Copy Art How To

Want to learn how to make copy art or more tricks? Master techniques in easy to follow steps with exercises found in this on-your-own workbook. The basics of the art form are covered with a series of lessons and tips written for both the novice and artist wanting to find out more about making great art on a copy machine. Created as a companion to workshops taught by master copy artist Ginny Lloyd you can use the workbook as a reference for years to come. Lists of resources to help you explore further.

Let's Make Copy Art - NEW Book

 

New workbook available for students who have attended my copy art lecture and workshop(s) in the past. It will also be available for students in upcoming workshops. Let's Make Copy Art details - English, 40 Pages, coil binding for easy note taking,dimensions (inches) 8.5 wide x 11 tall, black and white interior. Includes: brief history of copiers and copy art, step by step techniques, illustrations, lessons, and robust reference info. Students in my workshops can own a copy for $12 + shipping.

NEW Book - Billboard Art

Imagine driving down the Interstate or sitting in rush hour traffic and on the billboard 1,000 feet in front of you an op art image appears. Then images emerge with the words LOOK and FluXus. Next, you see twins on a beach, followed by an image of a shaggy blue dog smiling down on you. Billboard Art replaces boring ads and the expected for just a few moments, sometimes inserted between ads and at other times as a continuous stream of art. This book gives you a taste of the billboard art experience in your armchair, at your leisure, and at your command.

Contains: photography, visual poetry, copy art, Fluxus, Dada, contemporary art, conceptual art

Featured in the Classic Car Fun show at Jaffe Center for Book Arts! Arthur Jaffe's Classic Car Show at FAU Stadium on March 24, 2012. Lecture: "The Automobile & the History of Florida" at JCBA, Film screening: "Tucker: The Man & His Dream" at JCBA. Vroom Vroom!.

Purchase here!

Gina Lotta Post Artistamp Museum Blog-in-Print

This offer ends December 1, 2011.

A downloadable color PDF catalog is now available of the Gina Lotta Post Artistamp Museum blog. It consists of all standard posts (excluding videos and Pages) of entries to the blog in the order posted made into book format. You can download, then print, and/or keep your copy electronically. This is an easy way to document your participation, and show family and friends all the wonderful artistamps from around the world.

For more details see the blog http://artistampmuseum.blogspot.com/

1982 Article - 5 Cents A Page

Lloyd, Ginny. "5 Cents a Page." 
Women Artists News 7 (6):11-12 (Summer 1982)

Thanks to Reed Altemus for tracking this copy down for me!

Pairings - New Release from Redfoxpress

 I have to admit my visits at the Sackner Archive and the Printed Matter Book Fair were inspiring. This manifested into a new visual poetry book. All of the works included are new and are derived from copy art, photographs, and computer graphics - sometimes collaged with text or just about the visual beauty of text. I wanted to achieve a modern look for these images as compared to classical visual poetry. I had a great time putting this together as the theme emerged with each piece having a relationship with another - pairs or pairings.

Redfoxpress hand prints and hand binds their suite of collectible books and I'm proud to be part of their editions. To order a copy you can  purchase directly from them (see link), on Amazon, or I can sell you a signed copy. Prints of images from the book are also available directly from me.   http://www.redfoxpress.com/dada-lloyd.html

Copy Art Workshop at the Jaffe Center for the Book Arts

I have been teaching a copy art workshop at the Florida Atlantic University's Jaffe Center for the Book Arts. The enrollment has been huge so I have taught a second one and a third is planned in November, also sold out.

The photos posted here are some of the participants' works made during the second class. The first class produced equally wonderful works. I'm proud of them all.

JES Archives

I met Jesse Edwards at the Copy Art Exhibition when he purchased several pieces that were in the show (see info at Copy Art Exhibition). He was not what you would think of as far as art collectors go in that he was young, hip and knew a lot about local art in what many collectors and critics would consider "marginal" arts. He was a dead ringer for a Dennis Hopper look alike. Jesse knew what he liked and was a prolific buyer. A couple of his local favorites were S Clay Wilson (previous post Poetry - Comix - Comics ) and stencil artist Scott Williams. Before I left for Europe he asked me to call him when I returned.

I began working for a few hours a week as a consultant for Jesse, first setting up a database of artists and artworks and second introducing him to the artists I knew locally and internationally.  He introduced me to a few artists he had been collecting. I think Clay and I surprised him when he found out we knew each other since we weren't in what Jesse knew as the same art circles. When Clay said he's been to my house several times I think Jesse thought we were kidding. I advised Jesse on archival storage methods I had learned through photography. I encouraged him to give his collection a name and to have a business card at the minimal for giving out to the artists I was bringing in to meet him. Georgina designed a card and I suggested the list of names of who was included in the collection to be added to the back.

Later, for mailing purposes, Jesse wanted a postcard to send out. After seeing a set of postcards I had made using computerized photo booth images, Jesse selected the image in this well known card to go with his JES Archives information.

Because Jesse loves to know how things are made - the card was made from a photobooth image taken in Europe run through a video camera attached to a computer and dot matrix printer printout. Then resized on a copier, overlayed with Rubylith for the color separations made by hand, and printed full color. The background was Letrapress film screening and the text was a computer printout. This is a process made virtually obsolete by current computer graphic design capabilities. In its day it was an unusual image.

Jesse supported many Bay Area artists and promoted much of the art scene in the 80s. He helped InterDADA 84 artists by sponsoring the hostel. He and Georgina moved to southern California and opened a successful store on the Venice Beach boardwalk, selling Asian imported jewelry and wearable items. Years later they sold the store and now travel extensively.

I was always treated like a member of the extended family by Jesse and Georgina. We stay in touch today via the Internet. As far as where the collection is now I think Jesse is weighing several options. I'm grateful for having had the opportunity to make a contribution to the arts and helping many artists by introducing them in the early years to JES Archives.

Copy Art Billboard in Ohio - 1981

After making two billboards in San Francisco using copy machines I was invited to be an artist-in-residence at the Image Resource Center in Cleveland, Ohio. The challenge was to make a color billboard this time using the color Xerox 6500.

I taught workshops in copy art, artibooks and making billboards; made a new edition of artistamps and other works in addition to the billboard. This was on the way across the US on my 81 World Tour to Europe. I met Harley during this stop.

Copy Art Shows - 80's

Copy Art in Italy - 1984

Copy Art Show - 1981

Copy Art Show and Lecture - 1982

Copy Art Exhibition Invite and Artweek Review - 1980

City Art Review of Copy Art at Studio 718

Umbrella Review of Copy Art Exhibition

Flash - Copy Art Show Review - Click to enlarge

Artweek, June 19, 1982/Volume 13, Number 22

Early Computer Graphic Art & Artistamps

In the earlier post “Copy Art Exhibition” I wrote:   

I used to spend hours late into the night working on Fortran programs for a class, using teletype and keypunch cards. The computer geeks – the ones working night shift running the mainframe so large it was housed in a separate building - would invite me into the inner sanctum to show me early computer graphics capabilities, enthusiastically discussing little known developments and inventions in the works such as the Cray super computer. They told me of the day when everyone would have their own computer and we would be able to create art on computer systems. I believed them!

This was back in the 70s before computers were on every desk and computer graphics became commonplace.  The word processors with small (minute according to today’s standards) memory chips were the closest thing to desktop computers. I’m sure this sounds like the stone age to kids today.

Having access to anything computer related was limited to very few university researchers and large corporate employees. One such researcher was Dr. Wolfgang Bauer, a physicist at UC Berkeley, who had left the university and had started a business developing a high end graphical system he called Gravitronics.
 

When I met Dr. Bauer in 1980 he was looking for an artist who could use computers or at least understood what computers could do to help him by testing the graphical possibilities, to try to find the limits. He’d had been running into walls just trying to find an artist not afraid of nor timid with computers. I described my limited background, including some of the things I wanted to try to accomplish in my art work. I sounded like a match to him.

I would meet with him at his place of business and we would test the computer. From that work I was able to create three issues of artistamps, called my Gravitronics Series, and postcards. To give you a perspective each of the manipulations of the stamp imagery was created from the same one image per issue. Sometimes entering in numbers on the image's axis was a shot in the dark but eventually I started to be able to predict an outcome.

Wolf as a person was a very interesting man in that he was friendly and open minded about art. Plus we would discuss what is now known as quantum physics at our meetings. I was invited to his home a few times to visit his large family and wife.

The system eventually went on to become the real-time meteorological graphic systems we see on the weather channel.
 

I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to work with Wolf for this led to larger opportunities such as: a space residency (to be written about), teaching computer graphics at a college (CAD, PC paint, and Macintosh desktop publishing) and training many of the company employees of the numerous startups and corporations in the Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay Area.

Today using the computer to make artistamps is commonplace. In the history of computer graphics you may find early artists using computers but in the history of artistamps I’m recognized as the first artist to use computer graphics to make artistamps (per Artpool Research Center and Rod Summers collection).

The World's First Copy Art Billboard

The Copy Art Exhibition held in 1980 was going up soon but an art billboard would be a great advertisement of both the show and the art medium.

I’d thought of the possibility of having a billboard of copier art for awhile and approached the Eyes and Ears Foundation, an arts foundation supporting public art, for funding and technical support of this project. I proposed installing a copy art billboard for the duration of the show on Market Street near Dolores Street, a main thoroughfare that attracted an estimated 25,000 viewers a day. That’s more than the total foot traffic attending the exhibit.

To create the billboard I called some of the local artists who were in the show to meet me at the LaMamelle gallery at an appointed day and time for a happening – the making of the first copy art billboard. Those that showed up were artists Dadaland (Picasso Gaglione), Tim Mancusi, Carioca and Nancy Frank. I demonstrated the use of the copier and gave basic direction on what I wanted the billboard to look like - life - size images of themselves. Basically it was an improvisation in the spirit of Fluxus creations. The aesthetic was drawn on what I knew most everyone did when told to create art on a copier – they make images of their face, hands, etc.at some point in their experiments. I felt that the viewer would be able to connect the dots faster if they saw people and the words Copy Art. Since this was a new form of art the billboard was basically selling the art form.

The previous day, I’d blocked out how many people could fit onto the billboard according to the measurements given by the Eyes and Ears Foundation on large rolls of blank white paper laid out on the floor assisted by Buster Cleveland and Carl Loeffler. Because of the amount of blank space in the background, I created a stack of dot patterned pages out of enlarged fabric swatches as fill-in designs.

We made the copies on a Canon black and white copier donated by Taylor Made for use during the show. The copier was installed at the gallery, LaMamelle in San Francisco.As we were copying ourselves, clothes and creating different images, whomever arrived later - Kazu Yanagi, Rockola, Germ and Michael Mintz - assisted with cutting out the forms, gluing, and blocking out the lettering.

After verifying that the glue was set, I then applied a protective coating to the finished product. The billboard strips were then rolled and numbered for application. Upon delivering the rolls they were hung by the billboard company owning the billboard. 

Since making the billboard, I've met a couple of other artists who have used the medium in the same way - Paulo Brusky in Brazil did a show I participated in 81-82 upon invitation. We met a year later in Amsterdam. Another artist whose name I don't know from Cleveland also did one in '82.

Artists had been altering billboards for awhile, some even showing their paintings in billboard format but this was the first known use of creating one from copiers.

Copy Art Exhibition

I came from a background in photography. I’d experimented with pinhole cameras, Dianas, infrared film, and various darkroom techniques during my years at university. I took traditional art classes, even made handmade paper one summer with my friend Judy Ivry who was an art major so had the equipment available to her, but the use of technology was where I knew I was headed. I used to spend hours late into the night working on Fortran programs for a class, using teletype and keypunch cards. The computer geeks – the ones working night shift running the mainframe so large it was housed in a separate building - would invite me into the inner sanctum to show me early computer graphics capabilities, enthusiastically discussing little known developments and inventions in the works such as the Cray. They told me of the day when everyone would have their own computer and we would be able to create art on computer systems. I believed them!

I wanted to know if anyone had ever created art from keypunch cards but they didn’t know of any. (I later figured out a way. See my future blog to be written on artibooks).

It was the second half of the 70s when the first color copier became available to customers at a local copy shop. I quickly became hooked. Starting with using the machines like huge cameras, I started making still lifes with objects placed directly on the platen glass. Later I was making collages to print. I got so involved with the print quality and color output adjustments I was offered a job running and maintaining the Xerox 6500. This made it possible for me to both do my own experiments at cost and to see the work of other artists starting to use copiers in creative ways. I printed for a lot of comic book artists, illustrators and graphic designers. I took note of who was working as artists using copiers.

At one point I taught workshops on techniques learned from experimenting with copier features, moving originals on the platen during the copy process, and making adjustments on both the Xerox and the black and white machines (also known as copy machine art). (Some of this is discussed in The Creative Camera by Nancy Howell-Koehler, 1989.) The Evening News on a local TV station had me demonstrate how to make copy art.

Noticing the wonderful artworks people were having me copy and doing themselves inspired the idea that a show would be important. The world should see this. At the time I was in the process of preparing for an exhibition of my own work at San Francisco’s Hot Flash of America. I discussed my ideas with them and later obtained support from the copy store owner. The Copy Art Exhibition held in 1980 was born.

As I was pulling together the work to be shown I realized that a more comprehensive exhibit would be possible by including artists as jurors who would give a more balanced view. I invited Stephanie Weber who worked in a fine arts aesthetic and Buster Cleveland who worked in a mail art genre.

As the invitations were sent out and word got around the art work poured in from all over the world. Before I knew it, the time to review the work for the final showing arrived.

But one big hitch occurred...Hot Flash the space for the exhibit was closing!

It was sudden and without warning. I had no space. With Buster’s help, we found that LaMamelle just happened to be available and a new agreement was formed.

I approached Xerox and Canon copier companies for sponsorship. Xerox wasn’t interested – they were launching their own show. Canon however loaned me a new large format copier with reduction capabilities, including paper and technical support if and when it was needed. People attending the show were allowed to make free art on the Canon. With this I made a billboard and the first issue of The Monthly.

Works not already framed were matted and framed by a shrink wrap process and hung by Stephanie with Nancy Frank’s help. I rushed to make a catalog for each artist using both black and white, and the 6500 machines. I did not want to use anything else other than a copier to produce this because I wanted the show to be completely copy art. It has since become a collectible.

Artweek and several other publications wrote positive reviews about the show, much to the surprise of some critics of the art medium. It was through this show I later met Jesse of JES Archive and was invited to the InterDADA 80 event.


All of this helped to make copy art spread quickly in San Francisco as venues to show and sell the artwork opened. A gallery on Columbus Ave in North Beach area named Electroarts moved into part of the Postcard Palace space where several copy artists sold postcard editions.  It also housed a Xerox 6500. At around the same time calendars produced in multiple editions were made by Barbara Cushman of the store and gallery, A Fine Hand. Several artists submitted page designs and they were bound in unusual ways. I still have my copies.

Today I make a few copy art pieces but with the death of the 6500, the lush image quality is just not the same. Many of us who used copiers extensively now use personal computers and printers instead.

Copy art though is still used for chapbooks and small edition runs of art prints and books. The excitement of having an alternative to more expensive printing set in motion the making of a new movement toward ‘zines and postcards. More controversial work could easily get published. Little known but happening in the Bay Area printing industry was a censorship against what you could print. Presses either refused outright or quoted exorbitant rates to discourage anything being published that was seen as controversial. I had a difficult time trying to find a printer to run off a large offset edition of my The Monthly magazine, an all female mail art magazine. Not feminist but to some it was, threatening the pressmen. With issue three I received returned layout boards stepped on and torn apart. The quality of the printing was okay but work was sabotaged. You can see this preserved in some of the magazine's pages.

Nowadays artists can publish a lot on the new print on demand sites. But before this, there was copy art.

What's in the name? Copy art refers to art made on copy machines. Some other terms used are xerography, Xerox art, copy machine art, and electrostatic art. Many artists prefer the term copy art because it is more generic as to the process not specific to a machine.