Printmaking is a team sport.

Unlike the solitary painter or sculptor who labors alone in the studio late into the night, the resources (the expense of process materials and the size and weight of printing presses) needed to do print work often cause printmaking to happen in the lab. Having to share space and resources breeds a camaraderie among printers and generates a collaborative mood. Printmaking inspires and people to engage in print exchanges (which i have participated in) where individual artists share their work with each other.

In my bookmaking class, I call one of the assignments the “triple threat.”
1. make a zine (unbound or stapled)
2. distribute a copy of the zine to each of your classmates
3. then make 3 hardcover bindings of the collected zines of all classmates

This project REQUIRES the student to:
1. engage the format and principles of the zine in a creative or personal manner
2. share the work, and thus engage his or her own work and the work of others in a critical sphere
3. bind the work – a secondary technical step which allows the work to be kept as a unit. It also teaches students how to perfect hardcover binding techniques.

 

I feel that Instructor lead demonstrations aren’t enough, when I was in school i always felt I learned more when i saw the teacher painting as well, how they (with all their experience) held and used their brushes, prepared their canvases and mixed their paints… how they solved problems of sculpting with light in oil.

I enjoy taking on the challenges I set forth for my students so here is my zine from that class.