Jon and Cathy Cone
Jon Cone: @piezography, Website
Currently living and working in Vermont, Jon Cone is a Master Printer, photographer, developer of technology, and educator. He and his wife Cathy Cone, founded Cone Editions Press (@coneeditions) in Port Chester, NY in 1980. In the 1980s, Cone printed large scale serigraphy, intaglio, monoprint, photogravure, and relief prints in a painterly style in collaboration with several of the abstract expressionist painters of the 2nd Generation of the New York School. He opened Cone Editions Gallery at 560 Broadway in NYC in 1987 to show the publications of their studio including the computer printmaking he began pioneering in 1984. In 1989, the Cones moved to Vermont. By the early 1990s, Cone would develop the first archival inkjet inks and much of the inkjet technology that is taken for granted today. Over a period of more than four decades, Cone has collaborated with painters Norman Bluhm, Stanley Boxer, Wolf Kahn, Willy Heeks, and David Humprey, amongst others. He printed Diana Michener’s “Silence Me” exhibition for Pace/Macgill, Richard Avedon’s last living portfolio the fantastic fable "In Memory of the Late Mr. and Mrs. Comfort", the monumental Ashes and Snow exhibitions that were viewed by more than 13 million people worldwide, David Bowie’s first gallery exhibition, Gordon Park’s “Half Past Autumn” for the Hirschorn Museum, and James Nachtwey’s “Witness to History” exhibition at the Currier Museum. Between and after these have been projects with hundreds of other artists and photographers. At the same time, Cone has shared his technologies with countless other studios and privateers who use the inks, software and methodologies he develops and distributes via his project Inkjetmall. Today, he is revolutionizing the speed and precision of UV exposure systems for alternative printmaking processes.
Cathy Cone: @cathycone, Website
Cathy Cone is a photographer and painter. Her surrealist approach to photography began in the late 1970’s with the introduction of the "Diana" camera. This led to investigation of experimental techniques towards a multidisciplinary approach to her poetic image making. Cathy received her training at Ohio University, Vermont Studio Center. She received her MFA at the Maine Media College. Some of her exhibitions include Weisman Art Museum, University of Alabama, DeCordova Museum, the Griffin Museum of Photography and the Vermont Center for Photography. Her works are in the collection of IBM, Hallmark Fine Art Collections, American Express, and the Beekman a Thompson Hotel, New York. Cathy with her husband, master printer Jon Cone, founded Cone Editions Press in 1980 in Port Chester, NY as a collaborative printmaking workshop. Cone Editions Press is now located in East Topsham, Vermont where Cathy is director of the Workshops and Studio.
Artist Statement
Jon Cone: Being able to manifest technology has always benefited my printmaking, yet I tend to develop techniques because of inspiration drawn from those I’ve selected to print for or collaborate with. When I see a printing medium or a technique that intrigues me I want to mess with it, change it, and perfect it in order to make it authentically my own. I can flow easily from traditional to digital and I see every technology no matter how crude or advanced with similar curiosity and complexity. My entire nature is about discovery and invention or re-invention. My biggest joy however, is in witnessing the birth of a print project that started without any firm idea or direction.
David Hartt, The Histories (after Duncanson), 2021. Photogravure from a 18 1/4 x 27 inch plate on 22 1/4 x 31 inches Copperplate White paper
Cathy Cone: I begin by discovering an image in the world. The image emerges and appears as a rather strange, unexpected surprise. This is the charge that I take back into my studio as “something" found to translate. I then go to work by responding more directly in order to rediscover through a new conscious intention. I want to connect and have my hand more it. The finding and constructing of what I understand and know, links up with what I don’t know or can’t see. If I’m lucky, they meld into a new image that lives on the threshold.
I make photographs as a way to listen to my heart's song, and then I practice like hell to sing it.
Cathy Cone, from Rewinding Forward, Piezography® prints on archival paper or vellum
At Tusen Takk
While in residence, Jon and Cathy bridged their ongoing work using and re-imagining historical processes to collaborate and work on independent projects.
Public Programs
