Calliope Arts

It was clear upon arriving to the local Louisville print shop, Calliope Arts, that it had an immediate charm. Opened in 2015 by co-owners, Suzanna Crum and Rudy Salgado Jr., it is located in the area of Downtown Louisville known as Smoketown. The owners founded the establishment with the sole intention of giving local artists of the area a place to create.

            The local print shop was apart of the Mid America Print Council Conference being hosted in the Louisville and Southern Indiana area, it is an educational event with the goal to promote awareness and appreciation of the art of printmaking, including the processes of creating prints, books, hand-made paper and drawings. There were portfolios laid out of seemingly hundreds of works from students, local artists and even the owners themselves. So many different techniques and styles in one place to tell different stories from different individuals.

Sacre Bleu,  Zinc Etching, 18"x 24"

One of many such prints that caught my eye were by an IUS alumni, Katy Traughber, has a beautifully haunting zinc etching intaglio on display currently at Calliope. Intaglio itself is a printmaking process in which the image is incised into a surface such as copper, zinc, etc. and that incised line or sunken area holds the ink. The work though named, Sacre Bleu, depicts a grim reaper-like figure holding a haunting looking child with what appears to be venus flytraps and a praying mantis framing the two figures in the left part of the print. The handle Traughber has with contrast and value in this intaglio is very impressive. While the concept doesn’t come across very clearly at first, you could make assumptions about a theme of death and rebirth perhaps in this piece. 

Meghan O'Connor, False Dichotomy, 2013

Another print that caught my eye was by Meghan O’Connor, an experienced printmaker and professor at the Middle Tennessee State University. False Dichotomy is a lithograph and embossed monoprint, from 2013. Lithography is a printmaking process that consists of drawing or painting with greasy crayons and inks on a particular species of limestone which has been ground down to a desire texture, and texure looks to have been applied in places with the embossing monoprint. The print itself is a representation of several baby birds that have been forced into this jar of berries and twigs, some in the front are fat and well fed while the stark white, smaller ones seem to be screaming for food. It gives one the idea of a false dichotomy as the piece is named; there is not an even divide to feed all of them. The line work and attention to detail in everything from the birds to the glass jar is what also makes this an attractive piece. All in all, they are different in everything from style, technique, skill and even the story they tell even; they are still coexisting in the same print shop and have given many different viewers something to take conceptually from each one. In one’s eyes you could say that makes them equals on that type of level.

            Calliope is one of many establishments in Louisville that is helping to support and grow the art community. By providing access to otherwise unattainable equipment, Calliope gives artists an opportunity to create unique prints, the opportunity to learn new skills in workshops that are made available by the shop in the art community or to give seasoned printmakers the opportunity to refresh their skills at any given time. Calliope also gives artists who are not well known a chance to showcase their work and possibly gain notoriety in the competitive art world. Standing in the small, yet intimate space full of chattering and laughing artists and students; one almost feels at home within the walls of Calliope. It did not matter what walk of life or level of experience, they were all gathered together in that building discussing art as equals.