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The following is a gallery guide for Firehouse Art Center's latest exhibit, 25 Mechanical Pencils. An opening reception is Friday, April 13 from 6 to 9 pm and a Zine workshop will be held on April 23 at 7 pm. 25 Mechanical Pencils runs till April 29th. For more information, please click here.
Chris Blume is an artist working in graphite, charcoal, and print making. His process involves working out each piece over many steps, refining and translating ideas into visual expressions of a world that combines the imaginative with the real.
He started his professional career in his teens as a construction worker, and believes strongly in hard work - an ethos that expresses itself in his process. Each final work produced is the result of meticulous planning. He starts with collecting inspiration that will eventually become a sketch. Details of each piece are worked on separately. Chris then makes more sketches to work those details back into the whole before completing a final drawing. Often he will further create a limited-edition lithograph or screen print.
The imagery and style of his work is influenced by historical printmakers and illustrators - from a time when the best pictures available to everyday people were biblical illustrations, or printed broadsheets of distant and mythical creatures. These historical works were both widely available and grandiose, and it is that feeling of wonder, combined with accessibility and a craftsman’s process, that Chris works to translate to a modern audience.
Historical prints and mass-produced media also served the purpose of educating everyday people: this is what a rhinoceros looks like, this is the vast and frightening sea. Chris has taken that concept to heart as well, both in his work as an educator at CU Boulder, and during his time here at the Firehouse. By exhibiting work that illustrates his process, and by inviting the public to draw on his work during his residency, Chris welcomes us into the worlds he’s depicting - further extending the accessibility of his artistic practice. Conversations with visitors in the Gallery led to conversations on paper, prompting both parties to consider their relationship to mark-making.
Twenty-five mechanical pencils serves as a description of the materials used but also how accessible the artistic practice can be. It is rare that we are invited to consider methods that combine the imagination, craftsmanship, and a physical product through such an open and transparent process.
