We are proud to launch a new initiative in partnership with Arts of Life!
The Spudnik Press Community Mentorship Program allows self-identifying artists from partner organizations to explore and immerse in a specific printmaking process. Different from a one-time Subsidized Workshop, this approach focuses on deepening skills over time while fostering artistic growth and incorporating a social aspect, exposing participating artists to community members of other organizations.
The inaugural cohort is made up of 8 artists from Arts of Life and Latitude Chicago. They will engage in 6 weekly sessions of monotype printing, focusing on creating unique “one-of-one” prints and working quickly through ideas and iterations.
Program Mentor:
Anders Zanichkowsky came to Chicago in 2019 after getting their MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where they concentrated in printmaking and religious art & studies. They are an interdisciplinary artist who also works in papermaking, textiles, neon, video, poetry, and performance, and they are the owner of Burial Blankets, weaving custom shrouds for green burial that are meant for enjoyment and reflection during life.
In 2016 Anders was an artist in residence with The Arctic Circle sailing expedition in Svalbard, and their work has been shown across the U.S. and abroad including The Wisconsin Film Festival and the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. Anders has taught all ages and backgrounds with a focus on printmaking, drawing, and DIY-style professional development for working artists, including while on staff at Spudnik from 2019 – 2021.
Program Curators:
Jill Nahrstedt is an artist, mother, surfer, and traveler exploring relationships between the self and place. She accomplishes this through the use of color and images in her paintings, pivoting between realism and abstraction, combining them both in some pieces. Jill is seeking the layers that make a life.
She is the founder and curator of Far North Side Gallery, a micro gallery in Chicago. Her work has been shown throughout the United States and can be found on several walls as Murals in Chicago where she lives with her husband and two children. Nahrstedt also prints serigraphs of local architectural groupings, dabbles in surf art, and paints portraits of stranger-neighbors she sources from social media.
Yang Pulongbarit-Cuevo is a Filipina papercut artist based in Chicago who began as a political cartoonist in the Philippines. Her work often draws inspiration from nature, anatomy, music, and folklore.
As an immigrant born and raised in an archipelago with rich cultural heritage contrasted by a history of political unrest, Pulongbarit-Cuevo also creates pieces informed by societal observations and emotional abstraction. Her work has been featured in various online and offline publications including The Chicago Reader. She is currently working as a nonprofit director for a local arts organization and hosts a weekly show for 107.1FM, an independent radio station in North Center Chicago.
Participating Organizations:
Arts of Life is a Chicago organization that advances the creative arts community by providing artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities a collective space to expand their practice and strengthen their leadership skills.
Latitude Chicago is a nonprofit community digital lab in Chicago that maintains high-end printing and scanning equipment, processes 35mm and 120 color negative film, operates an artist in residence program, and organizes ongoing arts programming.
Culminating Event:
Curated prints from the program duration will be on display at a fundraising exhibition, PRESSed together, to be held at the Spudnik Press Annex Gallery on March 14, 2025 (5pm-8pm). Prints will be for sale, benefiting participating artists, Spudnik Press, Arts of Life, and Latitude Chicago.
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Programs at Spudnik Press are partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, the Driehaus Foundation, and the Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation.
This project is partially supported by a Chicago Arts Recovery Program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.
Logo designed by Riesling Dong