Blotter acid stamps
Taking a trip with Art Chantry
“The city is doomed, every city is doomed. Fucking doomed.”
— Art Chantry on Portland, Oregon
You may know designer Art Chantry for his era-defining album covers for bands like Mudhoney, Soundgarden, and The Sonics. You might know his AIGA medal, his exhibitions at MoMA, the Louvre, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Or you might know his work from his years of collaboration with Plazm. Including his great quote about Portland in the 1990s, above.
We just released our latest collaboration with Art Chantry: A signed, limited edition blotter acid stamp sheet. This is part of our ongoing series of Artistamps made with The Portland Stamp Company.
You can read a bit more about Art’s blotter acid stamp trip in our brief interview.
Artist Series №57: Art Chantry
Digital offset print with screen printed spot varnish overprint. 130 stamps on an 8.5 x 11" sheet. Limited to a signed, numbered edition of 100.
$35 BUY
A trip down memory lane
We started working with Art in the mid-90s when we invited him to design a cover for Plazm magazine. Art also contributed to a number of issues of the magazine, created the first T-shirt in our short-lived limited edition T-shirt club, and was a guest in our design lecture program at PNCA.
Sharing a few highlights below. Let’s start at the beginning — with a nearly 30 year old fax sketch!
The production of Plazm №15 was a fun process. The cover was first created as a three color 16.25 x 22" screen print poster. The screen print was then scanned, matched for color and run as offset lithography. We had a sponsorship from Mohawk Paper for issue 15 so the posters were printed on their Carnival Soft White, which we then matched in the litho printing on their coated Kromekote stock.
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Copies of the print edition of Plazm №15 are available as well as about five of the screen printed poster.
Plazm №15 magazine
$15 — BUY
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Plazm №15 screen printed poster
$35 — BUY
Doom Town Designers
In Plazm №19 Art Chantry picked his favorite Portland artists, written by Margaret Richardson and featuring the work of Mike King, Gary Houston, Sean Tejarachi, Wayne Shellabarger. Opening spread shown below.
His quote seems to hold up. Spread designed by John Kieselhorst. Copies of the print edition of Plazm №19 remain available.
Plazm №19
$15 — BUY
In 2007 we brought Art to PNCA for a public lecture. We designed the poster, shown above to promote the event. Screen printed by Jason Miranda, one color on yellow stock with a gasoline slick spot varnish. Naturally we created some matchbooks to go alongside the poster. This poster is sold out.
For a short time around 2009 Plazm created a T-shirt of the Month club with our friends BuyOlympia called “Plazm Thread.” Turns out people didn’t want to subscribe to a T-shirt club!
All the shirts were screen printed on high quality American Apparel shirts in editions of 100. Art was №1, his design is pictured below. There is one shirt left, a women’s small.
Plazm Thread №1: Art Chantry
Women’s Small
$10 — BUY
The End of War
In 2007 the United States was enmeshed in two wars, one in Iraq, the other Afghanistan. That year in Plazm №29 we published The End of War, a feature conceived by co-editor Tiffany Lee Brown and curated by Tiffany and Joshua Berger. We asked artists, writers, and designers to imagine the end of war.
Art contributed a page within this series (shown below). Ending here in amidst the horrors of current wars, conflicts, genocides, and ethnic cleansing going on around the world. Ceasefire now.
The End of War section includes contributions from Sue Coe, Rebeca Méndez and Adam Eeuwens, Lidia Yuknavitch, David Tartakover, Yoko Ono, Magdalen Powers, Marvin Bell, and more. A few copies of Plazm 29 remain available for $25 here.
