Armidale etching workshop at New England Regional Art Museum

For the fifth time, I have just been invited back to work with the Black Gully Printmakers, who operate out of a studio under the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM). Recently, NERAM and the gallery’s fabulous fundraisers – known as the Packsaddlers – have assisted the group with the purchase of a new etching press and some refurbishment in the Museum of Printing, so there is now a dedicated space for displaying aspects of the history of commercial printing alongside a working printmaking studio. Surrounded by linotype machines, Albion presses and paper guillotines, I worked with a small, but dedicated, band of etchers on copper plates for two days, visited Rhonda Ellem’s Uralla printmaking gallery for an opening and did my usual floor talk in the annual Packsaddle exhibition in the main galleries. Here, Eveline Chan works back into her soft ground etching plate with a needle to strengthen her blacks. Thanks Armidale for another really enjoyable visit.