The Hassle got to catch up a bit with Helen Popinchalk and Morgan Grenier, the inspiring ladies behind Boston/Cambridge based printmaking collective TRIFECTA EDITIONS. For the past year they’ve been setting the bar high in Beantown by producing quality hand printed work in collaboration with some of Boston’s most talented emerging artists. They’ve got a good eye and you’d do right to keep yours on them!
Next week you can help celebrate and even learn a thing or two at their inaugural event, TRIFECTA: Year One over @Fourth Wall Project from 5/22-5/25, 12pm-12am, full schedule below!
How was Trifecta Editions born? What was the catalyst?
Helen: I had always dreamed of having my own fine art screen printing shop. We decided to start Trifecta as a means to that end. I had just finished grad school and was ready to put my MFA in printmaking to good use! The time was right; we were collaborating with a bunch of artists to make prints. It was a natural extension of what we were already doing.
Morgan: I was in the right place at the right time! I had just graduated from Simmons College where I studied graphic design and communications. I was planning to move to New York but I didn’t have real plans. When Helen told me about Trifecta Editions, I wanted to be a part of it, so I stayed and we started working on it full-time.
One thing we here at the Hassle LOVE about Trifecta Editions is that you seem to work with artists of so many different mediums (from illustrators to architects to painters). How do you collaborate with an artist whose work wouldn’t necessarily translate into a screen print?
We just finished a print with Khaldoun Hijazin – he makes very beautiful, luscious, super realistic oil paintings. We tested and tested, printing with every trick we knew, trying to recreate a painting of his. Every test was a complete failure. We were about to give up but had one last technique to try – a combination of printing layered halftones with some of the details defined with solid lines… it was a bit of a Hail Mary. But it worked! We couldn’t stop staring at the test print in the studio; we high-fived over it more than once and may have even done a little dancing. Khaldoun loved it too. It’s one of the prints we are releasing exclusively at Year One.
We collaborate with our fingers crossed… we keep testing, always experimenting, always trying new and innovative techniques.
Later this month, Fourth Wall Project will be playing host to Trifecta: Year One. Which is a four day long group exhibit including Artist Talks, Skillshares, Demos, Live painting/drawing, Live music, and exclusive print releases amongst other things. Can you talk a little bit about what inspired you to put together such an epic (and FREE!) four day event?
Yes! We are so excited! We were inspired to create this event to celebrate the vibrant, creative, kind and generous community of artists we have come to know during our first year in business. There are so many people making interesting art and doing really cool projects out there; Year One attempts to bring a little taste of that to one venue over four days… jam packed! It’s an opportunity for Greater Boston to be introduced to our artists and to us. As an online business, there’s definitely a disconnectbetween seeing the art we make on a computer screen and actually laying eyes on it. With something like a screen print, you get such a strong impression in person when you can see the layers; you can see the quality and see the care that went into making each of the prints by hand. We’re just so excited for people to see the prints.
Plus… after the long hard winter, we’re ready to party!
How do you see Trifecta Editions within the Boston art scene, now and in the future?
We see Trifecta as just a small part of a much larger, incredible and creative community here in Boston. We want to continue making prints with emerging and established artists and really hope to foster a new generation of art collectors.
Any words of wisdom for all those Boston art students working towards creative careers?
Of course… but it’s nothing they haven’t heard already. Work, work hard… then work harder. Work so hard you think you’ll die. Collaborate as much as you can. Never pass up a creative opportunity. Never settle. If you dream it, you must do it.
Also, call us! Let’s make prints together 😉
