us, both to experience the city and the syposium and to help with the demonstration. It went very well and was well recieved. The demo included this image, which printed perfectly! Thankfully.

In August our SILLIS project sponsored an altered book workshop with Rochester, NY based book artist, Scott McCarney. Scott came to Corner Brook, NL to guide seven of us through an exploration of reworked and "autopsied" books, reconfigured contents, then documenting them and reforming them into new experimental pieces. Examples of my own attempts can be found in Recent Work. Another book artist, Clifton Meador from Chicago, will be here later in September for a collaboration which focuses on our location and how we can derive content from research of this place. Stay tuned....

It has now been well over a month since I started my BLOG about my current areas of research: death and mortality, decay and preservation, archiving and memorializing. I've been trying to come up with fresh interpretations of items from my collections and of related discoveries I've found on the web. Go to Dark Dissolution to read the entries from the beginning: the first of January. Comments are always welcome.

Research goes on. I am now making a two-plate photogravure using spot color instead of CMYK. I will post the results as soon as I have them.

I am now back to full-time teaching. Needless to say, this will likely have an impact on my studio work. One new thing, though, was the start of a BLOG about my current areas of research: death and mortality, decay and preservation, archiving and memorializing. I include images from my collections of related books and photographs, and links to great websites. Go to Dark Dissolution to read the entries which began on the first of January. Comments are always welcome.

We spent six days in Bristol, UK, at the IMPACT 6 print conference. I presented a paper/lecture and Marlene presented at a poster session. We thoroughly enjoyed it and saw a lot of wonderful work. Then we went to Paris for a week and decided not to go the art gallery route. Instead, we saw (and photographed) three cemeteries, a natural history museum, two medical museums, a museum of historical science and technology, the flea markets, great food, and the streets .... What could be better?

In spite of a dark future, I successfully etched and printed another CMYK four-plate photogravure. See Recent Work. I love it. I will not give up on this crazy process.

Well, it finally happened. Autotype has just announced the end of production of their G35 gravure tissue that the small world-community of photogravure artists depends on. The alternatives: photo-polymer gravure, or making our own carbon tissue. Neither look too appetizing. Just as we started to perfect our 4-plate CMYK procedure, we get hit with this shortage, nay, disappearance of our key material. Please contact us if this effects you and your work as well. We may need to form a support group ... It is ironinc that exactly 170 years after the French Government announced the invention of photography was a gift "Free to the World" on August 19, 1839, we lose one of the key early processes, the Talbot-Klič photogravure process.

The sillis Lab Four-color CMYK Photogravure Workshop was a success!! Five participants made gravures over the week of August 3-7. They were: David Scott Armstrong, Mark Bovey, Steven Dixon, Nancy Fox, and Asa Muir-Harmony. We learned from each other and are now going to make more.... Thanks to all that helped and participated. We plan on posting the data, procedures, photos, video, and examples on the SilliS site soon.

Marlene, Pierre and I will be hosting a workshop in CMYK photogravure here in Corner Brook. We have five committed attendees from as far afield as San Francisco, Edmonton, Toronto and Halifax. We spent the last two weeks getting ready, testing theories and proofing test plates. We are ready!!

Marlene, Pierre and I will be going to Philadelphia to present a paper at The Hybrid Book Symposium at the University of the Arts in June. We have some new work to bring, plus our experiences and thoughts about our research in CMYK photogravure and hybridity in general.

Well, I am on my feet again and am slowly renovating my space in our new "Art Clinic". It's a good sized building for Pierre and I; over 4000 square feet in all! I still have to organize my stuff and paint and clean the spaces I will be using for studio and storage space. We will eventually have a grand opening and naming ceremony, I suppose. We still haven't settled on an official name for the place, but I think the "Clinic" part will stick. This is based on the reuse of the brass letters on the front of the building: T-H-E-M-U-R-R-A-Y-C-L-I-N-I-C.

Since my leg-cast was removed last month, physiotherapy has been helping me regain strength and a full range of motion in my ankle. This is just in time for this coming Saturday's flight to San Diego, CA, to attend a seminar on large format digital output, color profiles and colour work-spaces. We hope that this will solve some of the printing issues we have been struggling with in our SilliS projects.

On Friday the 13th I will finally have my leg cast removed and can once again begin to work in the studio. I have spent far too much time waiting around to heal. I will be setting up my new studio space at the Clinic in Curling and will post images and info on new work as it begins. Thanks for your patience.

Last fall with my research with the Sequential Imaging Laboratory / Laboratoire d'Imagerie Séquentielle I managed to make a four-color hand-pulled photogravure. Be sure to check it out in Recent Work. Everything has come to a stand-still, however, due to a broken leg on 11 December 2008. Further work will resume as soon as I am ambulatory again.

Welcome to the new website for David Morrish and DeadCat Press!

Have a look around - hope you enjoy it!