RCP Alumni
Meryl Engler
artist-in-residence
Meryl Engler grew up in Huntington Beach, California playing lots of different sports, hanging out on the beach and drawing as much as possible. Meryl made a big transition to attend Syracuse University where she studied sculpture, printmaking, religious studies and history, and also competed on the women’s rowing team. Next she attended graduate school at University of Nebraska-Lincoln for studio art with an emphasis in printmaking. This is where she developed her love of colorful woodcut prints. Meryl has shown in Lincoln, Syracuse, Los Angeles, Houston, and internationally. For the past three years, Meryl coached rowing at Lake Oswego Community Rowing outside Portland Oregon. She is so excited to explore Akron while getting to make art full time again at Rubber City Prints.
Aspen Barbro
artist-in-residence
Aspen Barbro is a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Cincinnati with a background in Fine Arts. As an artist at the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) she is constantly being pushed to expand her ever-evolving practice. For the duration of her
college career, she's been exploring topics such as gender performance/ femininity, suburbia and domesticity, relationships, and the importance of language.
Conceptually, she enjoys challenging what a print is, or could be.
This often manifests in the form of books, and the occasional 11in x 11in condom wrapper.
She has been a printmaker for over 6 years and primarily works as a screen printer, but has experience in intaglio as well.
Sydnie Rosenfeld
artist-in-residence
Sydnie is a proud Akron native who has been a working artist in New York City for the last 5 years. As a working artist, Sydnie has worked in fashion photography- shooting New York Fashion Week and promotional work for brands with features in Italian Vogue and Topsafe London. She has spent time photographing behind the scene for music videos, movies, and documentaries. Sydnie also works behind the scenes on shoots for major fashion brands such as Miu Miu and Gypsy Sport.
When not taking photos, she also produces The Dawn Lombardi Show with her long-time friend and Akron native, Sam Puglia. The wacky variety show featured artists such as Princess Nokia, Kembra Pfahler, Casey Spooner, and Show Me The Body just to name a few.
In her spare time, Sydnie works on painting, drawing, and printmaking. She finds inspiration from the people around her, her experiences from her short 23 years on earth, and the freedom that comes with putting a thought down on paper.
Veronica Ceci
artist-in-residence
Veronica Ceci is an independent artist and Master Printer at Flatbed Press in Austin, TX. She received her BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, studied at the Tamarind Institute of Lithography and completed her MFA at Kent State University. Ceci’s pieces have been included recently in exhibitions at the Manhattan Graphics Center, the Art Museum of Southeast Texas and the National Portrait Gallery, in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2017 she will have a large scale solo exhibition at the Kansas City Artist’s Coalition in Kansas City, MO and will be featured at the Lauren Rodgers Museum in Laurel, MS. In addition to maintaining a rigorous studio practice and exhibition schedule, Ceci is also founder of the Flash Collective which produces pop up exhibitions in nontraditional spaces.
Andy Hammersmith
Keyholder
Andy is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art with a BFA in drawing and an emphasis in printmaking. She focuses on intaglio printing. She likes intaglio because it is the easiest printmaking process to convert idea to matrix, it's heavily linked to drawing, and it has consistency in multiples.
She became a keyholder at Rubber City Prints to build a more established body of work to prepare for grad school, which will enable her to have a better chance at getting scholarships, and to hone her personal practice. She travels to Rubber City Prints above other Cleveland-area studios because it has a small and cozy environment.
Andy works in very small scale, 4.5” images or smaller. Her work is viewed either singularly, or in a group/book format as the images she creates share a non-linear narrative. She finds inspiration from the history of printmaking as well as how the progression of technology widens a single person’s influence, either for the better or worse. Through her work, she tries to make the viewer think about nuclear warfare, the US involvement in world wars, and the violence that builds up to a war from different perspectives by reworking historic events and removing the human element to direct the focus back to the main point.