Thank you, Honeysweet Productions

Cary Ocon and Erick Weiss

The auspicious/official launch party for Aardvark’s Fine Art Editions division would not have been possible without the brilliant ideas and expertise of Erick Weiss of Honeysweet Productions.

Aardvark Letterpress gets party dress

L.A. is crammed with event planners that can secure permits and throw a party and we count many of them among our friends. We thought we had a tough choice to make but in the end Erick and Honeysweet made it simple. Bryan from Classic Rentals

Erick understood that the most important thing was the proper display of the art. Letterpress printing has subtle dimensionality that is both tactile and pleasing to the eye. Its physicality and depth is the thing that sets it apart from other forms of printing. Once framed, it needs to be properly lit in order to take advantage of these qualities. We also wanted to have the party at Aardvark so that guests could have a firsthand look at the process of letterpress as both art and performance.

From the very start Erick saw clearly how all of this could be accomplished. Our space isn’t large and we needed to be able to accommodate at least 600 people. To that end, he planned an outdoor tent beside Aardvark in which to premiere our first 18 Loteria Cards. The genius of his idea was that the art could be viewed from both inside and outside of our shop and made it feel as though the business had doubled its square footage.

The specialty fabric of the tent wall and the elegant lighting inside and out made the framed prints come alive and made our vintage printing presses even more glamorous. His plan also maximized the people-flow.

Guests could enter the business, walk through the length of it, out the back door into the tent to view the art, arriving back at the beginning beside Aardvark’s entrance. The flow could go in either direction.

Cary Ocon and Joan Marshall

No one in Los Angeles knows how to create and plan for both art and performance like Erick and his crew. Honeysweet Productions and Erick Weiss’ years of experience, remarkable staff and flexibility maximized every aspect of our intention.

All photos: Lisa Jane Persky

L.A.Times, What's New in Letterpress

Loteria in the Los Angeles Times

GRASS-ROOTS ART

Aardvark Letterpress marks its 40th year with loteria-like fine art prints

by Liesl Bradner

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Aardvark takes Letterpress to Haute New Places

It's been a great week at Aardvark Letterpress. The official launch of our Fine Art Editions Division was a big success and the party was for all of us what remarkable artist Ed Wexler ("El Jefe")called "one of the best nights of my adult life!" We stopped counting guests at 400 but people continued to come and view our one-night only street gallery at our location and to buy prints long into the night. Pictured above are some of the Loteria Series Artists during the calm before the storm, from lower left: Claudia Laub, Dan McCleary above in white button-down, Ed Wexler, Dave Lefner behind Ed, Rick von Dehl behind Dave, Daniel Gonzalez next to him, Master Pressman Bill Berkuta in far back, and on the right, Somsara Rielly and Andre Miripolsky. In the background, just beyond the window of the shop is the installation created for us by Erick Weiss and Co. of Honeysweet Productions, Inc. Thank you , Erick, Victoria, Greg, Francis, Ernesto for your extraordinary contributions to our Event. You can link to any of our artists from our links section. Thank you, artists, for coming early for the photo. More pix to come.

Sarah Shewey, Event Planner in Unique Role of Party-Goer

Our friend, super party planner, green event co-ordinator Sarah Shewey of Pink Cloud Events posted this about Aardvark Fine Art Editions Debut fete. (We wanted her to cut loose for once and not have to worry about permits and rentals, waitstaff, and lists, lists, lists of event-type things and just come to the party-not have to plan it.) We highly recommend her if you're looking for a swell human to set it all up for your next slab o' fun.

KPCC's Adolfo Guzman-Lopez Visits Aardvark

The esteemed reporter files an on-scene report. It's a short history of Aardvark up to and including mention of the Los Angeles Loteria Series.

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