Though
it wasn’t programmed that way, this edition of the World
Printmakers Newsletter revolves around New York, New York,
as that’s where most of the articles in this issue originate
from. The Lower East Side Printshop is located there, and
that’s where our printmaker / correspondent, April Vollmer
lives, though her story takes us farther south, to Virginia. From
there we go out West for a nostalgic visit to Mel Strawn.
The
Lower East Side Printshop dates from the sixties of the last
century. After undergoing all the special problems of a public-access
printmaking workshop and the usual ups and downs, by the early
90’s it was on the verge of extinction. Our interview with
the Printshop’s current director, Dusica Kirjakovic, tells
the story of this New York institution’s renaissance, a comeback
which some who lived through the lean years attributes largely
to Dusica’s guiding hand. She started out unobtrusively enough
in 1992, as a recently-arrived-in-New-York art graduate from Yugoslavia
who showed up at the Printshop’s door offering to work part
time in exchange for access to printmaking facilities. See
the interview here.
Most
artists agree that one of the supreme challenges they face is
finding the time and place to work, ideally a pleasant place where
one’s basic needs are attended, above all a place free from
the distractions with which modern life has blessed and cursed
us. Such paradises for artists do exist, and when we heard that
N.Y. printmaker, April Vollmer, was headed for one of them, we
asked her to chronicle what the experience was like. Here’s
her report from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
I
think most of us have had unforgettable teachers. Mine was Mrs.
Horn, my diminuntive silver-haired seventh-grade English teacher
who taught our class of 13-year-old anarchists to think in orderly
outline form. That was half a century ago, but even today when
I sit down to outline an article or a project, I still think of
her. Art professor emeritus and printmaker Mel Strawn’s master
was the Japanese artist, Saburo Hasegawa, to whom Mel dedicates
this sincere homage. You might also
like to have a look at this retrospective
of Mel’s work which World Printmakers published
a few years ago.
See
you next fall. Till then, when in doubt, keep on printing!
