A New Addition to the Art Business

Some of you who follow Mike on Facebook or Instagram may have seen that McQuade Fine Arts recently added a rather large new member to the art-making family — a 44-inch wide commercial pigment ink printer.

For years, we relied on two professional printers: one for smaller prints up to 17x22 inches, and one large-format printer capable of handling 100-foot rolls of paper up to 44 inches wide. These are the same type of pigment ink printers used by professional photo labs to create archival prints with rich color and long-lasting quality.

Last fall, the old wide-format printer began its final act. First, it refused to recognize new ink cartridges because the chip technology had changed. Mike managed to outsmart that problem by swapping microchips from older cartridges onto the new ones. The printer was happy again — briefly. Then the vacuum pump that feeds the paper through the machine gave up the ghost.

Fast forward a few months, and Mike found a newer 44-inch printer at an unbeatable price: free, courtesy of his former employer, Concord Direct. The only catch? It had been in storage for over a year and required three grown men to load it into the back of his F-250. Getting it unloaded at home took four people, a floor stand, and probably a few quiet prayers.

After a good cleaning, a few cleaning cycles, and some crossed fingers, the printer came back to life. It printed a perfect test page and has already produced its first run of photographic prints, now available at the Lakes Region Art Gallery. We still have final paper calibrations to complete, but the big news is this: McQuade Fine Arts is officially back in full business on the printing side.

First print job while still in the shop

Epson SureColor P9000 loaded into Mike’s F250 truck

Epson P9000 Printer after assembly in the garage.