Angelo Aversa - Woodcuts

Angelo Aversa 21 June 2009, New England
When I was very young, I began to have a natural predisposition for art but I certainly didn't imagine that one day eventually it would, and should, become my job. It's not an easy row to hoe. The so-called art system--critics, galleries, curators etc.--can be the biggest enemy for an artist. I'm not convinced that a good part of gallerists, curators and critics today do their job well. To be an artist is fantastic because it is a profession where freedom is fundamental.....
Sometimes this freedom gets blurred by the art marketers who promote certain banal themes and artists that are easy to sell. My relationship with the art system is distant because I believe in the excellence of good art over what's fashionable so I will never accept the political and tired reality of the art operators. My biggest wish and ambition was and is to be a great artist mainly for myself. Nothing is more adrenalin-inducing and emotional than to create something from nothing. When I started with the woodcut technique I never thought for a moment I could make a living from it. My main artistic formation was in a bottega darte as an apprentice to a master artist. Trained in this Renaissance way, I needed to have a patron of the arts. In fact my first patrons where and still are my family in Italy and my wife, Mary, who sustains our family and encourages me in my art. In a world where meritocracy is not always recognized, where the economic imbalance is more and more acute and where everything runs at an intolerable velocity, I thank God because there are still some people who look to the future with eyes of goodness and infinite patience. Angelo Aversa 21 June 2009, New England

The Firecracker Press, St. Louis

The Firecracker Press opened shop in February of 2002 as St. Louis, Missouris only graphic design studio and letterpress printshop. They combine antique printing technology with new thinking to design and produce objects that people enjoy seeing and feeling. They use computer design software to conceive ideas but still carve woodblocks and print by hand to produce event posters, business cards, party invitations, advertising and more.