Arts in Focus on PBS Fort Wayne is funded in part by the Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne.

Coming up, we'll talk with printmaker Daniel Swartz and Ceramics artist Kelly Roth.

It's all next on Arts in Focus.

Welcome to Arts in Focus.

I'm Emilie Henry.

Daniel Swartz is a printmaker, creating old fashioned letterpress prints from his home studio nestled in the middle of farmland in rural Indiana.

All of Daniel's prints are manually made using antique wood type on vintage printing presses.

We recently visited Daniel to learn all about the process behind his letterpress printing, his love of typography, and his passion for keeping this antiquated art form alive Daniel, thank you so much for having me.

We're out in the sticks.

We?

It was You're kind of far out here.

How did this come to be where you're located and and really being a typesetter, designer who works with fonts?

Yeah.

This all kind of kicked off in 2020.

Like a lot of people's creative ventures, right?

We had a change of path.

I had a previous job that I loved and was creative, and I got to your work with training young designers and all that kind of stuff.

So I was already into typography and graphic design and the history of the craft that was kind of start.

And then an old friend heard that I was interested in this and he has a barn just loaded with all kinds of art supplies because he was an art teacher and he had an old press, which was this one, and some trays of type.

And he said, If you're interested in doing this and you'll use it, it's yours.

So I got a couple things to start with and I started making some prints and they kept selling.

And I had absolutely no no idea what I was doing, but there was YouTube and Facebook.

Thank goodness for the Internet, right?

Because there's no like local resources necessarily here, but there's tons of YouTube videos.

This is kind of a a small community of people that still practice this craft, this is very dated.

This is old stuff.

Right.

And so it's it's losing its practitioners, It's losing the materials and the presses are going away and being scrapped.

And so there's a small group of people that are kind of keeping this alive.

So they're available on YouTube with lots of tutorials.

There's great Facebook groups as well where you can throw things out and folks will answer all kinds of things for you from all different perspectives.

But at least you have a chance of like figuring it out.

Yeah.

And then there's things, you know, archives out there with historic manuals for printing and design or presses, which you can dive into, which give you, you know, more assets on top of that.

So if you can ask the right questions, you can find the right answers.

I'm looking at all of your work.

And it's interesting because as I read all of these different signs, I think it gives me a window into kind of your frame of mind.

Yeah.

Right behind you.

It says create without fear.

Mm hmm.

What was the scariest part?

I mean, 2020 was terrifying for everybody.

Yeah.

So what was the scariest part about saying, I'm going to stop this spiral with this venture?

And here we go.

I mean, the scariest part, I think, was there's only so much time.

There's only so much money.

And you don't know necessarily if you're picking in the right direction.

Right.

And something like this, it takes some upfront investment.

It takes time to learn the craft, and you're just hoping that you're not going in the wrong direction And sinking a bunch of resources in to something that's going to be a failure when you need things to work.

Yeah, but month over month things keep doing well and people are enthusiastic about this.

And that continual feedback loop has helped me figure out how to make things better and what people are interested in, what I'm interested in making.

And we just kind of keep following that path and refining as you go kind of hold the dream loose, but just keep charging forward and make great stuff as you go.

Let's talk a little bit about your process.

What do you do?

Well, every print starts with a basic concept and there's kind of a narrow spectrum of messaging that I'm interested in.

And a lot of that is kind of on a foundation of encouragement.

A lot of times it's for other creative people because a lot of artists kind of get into what I'm doing.

They understand this craft or the history.

So a lot of it's that.

But then there's also issues of faith that I touch on a lot.

And so I find things that are meaningful to me, maybe messages I want to hear right now and feel like other people would benefit from.

And so investigating those phrases is kind of the first start.

And so once I have a phrase, then I start choosing type out of my cabinet.

So I have a cabinet over here with tons of tape in it, probably over 3000 different pieces.

And I'm not sure what's going to fit on different pages per the size of the paper and the size of the font.

So I start blocking things in a loose piece of paper.

You just kind of put stuff in and see what font contrast you might like and where you're going to put the emphasis.

How many colors you're going to do.

Once you get that figured out, I'll either do a lock up, which is when you use pressure to put everything onto the press so it holds still and that's when you get your grid established and all the letting and the kerning and all that.

Or sometimes I'll go on the computer and I do digital versions.

And so I have all of my fonts basically in a digital format as well.

So I can do endless mockups with color and arrangement, figure out paper interactions, or I'm going to overlapping, transparent ink all that kind of jazz.

Some inks are transparent, and so that's going to show paper through.

Sometimes you want that, sometimes you don't.

Sometimes you want the inks overlap because that creates a shift in luster or creates different color effects.

And then different papers have different textures and there's different tooth kind of a weave to different papers which will hit the type in the ink differently.

So you're kind of making all these choices as best you can.

There's definitely an accidental nature to the whole thing.

You just kind of roll with it, but you have a clear idea.

You know, your 85% is kind of what I'm going for.

And then you do proofs and remix ink as needed, change arrangements and make it really sing and tight.

And then a lot of times you hand ink it, hand press it, do that 50 times.

If there's a second color, you tear it all down, you do another arrangement and then ink that and press that 50 more times on top.

So when it comes to choosing the font, yeah, where do you start?

Yes, right.

Some of it's space occupation.

You want to work with standard paper sizes, so you have to use a certain amount of space for it to feel full and well used.

Activated.

Mm hmm.

So that's a general starting point.

But you're kind of choosing if you want anywhere on the spectrum of type contrast.

Either you want all your type to be very similar and feel like it's in a family.

So for instance, it's all bold or it's all sans serif, so there's no feet on it.

Or if you want to push that contrast, you could say, Well, I have some type that's really, really thin, but I'm also going to use type that's heavy, maybe to emphasize a word or stuff that's friendly and rounded or I'm going to contrast that with something that's sharp and rigid and more exciting or plain versus italic.

So you're playing with all these type contrasts, trying to decide what presents the message best, but also occupies a space.

Because the reality is a lot of this is an act of compromise.

You've only got so many letters, you've only got so many fonts, right?

And if you don't have it, I have to carve it or order it in.

And that creates more time, expense or resources.

So you make the call.

And what's most important type contrast or a little bit of compromise there to get the right amount of space used.

Yeah.

Okay.

You just mentioned that sometimes if you don't have it, you carve it.

Yeah.

So that's a whole nother skill.

And did you already have that skill or did you have to learn it and how do you do it?

I had already done some print making in the past and I had taught some printmaking classes, so I was kind of aware of the basic process as relief printing and I use the same thing to do blocks here.

I use linoleum blocks.

You can do a transfer.

If I'm using like historic type, I can print that off, reverse it and do a transfer to the block and then I carve out the non printable space and then you make that the height of the type so that all prints consistently and there's no undo button here.

Yes.

Right.

It's you do it right or you spend an hour fixing it and then try to do it right another time.

Yes.

Okay.

So start to finish.

How long does a typical piece take, at least for that first go round?

Well, I tend to say it takes me about two weeks from start to finish, from like the conception of a print until the thing is ready to to post and sell.

And that's mockups, that's research, that's figuring out color, that's altering type.

If we need to do that.

And sometimes I'll have multiple prints running at a time because you may have like one color printed on this one and another color printed on this one.

This one's still drying, but you can do the second layer on that, that kind of thing.

Or paper needs trim.

So there's multiple pieces running at a time, but generally about one concept every other week.

Okay, bear with me because this is a weird question, but I want to know if you had to describe yourself in a font, what font would you be?

Oh, I love it.

That's fantastic.

I would probably be.

I really like French Clarendon Letters, which are the ones that have the really heavy tops and bottoms.

They're kind of like the Western fonts, but I think they're kind of.

They're funky and they're fun.

They're, you know, they're they're not formal, but they're not always casual.

And there's a lot of different things you can do with that.

And.

Yeah, yeah.

What's the best part of creating a piece?

I think the best part is that I kind of mentioned already it's a physical thing its an artifact.

There is an actual piece that marks the moment, right?

It's it's there for a time, and it's there for people to have in their homes or whatnot.

And, you know, I've got files of things I've designed 20 years ago that I never look at again.

You know, they're tucked away in a hard drive.

Mm hmm.

But this stuff will exist as long as someone takes care of it.

And we still find printed ephemera, you know, from hundreds of years ago.

And that's that's exciting stuff that that legacy can live on through a through a physical, actual thing with all of its imperfections, with all the problems.

I think there's a beauty still there, right?

It's human.

Yeah.

Oh, I love that.

What has art taught you about yourself?

I think it's taught me that the stakes are much lower sometimes than I imagine them to be.

I think that especially when I when I was younger and I see this in other young makers, it can be so intimidating to, like, paint on a brand new canvas because that canvas spent 30 bucks, you know, buying that thing and this paint and this time.

But the only way to make something better is to dive in and invest in that thing.

And if you go after it, you're more likely to make something nice than not.

Right.

And that just gets you ready for the next thing, even if it's not great, even if it doesn't get the A or it doesn't sell well or whatever, all you have to do is get over that little hurdle in order to keep moving forward.

And so stop putting the pressure on yourself to make something that's phenomenal or that's a homerun every time.

Just make something great for now with whatever time you have with the resources and then go from there.

That one hit, like I needed that today.

Daniel, this has been such a pleasure.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for creating and for carrying on this beautiful art.

And I hope that you continue to educate as well because, man, this is this is an art form that I hope continues for a long, long time.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

For more information find Hoosier Typo Co. on Instagram I'm joined now by ceramic artist Kelly Roth.

Kelly, thank you for being here.

I love your stuff.

It's so great.

So I want to talk first about how you got into pottery and then we'll talk about kind of the more specific stuff.

So have you always been a potter, as it were?

Well, off and on.

So of course, it depends on when the opportunity presents itself.

And so for me, that was in high school and I had some phenomenal teachers and a really awesome studio set up.

So that was where I was able to really fall in love with it.

I think I did the the old pinch pot for mom back in elementary school or whatever.

And but just building and playing with Play-Doh and things like that, all of that hands on stuff really just always appealed to me and then was able to get into it more in high school.

So one of the things I love so much about your work is the art on top of the art.

I mean, I talked to a lot of ceramic artists who make beautiful pieces, but they don't add the, like, abstract art on top.

So when did that come into play?

Thank you for asking that and noticing that that is okay.

So, you know, I went on to college for art education.

And so when you do that, you have to take all of the studio classes, right?

And so I really was able to take ceramics, but only one semester of it that was was painting and doing all those things too.

So in college I was really kind of fell in love with artists like Jackson Pollock, Wassily Kandinsky, de Kooning, all those abstract expressionist painters.

And, I love their lines and their colors and just how expressive everything was.

So I really started doing that with painting and I oil painted a lot and that was something I could do, you know, in my own space, right?

So I did a lot of that in high school too.

But then in college really came in the abstract expressionism kind of component.

And, you know, but my always my first love was was pottery.

And so you know, I often tell people now that I really I just throw my canvas for myself.

Yeah.

And then that's, that's what I can paint on and do the things that I love with line work and color and kind of that really active line on top of it.

Yeah.

What is it that you love about ceramics?

I read that you love making functional art.

Is it the function of it that you love or is it the process?

What?

Yeah.

What made you fall in love with it, I guess, in the first place.

So, you know, the function of it is cool, you know, And I really, I prefer it over sculpture work, but just how it feels in your hands and just how you can sit down and from a lump of clay do what you got to do.

And then all of a sudden it's a bowl or a vase or a mug or whatever you want it to be.

But also kind of the clay that I find for me, the clay kind of transforms and starts to show me what it's going to do and what it can become.

And then I start to follow its lead.

So just that manipulation with my hands and this really malleable material and just it's so, so relaxing and just, you know, just creating something that then can be usable is really cool and really to the root of of us, right?

I mean, that's that's how people date, you know, sites and things like that.

You know, that pottery is kind of the root of of us and how we started making things for ourselves.

And the fact that I can take it then and do some painting and designing on it is is an added bonus.

Yeah.

One of the things that I noticed in the photos of your work and now seeing it up close it looks so uniform, it looks like it could be mass produced.

Like I'm, it's so polished.

I mean, I think the very best way and I cannot imagine how you make that happen as you're talking about, you know, letting the clay kind of tell you what it's going to be.

But so how then do you make a set of four mugs, for example, that even remotely resemble each other?

Well, you know what?

I think that happens, but it's certainly not the goal.

I don't set out to create anything that is like another piece necessarily.

I think because of the colors I use and the style that I have, it ends up happening.

But that's never my intent or goal.

And in fact, I really shy away from that.

I look at production pots and think, Oh my gosh, that seems like really, really tedious and too much like work to try to make the thing that has the same volume, the same height, the same all of the things.

So I think inherently it just kind of happens on its own.

But I certainly I, I try to I actually kind of run from that idea, but I mean, it's just my same hand using the same colors.

Sure.

I'm creating this.

The forms, the way that my muscle memory makes a thing.

And so I think it just happens so cool.

Okay, let's think about the logistics of creating the abstract art on top of the ceramics.

So you make the canvas, which is a whole process right in and of itself.

Then what happens?

Yeah, So I have the blank canvas and I have it's, it's called underglaze and I put it in these little bottles that are a little trailing they have a, you know, a little end on it that I squeeze the underglaze out through and my very beginning is taking black under glaze and just scribbling.

I just scribble everywhere.

And that's something I did as a kid all the time.

I would take a piece of paper, draw a big black line, right?

And then it would just create shapes for me to then color in.

And so I've just always loved that.

And, you know, that was back when we were bored as kids and we didn't have anything to do.

And so, yeah, I just kind of translate it on to this, you know, a little bit more refined, obviously.

But really my goal is to not think too much about it.

If I start overthinking my my head gets in the way or my logic gets in the way, or if I start trying too hard, then it just looks too forced.

So I just draw a big black scribble line everywhere and then I go back into I choose the colors and that I want to use and I color every little shape in that just occurred kind of randomly.

And then, you know, I also as I'm working, I start seeing things appear like, Oh, this kind of looks like a little door is here or this kind of looks like an eye.

So I make I might try to enhance that look a little bit, but not so much that I'm absolutely telling the viewer what to see.

I like it when they come up and they say, Oh, I see such and such here, or This looks like this to me.

And they're all really great, interesting viewpoints that I love hearing how it affects everybody differently and how people make sense of a thing that really came about from just kind of the freedom of scribbling.

I wish I could do that.

You totally could.

Even the scribbling, It's like I can't get out of my own way.

So when you are doing the scribbling, that happens before the firing.

Yes.

Well, I fire it once.

Okay.

To render it bisquare so it's not so fragile.

Then I scribble the big black line and color in with the big, bold colors I fired again to that same bisquare temp.

Okay.

And then on a lot of them, I go in with an underglaze pencil, and that's how I get the lines that look like pencil lines that are shaded and crosshatch.

And then I have to fire that again to set it and then I clear glaze it and fired again.

So this way.

Well all of these things essentially have been through four firings.

At what point did you decide to start selling your pieces?

Because I can imagine when it takes that much time and it's and it's a piece of yourself, right.

It's it would be hard to let it go.

Or is it?

Well, it's not anymore.

And in fact, I I'm also I teach ceramics at sculpture at a high school.

And so I had all of these demo pieces after all these years.

I was like, oh, my gosh, I have all this stuff.

What am I going to do with it?

You know, I like I'm in my thirties.

I can no longer just piecemeal this out to family members for Christmas.

Right?

So but, but it was good and I liked it.

And and my mother in law was she was doing markets around town some of the art markets around town and I thought gosh you know that she the art market scene in Fort Wayne is so, so awesome and so massive.

And so I wanted to try it out.

And so I showed up at West Central, I don't know, nine years ago or so for the weekend and and sold the things that I just had on hand.

And I loved it.

I loved meeting everybody.

I loved the environment.

It was super cool.

I love talking to people about my things and hearing their compliments and, you know, and then after that, it it the signing up for markets and doing that really became about me forcing myself to keep making because I have kids, because I have a job and all of these other things.

It would be really easy to have that fall on the back burner right because it's hard to find time.

So I often say signing up for markets and doing stuff is kind of like me signing up for a marathon.

It forces me to get up and run every day.

Yes.

Which then makes me better at my craft, better at my job, which is teaching.

And and so I love getting rid of things because it makes me make more.

And when I make more, I come up with new ideas or taller forms or a different form, and I'm just constantly evolving my style.

And that to me is really rewarding.

So what has art taught you about yourself?

That's it.

Yeah, that's a big one, gosh, you know It's taught me to, I suppose, just enjoy doing what comes naturally.

What I love to kind of trust the process to trust my instincts, that my intuition can, can do some fun, fun things if I open up to that, you know, just keeping in mind that there's two sides to our life and they're both equally important ones, you know, paying bills and and getting things done and staying organized and all of those things.

But but the other really important side is tapping into our creative creativity and and just sitting down and thinking and just kind of kind of letting your mind wander and my mind wanders best when I'm doing this.

This is kind of a meditative process for me.

So it's important that I make sure I have time to do that, to sit down and just relax.

Yeah, Yeah.

Oh, wow.

Kelly your work is just so beautiful.

And and the way you describe your process and and the way that you share it with students, all of that is just fantastic.

Thank you for all of the work you do, and thanks for taking the time today.

I am so glad that I got invited to be here.

Thanks.

Thank you.

For more information find Kelly Pottery design on Facebook Our thanks to Daniel Swartz and Kelly Roth.

Be sure to join us next week for Arts in Focus.

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And in the meantime, enjoy something beautiful Arts in Focus on PBS Fort Wayne is funded in part by the Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne.