Fernwoods Keeper

Giclée (pronounced "zhee-clay") is a neologism for the process of making fine art prints from a digital source using ink-jet printing. The word "giclée" is derived from the French language word "le gicleur" meaning "nozzle", or more specifically "gicler" meaning "to squirt, spurt, or spray". It was coined in 1991 by Jack Duganne, a printmaker working in the field, to represent any inkjet-based digital print used as fine art. The intent of that name was to distinguish commonly known industrial "Iris proofs" from the type of fine art prints artists were producing on those same types of printers. The name was originally applied to fine art prints created on Iris printers in a process invented in the early 1990s but has since come to mean any high quality ink-jet print and is often used in galleries and print shops to denote such prints. Born in the Pacific Northwest, Blaine Fontana began his interest in art at a young age. He was always encouraged to use his imagination through out his art education. While attending and earning a BFA in Communication Art/Design from OTIS College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, he worked at becoming an graphic designer and art director for a cutting edge design firm, a fashion/lifestyle magazine, and a young men's apparel company. As Fontana began to focus on his fine art career, he has designed, exhibited, and licensed his work with a variety of galleries and companies such as KFC intl., LeBasse Projects Gallery, SCION, Upper Playground, NIKE, KidRobot and others. Between managing his design studio with creative partner and wife, Eugenie Jolivett, Fontana's time is still spent working on his "Urban Contemporary" paintings for galleries and private commission's.