Correlation Matrix

Correlation Matrix

Contemporary Letterpress Art

Vida Sacic (Chicago, IL) and David Wolske (Bloomington, IN) base their practice in the process of letterpress printing, often exploring the visual aspects of letter shapes as formal compositions. The results are dynamic and often abstract, from prints to collage to animation. Both Sacic and Wolske showcase the creative ways designers utilize type beyond didactic communication.

Vida Sacic was born in Croatia and moved to the Midwest as a high school exchange student following the wars in Yugoslavia. She received a BA in Graphic Design from Marian University (Indianapolis, IN), and an MFA in Graphic Design from Indiana University Bloomington. Her work has been seen in several national and international exhibitions and was published in For the Love of Letterpress: a Printing Handbook for Instructors and Students (Martha Chiplis and Cathie Ruggie Saunders, Bloomsbury, 2013) and Fingerprint No. 2: The Evolution of Handmade Elements in Graphic Design (Joshua C. Chen, HOW Books, 2011). Sacic is currently Assistant Professor of Art at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago.

David Wolske received a BA in Studio Art from Marian University (Indianapolis, IN) and an MFA in Graphic Design from Indian University Bloomington. He has shown his work, lectured and taught workshops nationally and internationally. Wolske is well known for his ability to intersect handset wood and metal type with digital technologies as mediums for creative, non-commercial printmaking. He is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Indiana University Bloomington.

A full color, fully illustrated catalogue is available in the museum, with an essay by designer and writer Martha Chiplis and designed by Edwin Robert Carter. Martha Chiplis teaches letterpress at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is the author, with Cathie Ruggie Saunders, of For the Love of Letterpress: A Printing Handbook for Instructors and Students, published in 2013 by Bloomsbury. She is also a freelance graphic designer, illustrator, and printer, and has an MFA in Graphics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She first printed on a Vandercook in 1984, and bought her own press in 1989. She worked for Sherwin Beach Press as a letterpress printer and designer for 16 years, and has been teaching at the School of the Art Institute since 2008.

This exhibition is curated by designer and former NMU Assistant Professor of Graphic Communications, Shravan Rajagopal.

The exhibition also features a capsule show of posters from Hatch Show Print (Nashville, TN) and Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum (Two Rivers, WI) both well known for their contributions to preserving and promoting letterpress printing.