Spiked Coffee
A collaborative Risograph book from Spike Print Studio lockdown coffee mornings.
The idea for our Risograph book came from a desire to celebrate our coffee mornings on Zoom, which started in the second lockdown. The weekly meetings have been so helpful in keeping spirits up and in keeping us all making. So coming together to make a zine, seemed a perfect way to continue our collaboration.
Everyone sent their three layers online, then I printed them out, arranged the layout and scanned them onto the Risograph. In the end, printing out one side in blue, fluorescent pink and yellow and the other in blue, fluorescent pink and green. I printed an edition of 40 zines… so we could all have a few copies and there are a few remaining so please email if you would like one. Jess Bugler
Leonie Bradley: In the early weeks, we made Turkish map fold books, which was a really meditative experience: quietly making together over Zoom. These books can be faintly seen in the yellow layer. The pink banana was from our takuhon lesson, an ancient Chinese technique to take a 3D rubbing of an object. My blue layer is a word from each session, describing how we started as strangers but through the lockdown coffee mornings we have all made new friends.
Prerna Chandiramani: Being in lockdown has been quite challenging as I watch this period grow from days to weeks to months and now years. Some words describing this time are written along the growing creeper across the folded form in my blue layer with each passing moment captured in meditative mark-making. The pink and yellow layers work together to illustrate the unfolding of a folded form, one that holds memories of making and sharing during our coffee mornings.
Amy Hutchings: my piece depicts my lovely Swiss cheese plant which was in the background during Spike coffee morning Zooms and it seemed only appropriate that it was celebrated as such. My monstera deliciosa features in the foreground of a lockdown sketch of the turquoise bridge on the harbour looking towards Rownham Mead and Clifton.
Jess Bugler: My page is a combination of a couple of the sessions that I led, a takuhon heart and a found box “enclosure”. Then a collaged cup of coffee that helps me through the day. This plays with what I love about Risograph which is the translucent nature of the inks allowing each layer to be seen through the others and new colours being created as they overlap.
Sally Pike: I love the special quality of colour and print that Risograph produces. First, I scanned an image of a repeat fabric I had block-printed by hand onto linen during the first lockdown. The design references a pencil drawing of a fern from my sketchbook (to the Japanese, they symbolise family, strength & hope). Using a Chinese calligraphy brush to create more painterly strokes in drawing ink, I then transferred marks originally made on Mark Resist with a graphite stick to computer. The words are taken from a poem I heard on the radio. For me, they resonate with all the virtual coffee mornings we’ve been able to share over Zoom during the pandemic:
‘There is no lockdown in the imagination, we dream in quarantine with no limitations.’ Lemn Sissay
Louise Boulton: The Zoom coffee mornings were a creative highlight during lockdown introducing us to new techniques. Being a screen printer I was curious to see how Risograph resonates with screen printing. Both mediums require artwork to be built up in layers with any overlapping colours producing a second colour. The luminous inks in the Risograph have resulted in a bold graphic style giving a new vibrancy to my artwork.
And come and join the Coffee Mornings if you would like… Fridays in September from 10am to 11am each week.
Front and Back covers by Prerna Chandiramani
