press play print

Amy Nack, right printing relief plates.

As my first contribution to this wonderful community, I am grateful to be included among the contributors. While I was inactive for the first session, I plan to make regular contributions to the second session.  This post is being written from Boise, Idaho where I live and teach printmaking at Boise State University.  Boise has a growing community of printmakers, actively engaging with the region.  Amy Nack is my former student and a recently completed her B.F.A. with her emphasis in printmaking.  This fall she worked with the Boise City Department of Art and Art History, funded by a grant from the Idaho Commission on the Arts. The grant enabled Amy to engage Idaho’s large refugee population in making prints.

In September, refugees from Afghanistan, Bhutan, Burundi, Columbia, Congo, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Myanmar, Russia, Somalia, Thailand and Tanzania participated in three workshops offered by Amy.  Held at the Office for Refugees/ Mountain States Group, participants created relief prints on Styrofoam plates that were printed on Amy’s tabletop press.  I had the opportunity to assist Amy briefly for one of the workshops and was charmed by the excitement and engagement the refugees brought to the experience.

In particular, a young boy from Congo comes to mind.  He was initially timid toward drawing on the plate, but once we inked and printed it, his eyes had an extra sparkle and his smile lit up the whole neighborhood.  Many of the refugees are learning to speak English and the process Amy presented to them opened a new door for them to communicate their stories. A new community was built and hundreds of prints were created. The refugees were given one of their prints, agreeing to give another of their prints to the public during the WorldFest celebration held in downtown Boise on October 4, 2008.

Amy is living proof that teaching is truly a reciprocal activity. I am grateful to Amy for her natural inclination to serve others and her artistic perseverance, which consistently yields meaningful, rich work. Thank you Amy! Coming soon: Amy has another very exciting print related endeavor on the horizon.

Jill Fitterer, October 2008

 Ties Don't Bind. monoprint, 2008.

Most of the world sees materials as the means to an end.  

Materials + tools=end-product. 

But in the minds, bodies, eyes and hands of many artists, materials are crucial participants in the conversations that result in the finished object-- which, on a good day, still whispers and echoes the conversations that happened along the way.   

For Honolulu-based artist Barbara Okamoto: "Rocks and sticks whisper to me of the past and what they have seen and where they have been.  And when rocks tell me that they can fly and float, then, I know that all things are possible."   

While Okamoto’s MFA (University of Hawaii – Manoa, 1979) focus was fiber art, she is currently working primarily in mixed media printmaking and painting techniques.  Fiber sensibilities remain evident in her imagery along with influences from Hawai‘i and travels to Japan, Europe, Guatemala, and the Mainland U.S. Okamoto, affectionately known as “Bobbie” to friends, creates dynamic collograph/monotypes, combining dreamlike scenarios with an intriguing combination of textures grounded in real world experience and high contrast colors.  Bobbie’s use of negative space creates a fluid sense of movement and a surreal sense of floating through her designs. 

Okamoto builds up the textured organic surface of her rock-shaped plates with various acrylic media on mat board.   These rock forms are then inked (usually in a very dark color) and wiped like an intaglio plate.  A thin piece of sisal rope is then inked separately with a bright, hith-contrast color. This rope is carefully wrapped around the rock form before printing.  As you can imagine, this final arrangement is not easy to do without mixing ink or smudging these very different inks into each other, but the resulting images are worth the extra time and care.  Bobbie also touches up and heightens the dimensionality of her images using colored pencils.

Rock After Dark. colored pencil, 2008.

I have begun yet another folio call As You Wish and it is due soon. I am very happy to have this one be small and fast. It began with beginning to try out the Inkteraction site. I felt it would be nice to do a quick exchange to have people get to know each other. The folio has grown into ten sets with 11 artists in each set I am #12 with sets 13,14, 15 going to Special Collections here at the University of Colorado, an International Special Collection and one exhibition set. The response has been great! I will submit images when print begin to arrive! And when I can figure out how to put images on here. Tried 2 to day and not luck. Feeling a bit challenged:)  melanie.yazzie@colorado.edu  (Oct, 21, 2008)

It was my pleasure to work with a handful of outstanding students, organizations, and individuals in the Honolulu community this past year to make the following project become a reality.  For the high school students Robert Molyneux and I taught, this 11" x 23" poster project was their 1st reduction linocut.  Most of the professional printmakers at the Honolulu Printmakers (myself included) were blown away with their designs, craftsmanship, and overall print quality.  Read on for the description I sent out for promotional purposes.

Kapolei High student BreyAnna Lucero’s “Game Over” linocut poster was chosen for offset print reproduction and may be seen on The Bus throughout the month of October.

McKinley High student Cody Maemori’s linocut design, addressing the dangers of text messaging while driving, is featured on a promotional postcard with a calendar of events for the month of October.

Project Ignition, a by-teens-for-teens, advertising campaign created through fine-art, reduction printmaking, will be on exhibition at Pearl Ridge Center  (Oct. 15-24, opening 11am-1pm Oct. 18) and The State Public Library (Oct. 27 – Nov. 7) in Honolulu. The campaign aims to raise awareness to the risk factors associated with disabled and distracted driving, together, the number one killer of teens today.  At the Pearl Ridge opening, reproductions of student works will be distributed as bumper stickers and magnetic vinyl for motor vehicles.   Additionally, reproductions of one student’s poster print will be shown on The Bus throughout the month of October.  Another work will be featured on a promotional postcard listing the campaign’s calendar of events. October is Arts & Humanities Month, and the 19^th – 25^th is Drivers’ Safety Week.

 The Honolulu Printmakers teamed up with Youth Service Hawaii and McKinley & Kapolei High School art students to create this traditionally-printed advertising campaign.  Instructors Erika Johnson (yours truly) & Robert Molyneux introduced students to concepts of visual communication, advertising, and hands-on, reduction-printmaking technique.  By also reproducing these original, traditionally-made art works through more commercial modes of reproduction, the project aims to disseminate the safe-driving message throughout the public sphere and demonstrate the versatility and various modes of printmaking as it exists today.

 The project was sponsored by the Hugh Stuart Trust, The Mayor’s Office on Culture & the Arts, and State Farm Insurance, and students have been asked to be prepared to present this project at State Farm’s National Project Ignition Conference in Nashville this coming March.