Hidden within a bleak and baron industrial estate in Salford lies an artist’s goldmine; a £60,000 goldmine.
This is the figure Hot Bed Press’ printmaking facilities and open access studio equate to. Hotbed press is Greater Manchester’s only open access print studio, providing invaluable expertise and training it is clearly worth its weight in gold.
The organisation is the only open access printmaking studio in the region and one of 70 in the country. Hot Bed Press has members that travel as far as Amsterdam and Sweden. Not surprising as this printmaking haven is overflowing with education and exhibition opportunities. With talks and courses lead by big names in the Print world, Hot Bed Press provides members with an education in printmaking to rival that of University courses. Past speakers and demonstrators include Anne Desmont (editor of Printmaking magazine) and the internationally acclaimed art graphic group SeriPop.
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Whether you’re an accomplished artist or not Hot Bed Press welcomes everyone who is willing to learn and play around with the techniques of printmaking. Membership starts from £15 for a three month trail and once joined, members are free to use all facilities providing that they have basic training. A vast amount of print techniques are taught in various courses throughout the year. However with a fast-growing waiting list, most courses are fully booked as soon as they are advertised. In order to accommodate the excess Hot Bed Press run additional one-to-one courses that get you printing within the day.
LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
Learning opportunities are not bound to courses alone, although Art Director, Sean Rourke, states it is one big education program. “The great thing is that it means that printing can be this kind of community it’s like the press becomes the campfire and everyone has to come here, and because everyone has to use the same space they’re learning off each other” enthused Sean.
Hot Bed Press’ assortment of equipment includes 3 screen beds and a letter press kit, recently acquired from Manchester Metropolitan University who, according to Sean, are “downsizing their book arts department.” With cuts in funding many university art and design departments are stripping their courses down, disappointingly it would seem print
making is not high up on the list of essential creative commercial industry. Sean explains; “Print area’s become what they call a service area under a broader spectrum of fine art and video and performance, so they’ve watered themselves down a bit”. On the brighter side, Sean adds, “But actually we [Hotbed Press] become more recognised as specialists”.
UNIVERSITY RECRUITING GROUND
One assertion of Hotbed’s specialism is the fact that they are fast becoming recognised as a recruiting ground for Universities. A proportion of members introduced to printmaking through Hot Bed go on to complete Master degrees at some of the countries top universities. This year alone they have two members who are studying at The Royal College. Keen to snatch up the exceptional expertise and facilities, Salford University are considering running aspects of some MA courses through Hotbed.
Sean tells me about James Curran, who, after just three months out of university and a considerable amount of time at Hotbed, produced three screen prints that went on to become the flyer for the all important International Print Conference. “To have that on the entrance flyer of the International Conference with 400 delegate from around the world those kind of things are really important to us”. Sean believes the most important thing in this establishment is to keep generating opportunities for member to exhibit, he states plainly; “We’re here to promote printmaking”. This simple ethos lead to ambitious plans as this year Hot Bed are planning a portfolio exchange where members have the opportunity to submit prints that will be exchanged with 18 national print studios and possibly some abroad. A merit to their exhibiting success is the fact that MU realising Hot Bed’s promotional wizardry, have just handed over the Manchester Book Fair.
EXHIBITIONS AND CEMENT FACTORIES
Hot Bed has no intention of standing still; it’s set to delve into its next expansion very soon. When asked about future plans Sean returns with a torrent of pipeline ideas involving unorthodox residencies and research projects, including exhibitions, large-scale rubber printing techniques and the cement factory next door!
“I’m looking to get residents in to research into rubber stamp making on a large scale, so you know what makes that image, can we do it in a visual way and can we do A1 size because it’s just a process… I’ve even started to think about the idea that we have a cement works …next to us…there’s this thing just recently invented called graphic cement where you print cement.”
Internationally acclaimed, with close to 200 members, an open access studio that exhibits members work nationally - that packs quite a punch for a non-profitable- two-man-staffed print studio.
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For more information check out the Hot Bed website - www.hotbedpress.org
Start discussion and comment on the Hot Bed facilities on the Quda blog: http://qudaart.blog.com/
