My love for printing began somewhere in my childhood
❤️ 📖🔡 I remember the massive wooden library, large as the whole wall that was in the hallway that separated the two bedrooms. I used to sit in front of it, where in the middle was a large piece of wood that could be turned into an extendable table if you pulled it toward you and supported it on the two legs.
🏡There I was, like in a wooden house, where miracles could happen at any moment. Instantly, the smell of old pages and printing ink would invade the senses. All the thick and thin covers, dozens of colors, and big or small rectangles stuffed to fit, like in a Tetris game, will always surprise me.
Each book was a new, sensory, and unique experience. Whether it had embossed covers that I used to feel with my fingers, thin or thick pages with various text that smelled special, finding surprising black-and-white or colored illustrations. Some were small and fragile, others so big and heavy that I could barely lift them. That’s how I played for hours, rummaging to discover something new every time.
I wasn’t of the age to read them. It was all about the sensation. My favorite books were Snow White and Cinderella, two pop-up books with a few pages, but with these cardboard motion games that you could pull or fold, that seemed so special to me.
In high school, I had the opportunity to choose, besides the main section of specialization, textiles, another one, and of course I chose graphics. I was fascinated by how you can make volumetric letters by hand, what rules you must respect, how to make a notebook or a book, and finally how to do illustrations and hand engravings.
In time, these steps led me to commercial print (flyers, posters, and business cards)and later to my beloved books. So I learned how to make a book cover, an interior layout with placing the text on the page, positioning the illustrations, and how to tie the books by hand.
In college, where I chose graphics as an art, I decanted the information and craft learned in high school. I focused more on engraving, learning all the traditional techniques: pointe sèche, linocut, lithography, serigraphy, and more. I specialized in computer graphic design, finally starting to work in this field in my second year of college. And all this comes from a multi-sensory impulse from childhood.
More than 12 years ago, I met Leo Voinea from Emprint. Initially, he was my client. We collaborated to create a website for his business, Emprint.ro, and over time, he became my trusted partner for all the projects developed within my full-service agency, Artvisiona, in the printing area, and finally, a good friend. He was the person who always helped me materialize unconventional projects that lived in my imagination. Many times I surprised him because I wanted something he had never tried before, where he had to get all kinds of special products, invent methods, or find alternatives and new solutions for application. However, each time we succeeded together.
So it happens that a few months ago, when I proposed to him to make a multisensory printing exhibition, he smiled at the idea. He probably thought “another intriguing idea of Simona.” 😁 An exhibition where you can touch, smell, look from whatever angle you want, bend the paper, and, why not, tear the paper if you feel like it or even take it home if you want.
If you are passionate about printing, you work in this field, or you might want to get started, I invite you to a different printing exhibition. 👉Between November 20 – 24, at the Elite Art Gallery in Bucharest, United Nations Square no. 3-5, B2, between the hours 13 and 19. More about this project: www.artaprintului.ro
