John Phillips of londonprintstudio Tells the Inside Story
of London's Emblematic Non-Profit Printmaking Studio
Transforming Print: An Exposition of
Key Issues Affecting the Development
of londonprintstudio


Generosity / Opportunity

John Phillips is one of the co-founders in 1974 of the Paddington Printshop, the forerunner of today's londonprintstudio (www.londonprintstudio.org.uk). Phillips has devoted the past 32 years of his life to the development of this highly successful public non-profit printmaking workshop and gallery which has been the model for many other art-activism initiatives, both in the UK and abroad.

A couple of months ago World Printmakers received an e-mail from Phillips, generously offering to share this uniquely rich experience with our readers in the form of his recently-completed, lavishly-illustrated 226-page doctoral thesis: "Transforming Print: An Exposition of Key Issues Affecting the Development of londonprintstudio." It occurred to us that this document would be of interest to most of the members of World Printmakers' worldwide community of printmakers, print lovers, workshop directors, students, academics and museum people, and and absolutely vital opportunity for some of them: those involved in workshop initiatives, especially those which are publically funded.

How do you publish a 226-page book on a website? You don't. So we have opted for offering here a brief abstract and summaries of the chapter contents. Anyone who needs more information can write Phillips directly and request the complete version of his thesis on a CD, something he has kindly and disinterestedly offered.


Brief History of the londonprintstudio

  • londonprintstudio began in 1974 when John Phillips and Pippa Smith established Paddington Printshop, a visual art project to assist community organizations to promote their ideas through graphic media. Paddington Printshop became a centre for community development in North Westminster, an area in West London which is rich in cultural diversity, but economically deprived. The Printshop was supported by the Arts Council of Great Britain and became a model for similar resources around the country. Over the past 25 years the Studio has helped to create a wide variety of projects. Some examples:

    • 1976 The Factory (now Yaa Asantewaa Arts Centre). The Studio was originally based in this centre and helped to establish it as one of the first multicultural arts centres in London.

    • 1977 Meanwhile Gardens. Paddington Printshop assisted artist Jamie McCullock to transform a derelict area of land along the side of the Grand Union canal into a community Park.

    • 1981 Bustop The world's first audiovisual bus shelter, designed and built by Jay Talbot and John Phillips was located outside Paddington Printshop. Bustop displayed a community newspaper, postcards and posters. During the day the bustop played music and at night showed films and slides.

    • 1982 North Paddington Farm A fifty-acre working farm in Somerset was established by Paddington Printshop to facilitate closer links between the neighborhood and the rural environment. Local people are able to visit, live and work on the farm.

    • 1989 J'ouvert A national touring exhibition and print publishing project in which artists, performers and costume designers created limited edition prints on the theme of carnival.

    • In 1991 London Print Workshop Paddington Printshop became a regional resource and changed its name to the London Print Workshop. We expanded the facilities, moved to larger premises and established a gallery and digital resources to complement the traditional printmaking facilities. The new workshop offered open access and training for artists and quickly established a user base of approximately 400 artists. Alongside its core provision to the London wide arts community the Studio maintained its local commitments.

    • 1991 Illuminating Shadows:A Manual on Photography and Disability by Ray Cooper. Researched and produced in-house, this manual provides detailed descriptions of adaptations to assist people with disabilities to work with cameras, studio and darkroom equipment.

    • 1994 UK Brazil Printmakers Exchange In 1994 we organized the UK arm of this exchange which enabled five Brazilian and five UK artists to visit each others countries, work in printstudios and ordains exhibitions.

    • In 1995 we began working to create London Print Studio: a graphic arts centre for the 21st Century.

    • 1997 Westbourne 2000 The Studio was instrumental in bringing together local arts and voluntary organization with the intention of building closer working links between them. The Studio became the lead organization coordinating the activities of Westbourne 2000 a local consortium working to a joint regeneration agenda. The Studio submitted a £4 million proposal to the Government for local regeneration, which was not successful.

    • 1998 Westbourne 2000 set up The Paddington Development Trust. The Trust established a close working partnership between community organization, the local authority and the private sector. In 1999 it successfully gained £13 million SRB grant for regeneration in North Westminster and has attracted support from a broad range of trusts and sponsors.

    • 2000 London Print Studio's new building was opened by the Rt Honorable Chris Smith Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

 

Thesis Abstract

The study offers a systemic exposition of the transformation of a graphic arts organisation, londonprintstudio, and the ideas that informed this project. The research seeks to support and assist practitioners and strategic planners engaged in the of development educationally-focused, not-for-profit, resources of this kind.

People and social contexts are absent from the extant literature on printmaking studios, which are generally considered as being either an ergonomic arrangement of machinery, or the source for collectable printed products. A critical review of print's history reveals two important factors:

    1. Print has been consistently linked to profound social, cultural and political change
    2. Much of print's history, including the history of its own development, is either consigned to oblivion, or overlooked outside of a narrow field of study.

This thesis traces the history of print and communication systems, and explores the social perspectives that have influenced the acceptance or rejection of materials and technologies in different cultural contexts. The study additionally traces the history and development of contemporary printmaking practices within the western fine-arts context.

Print studios, it is argued, are social spaces that are symbiotically linked to communities within their environment. This interdependence brings transformation to both. Educationally-orientated projects, located in complex social environments such as London, a city in which over 300 languages are spoken, must respond to the diverse perspectives and the conflicting demands of different social groups. In mirroring and responding to its environment londonprintstudio has adopted a broad-based understanding of printmaking and the graphic arts, which has enabled the organisation to develop and deliver a wide spectrum of services to artists and community organisations. This social orientation has provided new opportunities to address contemporary questions of cultural and visual education in the informal education sector.

A CD Rom, containing key policy and organisational framework documents that were created to support londonprintstudio's development, is supplied with the thesis. These documents may be adapted and used by others who are seeking to develop resources of a similar type. The CD is available from John Phillips at: prynte@aol.com. To simplify processing, please put "Transforming Print" in the subject line. The CD is free, but postage and handling will cost you US$5, which you can pay via PayPal.

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