5 days transportation around Maine and New Brunswick, Canada
2-day Polymer Photogravure Workshop with Jeanne Wells, including all materials for3-4 polymer gravure plates and as many prints as you’d like to make.
Early morning and early evening field shooting in St. John, around the Bay of Fundy, and coastal villages
Early morning and early evening field shooting in and around Easton, Maine
The Shore Dinner (lobster, clams, and more!) upon arrival at Jeanne’s home and studio
Portfolio review with Nancy McCrary Thursday and/or Friday.
UPDATE May 5th: South x Southeast has secured double occupancy rooms for the Comfort Inn St. John, New Brunswick (Monday and Tuesday), and the Presque Isle Inn and Convention Center in Presque Isle (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday). If you are interested in sharing a room (all rooms have 2 double or queen-sized beds) please contact nancy@sxsemagazine.com. Approximate cost for 5 nights, double occupancy is $350.
Schedule of Events:
Monday July 16th:Arrive noonish Presque Isle, Maine airport. SxSE will rent two largish cars in which we will tour Maine and New Brunswick. As soon as everyone has arrived we will set off for our hotel in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada on the Bay of Fundy. (a 3-hour drive so time for shooting along the way)
Tuesday, July 17th: We’ll catch the early morning light at St. John at Reversing Falls, the City Market, and walking a bit along the Fundy Trail Parkways. After lunch and a small break, we’ll tour the small coastal villages of New River Beach and St. Martins on our way to dinner in the village of Alma – and some last-light shooting along the coast. If anyone is interested in whale-watching we may take in a couple of hours doing that also!
Wednesday, July 18th: Over the river and through the woods we take the long way up to Easton, Maine – normally a 3 hour drive – stopping to shoot whenever we like, and arriving at the home and studio of Jeanne Wells, antiquarian photographer and printmaker, and her husband Chef Matt (known for his lobster dinners). We’ll kick up our heels for cocktails on the porch while Matt works his wonders with some of those lobsters and clams for our Shore Dinner (vegetarians will gladly be accommodated with their own fare!), while discussing the Polymer Photogravure Workshop that begins…
Thursday, July 19th: We’ll start the morning out in the Maine countryside. As Jeanne tells it…“It’s not gentrified at all around here. It’s more like a Richard Scarry book, with trucks and farm machines going by all day — with a buggy or two thrown in. It will be potato blossom time, so the fields will be beautiful. There could also be some Amish haying going on. A lot of FSA photos were taken here in Aroostook County, mostly by Jack Delano, I think. They’re all on the Library of Congress site, if anyone’s interested. It’s changed a bit since then, but not a whole lot.”
Late morning and afternoon will be filled with Jeanne’s Workshop Day One: The workshops have been designed with both the beginner and the more experienced printer in mind. The two days are about hands-on plate making and inking, and printing with the presses. You will get a good feel for what it’s like to work with paper and ink on an intaglio press. You’ll be inking and wiping plates for different effects to explore what sort of images this process is capable of producing. Think of the two day session as a sort of an introductory workshop for artists who don’t really want to be bothered with all the digital stuff at first – a nice first date!
You can expect:
An overview of the process with examples.
There are two presses and a large exposure unit, so lots can be happening at once.
At some point each day we’ll stop for lunch, enjoy conversation, photo books (there is a good sized library here) and a little rest. Also Nancy will be offering portfolio reviews on both days. We are surrounded by farmland, so a pleasant walk is easy to come by.
Basic equipment and supplies/suppliers will be discussed as we go (with a printed handout to take with you), and of course your questions answered throughout the day.
We’ll cover the basics of using an intaglio press, and making a good print. We’ll also make a few bad prints, so you’ll know what various mistakes look like when you get home and start printing on your own. There are many variables in this process, so a little forewarning is good.
Materials to make 3 or 4 plates up to 8×10 and as many prints as you’d like, depending upon your camera format, are included in the cost of the workshop. Additional supplies will be available on site for purchase.
You should bring:
Your passport (or necessary i.d. – please google for these requirements), as we will begin this workshop in Canada
Warm clothes – even in May and June, it’s chilly here!
An apron and or smock, you will get ink on things, particularly cuffs, so things that roll up are good. gloves are provided.
Friday, July 21st: We’ll drive back to Jeanne’s studio from our hotel in Presque Isle for a morning and afternoon session of the Polymer Photogravure Workshop, Day Two, interspersed with lunch and breaks for walks and shooting. Friday evening we’ll have dinner “in town” and prepare for home on Saturday.
Saturday, July 22nd:Good byes 🙁 and See You Soons!
BIO: Photographer Jeanne Wells was born and raised on the Maine coast, where she has lived most of her life. Using medium and large format cameras, she employs a range of antiquarian and alternative printing techniques such as wet plate collodion, photogravure, platinum, liquid silver emulsion and lith printing. Though she is mostly self-taught, she has also studied with wet collodion with Mark Osterman at The George Eastman House, Keliy Anderson-Staley at the Bakery Photographic Collective. Wells learned the polymer photogravure process from artist Josephine Sacabo and her assistant, Meg Turner at Josephine’s studio in New Orleans, Clay Harmon at North Light Photographic Workshops, and Paul Taylor at Renaissance Press.
Recent exhibitions include: The White Sutra, and Photogravures, Susan Maasch Fine Art, Portland Maine; Actinic, Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, Scotland; The Antiquarian Image an invitational at St. Tammany Art Assoc, Covington, LA; Light Sensitive 2015 & 2016, Art Intersection in Gilbert AZ; Alternative Processes at Center for Fine art Photography, Christopher James, juror; Antiquarian & the New Alchemy, an invitational at Serenbe Photography curated by S. Gayle Stevens; Panopticon Gallery in Boston; The Kiernan Gallery in Lexington, Virginia; LightBox Photographic in Astoria, OR; New Orleans Photo Alliance; and Galleri Form & Farg in Eskilstuna, Sweden. She has received the Merit Award from Black and White magazine; a special mention for her website in Black and White UK magazine; and was one of six women written about in a View Camera Magazine piece entitled, “Women and Their Big Cameras.”
Many of her collectors were introduced to Jeanne’s work through the Daily Print project which she conceived of and ran from 2008-2011. The project consisted of one print each day, made in the darkroom and emailed to a list of subscribers. Jeanne is represented by Unlimited Grain Gallery in Rotterdam, LensModern in London, and Susan Maasch Fine Art, Portland, Maine. Her work is held in private collections around the world.
Monday July 16th: Arrive noonish Presque Isle, Maine airport. SxSE will rent two largish cars in which we will tour Maine and New Brunswick. As soon as everyone has arrived we will set off for our hotel in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada on the Bay of Fundy. (a 3-hour drive so time for shooting along the way)
Monday July 16th
Tuesday, July 17th
Jeanne Wells, 
You can expect:
