Large Block Printing with Big Ink

Big Tuna Returns to Nashville, April 15-16, 2023.

Join us for the third Nashville installment of really big printing, facilitated by the really big press, called The Big Tuna, owned and operated by our fellow inky-hearted maker, Lyell Castonguay, also known as BIG INK. It will be a weekend of monumental woodblock printing at Hatch Show Print April 15 and 16, 2023, from 11 am to 4 pm each day.

BIG INK will transform Haley Gallery into a print studio featuring The Big Tuna: their custom-designed giant mobile press. Visitors to the building can witness the spectacle of participating printmakers working together to produce large prints from the wood blocks they’ve carved ahead of time.

For the printmakers, the event blends elements of a formal class and a maker fair. It’s a fun way to expand their skill set, meet other artists, and engage with the public. If you are curious about the process of relief printmaking, stop in during the day to see the artists in action and ask them about the process.

This event is facilitated and run by BIG INK, founded in 2012 by Lyell Castonguay and Carand Burnet. The duo wanted to foster a community of printmakers who make large woodblock prints. Since then, they’ve traveled the country nearly every year to provide an opportunity for artists to work at a very large scale, using Big Tuna, a giant mobile printing press.