ArtLab: Print Matters

The first edition of ArtLab will celebrate Printmaking and Print Culture! Sign up for one class or take all four programs in this four-part workshop series.  Participants will have the opportunity to experience methods ranging from relief printing to paper-based arts and collage while forming foundational skills and exploring various materials.

Whether you are a beginner who is curious about the possibilities of printmaking, a teacher looking to introduce active learning to your curriculum, or a seasoned artist looking to expand your material processes, this series offers a fun and inspiring introduction to these versatile artforms.

Workshops

Artist Talk: Billy Bert Young

Location: Bayfield Branch
Thursday, May 8 | 6-7:30pm
Free to attend

In this talk, Billy Bert Young will discuss research process involved in his painting practice, which reclaims and recontextualizes imagery from discarded and discontinued books, particularly those found in libraries and public schools. By mining these forgotten materials, Billy constructs a new visual language—one that challenges dominant narratives and imagines alternative, and impossible, worlds.

Attendees will gain insight into Billy’s working methods, from the selection and deconstruction of printed materials to the construction of collages that inform his paintings and prints. He will also discuss how his practice engages with themes of erasure, nostalgia, and resistance, using detritus to construct something entirely new. The talk will conclude with a conversation on the politics of image-making and strategies for artists to ethically and critically engage with found materials.

Artist Bio

Billy Bert Young is an artist, fine arts professor, and father of two, who lives as an uninvited guest on Treaty Six territory in London, Ontario. As alumnus of NSCAD he found a love for printmaking and the graphic image, which is reflected in his work. His artistic practice revolves around the collection and repurposing of images from printed media, which he transforms into paintings, prints, and collages to construct a playful and distinctive visual language. Central to Young’s creative process is the careful selection of imagery, particularly its source. While digital resources offer vast possibilities, he remains committed to the materiality of printed matter, especially books and media destined for disposal or neglect. By exploring used bookshops and discarded library collections, Young salvages images on the verge of being lost, imbuing his work with a sense of preservation and reinvention.

Linocut Printmaking in Practice: Celeste Carter

Location: Goderich Branch
Thursday, May 15 | 5:45-7:45pm
$20 material fee

Do you want to try a new art technique or expand your artistic practice? Join printmaker and interdisciplinary artist Celeste Carter for an evening of linocut printmaking! Learn the basics or find ways to include print in your art practice by combining it with other techniques, materials and mediums. Celeste will give a glimpse into the history of printmaking, its unique connection to production and pattern, and interdisciplinary approaches in contemporary art practices. Participants will carve their own soft lino-block to print on paper or fabric.

Artist Bio

Celeste Carter (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist working between Stratford and Guelph, Ontario. Celeste’s work unfolds through their experiences in nature and processes of collecting secondhand items and found materials. Celeste reflects on the industrial history inherent in print processes using patterns and motifs to examine how nature is simplified when it is depicted in mass-produced items. Celeste often combines prints on ephemeral and archival surfaces to examine production cycles and the permanence of waste.

Graduating with an Honours BA in Studio Art with a minor in Art History from the University of Guelph in April 2024, Celeste has recently exhibited their work at Otherwise Studios (Guelph), Art Not Shame (Guelph), Zavitz Gallery (Guelph), Lalani Jennings Contemporary Art (Guelph), and The Stratford Perth Museum (Stratford). Celeste participated in the Guelph Arts Council’s Guelph Emerging Artist Mentorship Program in 2022. They were a 2023 recipient of the University of Guelph Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation Printmaking Prize. Celeste was recently the Printmaking Artist in Residence at Otherwise Studios in Guelph (2024).

Stories Through Collage: Kelly Stevenson

Location: Blyth Community Hall
Thursday, May 22 | 6 -7:30pm
$5 material fee

Everyone’s stories are important and deserve to be told. In this workshop we will explore ways to use found images, text and personal or family photos to uncover and express our own stories and consider the histories of those who came before us. Discover how art can be used as a form of visual personal archive and way to say “we were here, and we mattered”.  No experience necessary to participate.

All materials will be provided to take part in the workshop. Additionally, participants are encouraged to bring copies of personal photos they may wish to use in their projects or other collage materials if so desired. Copies of photos can be made at any Huron County Library Branch leading up to the workshop. Please see printing and copy details here.

Artist Bio

Kelly Stevenson is an award-winning artist and graduate of OCADU’s Drawing and Painting program in 2012. She is currently based out of Blyth, Ontario.  

Her practice is multi-disciplinary including drawing, painting, installation and fibre art. Topics range from mental health to rural life, to religion, to memory and nostalgia, to technology and human connections. Much of her work has a social and/or political undertone with which she strives to use to open a dialogue between the viewer, the work and society at large.

Kelly believes art should be accessible to people of all economic backgrounds and brings focus to the production of affordable art in the form of zines, prints, stickers, bags, tshirts, calendars, pins and greeting cards.

Intro to Monotype: Ginny Carnevale

Location: Zurich Branch
Saturday, May 24, 2025 | 2:30-4:30pm
$20 material fee

Open to all experience levels. Join us for an introductory workshop that explores some of the basic techniques of monotype printmaking using a small tabletop printing press! After a brief demonstration, you will spend the workshop exploring a variety of materials and techniques that can be used to create your own beautiful, textural one-of-a-kind prints!

Artist Bio

Ginny Carnevale is a Fine Arts graduate from the University of Guelph. She has been printmaking and painting for over 30 years. She is inspired daily by patterns and light from both natural and constructed elements and uses a variety of printmaking mediums including relief, intaglio, and monotype to create art that brings you back to moments in time and memories of family and friends. She is always looking for new processes that will help her to grow as an artist.

She has been a maker all of her life, always encouraged and learning from her creative mother and carpenter father. She creates a wide range of fine art and functional textile art that is inspired by her life-long love of Northern Ontario landscapes, gardening and the gorgeous architecture of her hometown of Cambridge, Ontario. She is the honoured recipient of multiple Juror awards for her print work across Waterloo Region. Her work can be found in private collections in Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and England.