World Printmakers Newsletter, Number 41, Autumn, 2008

World Printmakers proudly announces the creation of Print Workshop Central, a new website designed specifically for print studio professionals worldwide. The site is not only a forum designed to bring together print people from all over the world to share ideas and solutions, but an online resource center to provide them with contacts and information to enhance their operations.

For years we've wondered what might be achieved if printmaking professionals from all over the world got their heads together and started consulting and cooperating with one another, not to mention working together on public education and print advocacy projects.

But how were they going to go about it, if there wasn't even a space for them to meet? So we decided to create that space at http://printworkshopcentral.com. We want to invite you to have a look at it, and if you like what you see, pass the word along to your print studio friends and colleagues. The more collaborators Print Workshop Central attracts, the more good work it will be able to achieve on behalf of printmaking and printmakers everywhere.

Will the Brilliant Future of Printmaking
Be Illuminated by a Computer Screen?

We found this personal reflection by veteran Paris lithographer, Jörge de Sousa Noronha, thought provoking. What will be the role of computers in fine-art printmaking? Is the digital shift in printmaking just one symptom of a whole new world society in which the importance of new techniques pales by comparison with the Totally Renovated Humanity which our children and their children are becoming?

U.S. Printmakers Mount Countrywide Art Protest

A couple of veteran art activists have recently started a very interesting ball rolling in the United States. Stephen Fredericks, of the New York Society of Etchers , and Art Hazelwood , longtime member of the California Society of Printmakers , have founded a movement--which they call a "national coalition"--of artists who are mounting and participating in a series of political art exhibitions this fall. They call it The Art of Democracy. We wish them all the success in the world. Read all about it here. You might even decide you want to participate!

Maureen Booth's Portuguese Solarplate Workshop

Maureen Booth was invited to mount a four-day workshop last July in a rural setting 10 kilometers inland from Portimao, on the popular Algarve tourist coast. The workshop was part of a month-long art and music festival organized by the local cultural association, under the leadership of Arlindo Arez, the well-known Portuguese monumental sculptor and art activist. It was a surprising and enlightening experience for everybody involved, from the astonishingly good local food to the extreme gentility of all the Portuguese people involved, both organizers and participants. See the story and pictures here.

An Audience-Participation Project

World Printmakers has recently created a Techinques Tips page where all our printmaker readers are invited to submit their own work-enhancing and labor-saving suggestions. Just send them to us here, and we'll publish them on the page.

Want to See Something Delightful?

Take a look at this article on the Library of Congress site, and see if it doesn't make your day. Thanks for the tip from our friend John Shaw of www.printhead.net.

Any questions or comments? Drop us a line.

¡Viva el grabado!