This year’s ARTS 322 Advanced Print Concepts class kicked off spring break with a trip to New Orleans. We were there as participants in the Southern Graphics Council International Conference, a yearly gathering of printmakers, professionals, and students alike. As a student employee of the Book Arts Lab who is only just beginning to explore print outside of letterpress, Advanced Print Concepts in itself is a challenge for me. Going from a class of twelve print students to a conference of thousands was certainly going to be an experience.
We each prepared for the conference by printing an edition to be exchanged randomly with other conference attendees. The tradition of print exchange was something new to me as I began this course, but, as I learned at the conference, it is a vital part of contemporary printmaking. A number of portfolios were on display each day at the conference, displaying a surprising diversity of responses, both technical and conceptual, to a particular topic.
The first day of the conference was filled with panels, with topics ranging from the history of comic books’ influence on print culture to new Canadian print to the role of the artist as curator. I sought out something book-arts related and found a film called Revival, made by a class at the University of North Texas. This group of print students had restored a number of old letterpresses and developed a method of cutting large letter forms with a computer-controlled router to avoid printing with a chase. Coming from tiny Wellesley College, the range of engineering resources of the university impressed me, but at the event the professor emphasized how the liberal arts model of interdisciplinarity was what drove them to try to work with other departments.
The second morning of the conference found us wandering through product fairs ogling ink and paper, but in the afternoon we took buses out to Tulane University to finally see some printing in progress. I drifted between workshops, first watching a massive tabletop screen printing demonstration by Josh and Emily Minnie, wallpaper printers from New York. They maintained perfect registration on huge sheets of paper – no small feat with a baby on your arm!
We also spent time at a lithography show-and-tell session, held in Tulane University’s beautiful studios. Here the artist shows how a cracked stone can produce a beautiful print:
While Friday evening was filled by an inspiring keynote lecture by Nicola Lopez and a gallery crawl through New Orleans, we were all really waiting on the events of the next day. Saturday began with open portfolio sessions, where professionals and students alike opened up their portfolios to share their work with whoever stopped by to see it. The enormous hotel ballroom was filled with tables piled with prints; some artist even laid their work out on the floor. More than the diversity of panel topics, the workshops, or the galleries, the sheer size of this event was a testament to the breadth and vitality of contemporary printmaking.
I also got a chance to scope out book artists, and while I came across some great letterpress work (this project in particular stands out), I was surprised to see how artists specializing in traditional print incorporated books into their portfolios. Many showed handmade sketchbooks, collaborative book projects, their own handmade paper, and even pop-up printed books and postcards. We all came home with suitcases full of prints, ready to dig in to the rest of the semester with newfound inspiration and techniques. The most important thing I brought back, though, was the realization that the worlds of printmaking and book arts are not so different. Rather than being overwhelmed by unfamiliar techniques and histories, again and again I encountered attitudes towards craftsmanship and a respect for history and materials that could have some right out of Wellesley’s Book Arts Lab.
Beatrice Denham ’14 is an Architecture major, a student in ARTS 322 Advanced Print Concepts, and a student employee in the Book Arts Lab.