Today we’d like to introduce you to Anna and James Eves.
Anna and James, please share your story with us.
Cape Ann Giclee is owned and operated by me and my husband, James Eves. We started the business in our home where James was already running his freelance graphic arts and retouching business. We were running another business online at the time, DigiPix.Us where we turned people’s photos into PopArt or custom silhouettes but because we weren’t doing our own printing then we were very frustrated by the lack of quality fine art printing available so, given James’ expertise in color management and printing, we bought our own printer, an Epson 9900, and started offering art reproduction and fine art printing to artists and photographers. In 2012, we found the perfect studio location in Gloucester to move our growing businesses to and we have been at the same location, 20 Maplewood Ave since then.
James is a lifetime member of the Art Students League of New York and attended the School for Visual Arts. He has an extensive background and training in classical fine art, printing and digital imaging. The combination of his background and training in these disciplines gives him a discerning artist’s eye, an understanding of the artistic process, and mastery of the latest digital imaging technology. He has perfected his printing and color expertise over the course of a lifetime, before Photoshop I came out and color correcting was done by hand, He was working in print shops perfecting his skills. He has also worked in advertising agencies as a production artist, graphic designer and creative director, he currently also runs his own graphic arts and design agency, eves3studio, where regional and national companies like Vibram Five Fingers, Unilife, Ken’s Foods, Devry University, Seahorse Bioscience, Edlund and others depend on James for color, retouching, photography and design. Fine Art printing is a natural extension of these talents and a happy homecoming to his roots of fine art and printing.
I graduated from Boston University and has a varied background in entrepreneurial business ventures – from running a cab company in Boston to being an insurance agency owner (printing is soo much more fun than insurance) to now marketing and managing our businesses. I do the administration, sales, and marketing for Cape Ann Giclee as well as running DigiPix.Us, an online photos to canvas shop.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
For James there was no real learning curve to start a printing company, printing and color management are his areas of expertise, he’s set up really big print shops before and he’s been working in Photoshop since the beta version, but for me I had to learn a whole new industry. It has been a great learning experience for me. I took on procurement – sourcing, testing and pricing out the materials we use every day and always looking out for new innovative products, making sure we are using the best materials available and learning about papers and ways to mount and display artwork. Learning about the different papers was really daunting to me in the beginning so I took that on head on and now I am very comfortable choosing papers and making recommendations. I love learning about new materials to print on like satin fabric and phototex which lets us do large wall murals that adhere right to the wall. I also didn’t know anything about stretching canvases, James made extra pocket money at the Art Students league stretching canvases for people so he’s an expert there, but me, I couldn’t even wrap a present properly. Now I can stretch canvases like a pro and all our canvases are hand stretched onto stretcher strips. I have learned that it’s best to face the thing you are most intimidated by and just take it on otherwise it just stands in your way.
Cape Ann Giclee – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
The question we get most often is what is a “Giclee” the second most asked question is how do you pronounce it so let’s start with those two. A giclée (pronounced – jee-clay) is a very fancy term for a print made by a fine art inkjet printer, fine art printers have 6 or more ink colors (ours have 10), use archival inks and the prints are printed on museum quality archival papers and canvas. We use the term “Giclée” to differentiate it from a print made by a commercial 4 color. Other terms for a giclée print are – archival print, archival inkjet print, digital print, fine art digital print, and archival pigment print. Generally photographers do not refer to the prints made by a fine art printer as giclée they use one of the other terms, in fact many photographers vehemently oppose the term “giclée” – fine artists who print reproductions of their work are more likely to call them giclées. What name an artist uses to describe the print is entirely up to them. No matter what they are ultimately called in the end it is the quality of the printing process that is most important. There are no set standards in the industry as to what achieving this level of quality entails so it is important for the consumer to educate themselves and ask the fine art printer what kind of printer they are using, are they using the manufacturers inks or are they using after-market inks, they should be able to show you paper samples and let you know which brands they use and why, they should be skilled in color management and know how to control the color in the printer. We know how to do all of those things, we are fine art printing experts. I think one of the things I am most proud of is that we always take the time with each photographer and artist to walk them thru the process and explain everything we are doing, our studio is an open studio, customers can see exactly what we do, we don’t hide behind a counter, we bring the customers right inside so they can see the printers, feel the papers and understand the process. I think for a lot of artists be they fine artists or photographers this open studio concept allows them to experience the process as an extension of their own creative process.
We’re always happy to show anyone interested in fine art printing our studio and answer questions about fine art printing in general or specific projects. What sets us apart is that we treat each customer whether they are just printing family photos or they have a show at a gallery, with care and respect. We are proud that we have been able to grow this business from a small set up in our basement to a thriving brick and mortar studio space with an online store and online ordering.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success is having customers come back again and again and again. Success is having customers be so excited about their prints they tell everyone they can to print with you and refer you to other artists.
Contact Info:
- Address: 20 Maplewood Ave Gloucester, MA 01930
- Website: www.capeanngiclee.com
- Phone: 978-546-7070
- Email: info@capeanngiclee.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/capeanngiclee/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapeAnnGiclee/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/CapeAnnGiclee
Image Credit:
Photographer Les Bartlett with his work “Ecclesia”
Artist Jon Dinappoli with his work coming out of the printer.
Getting in touch: BostonVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
