Name of directors or partners. Are they artists as well as printmakers?
David Jones, Director Founder, artist/printmaker;Joanna Goebel, Assistant Director, artist (video); Chris Flynn, Printer, artist/printmaker, musician. Anchor Graphics is funded in part by contributions from individuals, a City Arts ll. grant from the City of Chicago Dept. of Cultural Affairs, WPWR-TV Channel 50 Foundation, the orbit Fund, The Illinois Arts Council, a state agency. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Polk Bros. Foundation, The Sara Lee Foundation, The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, the Dew Foundation, The Mayer and Morris Kaplan Family Foundation and Packaging Corporation America.

Name of person responding to this questionnaire:
David Jones.

Date of founding of the workshop:
Founded in 1988, became operational in November 1990.

What is your workshop like?
We occupy 3700 square feet of space on the top floor of a five story building located in downtown Chicago. We have a gallery space located adjacent to our printmaking facilities. There is a lot of light and wall space. The shop can accommodate groups or individuals as Anchor Graphics is a community shop were the artists of varying degrees of expertise can work. Anchor Graphics is a friendly place where an artist's vision can be embraced and celebrated. We have a large etching press, two litho presses, and ample table space for working. Visitors who come to our gallery space can witness printmakers working on their various projects.

What media do you work in?
Lithography, photography, painting & drawing Are you public or private? We are a public shop.

How many staff do you have currently?
Three paid staff and several interns and volunteers.

Do you have other activities besides printmaking, such as classes, exhibits, etc?
We have exhibits in which we feature work of printmakers almost exclusively. Anchor Graphics, sponsors classes for adults and young people. Our youth workshops are offered at no cost to our students. We also have workshop tours.

Are you print publishers, as well? Do you sell prints?
Yes, we publish the works of nationally and internationally known artists. and we work with emerging artists.

How did your workshop originate? Tell us the story.
I started out as a photographer, then moved on to become a painter, then a printmaker. It was during my printmaking phase I fell in love with the lithographic medium. I got a job as a production printer at a shop called Landfall Press located in Chicago. For over three years I practiced a craft that I have grown to understand and love, I was able to work with some wonderful people.

Into my third year I was presented with an opportunity to run a small shop and work with some artists from Latvia, Lithuania, China and the United States. It was at this shop I discovered what a challenge and what a joy it was to collaborate with artists, and I learned about what it took to run a small shop. It was at that point that I realized that being a production printer was not going to satisfy my urge to grow and change.

I started developing an idea of a shop, a place were people could come and experience printmaking in an environment that was conducive to exploration and dialogue. I wrote down what I wanted in a shop, and what I didn't. I started sharing my vision with anybody who would listen. It took about a year to find a space, equipment and enough money to start the shop. We (my wife and I) came up with the name Anchor Graphics while talking to a priest. The anchor is the symbol of hope and we wanted our shop to be a place for work, and creativity and also a place of hope. A place were artists could come and feel good about what they were doing. A place were they would be encouraged to explore their images. The first shop occupied a 1,500 square foot space; we had one press and one table. Our first edition was printed at another shop. With the proceeds from our first edition we were able to purchase our litho press and pay one month's rent. It has been a slow journey forward since then.

If you had to start again, what would you do differently?
Of course I would like to have had more money to begin with and a partner who would have assisted with the day-to-day operations of the organization. In the early days it was my wife Marilyn who put down her brushes (she is a painter) to assist with running the workshop. I didn't really have a plan, I don't think I ever thought the workshop would be successful; I just knew I wanted to work with people and make prints. If I were to do it again I would have more cash, have a business partner and a clear vision of the long term realities of running an organization.

How has the workshop evolved from the early days? Are you still doing the same things in the same way, or have you changed? In what way?
We have purchased additional equipment and moved to a larger space. We are still doing the same things, in fact we have built on our successes by adding a lecture series, an artist in residency program and adult classes, We are adhering to our vision which is, "Anchor Graphics is a not-for-profit printshop and gallery that brings together, under professional guidance, a diverse community of youth, emerging and established artists, and the public to advance the fine art of printmaking by integrating education with the creation of prints".

Is your workshop unique or different from the others? In what way?
I would like to think we are unique, but at the same time I know that here are other organizations doing the same thing. One of the ways we are different is that we are not a co-op, in this way we are able to welcome artists who might be interested in exploring printmaking for a short period of time, in this way freeing up precious financial resources. By being an open shop we can entertain anyone who is interested in prints and printmaking.

What is your method of working with artists?
We invite artists in to work and then publish their prints. We have also produced prints for and with artists by contract. With publishing by invitation we bear all of the cost associated with the project and with contract projects the artists pay us for all of the labor, and costs associated with the project. Other artists, pay a shop fee and work on their own images using the facilities.

Who are some of the artists with whom you've had the most successful (on all levels) collaboration?
We have worked, among many others, with Ed Paschke, Karl Wirsum, Ellen Lanyon, Hollis Sigler, Marilyn Propp, and Kerry James Marshall. They were all a joy to work with. Each with his/her approach, unique imagery and temperament.

Tell us a bit more about the most interesting ones: incidents, anecdotes...
The first real collaboration that I experienced was with Ilmars Blumbergs, an artist from Latvia. He had made prints before but never with a printer from the USA, so our first obstacle was language. The second was that we both knew of lithography in a different way. And we were strangers. At first there was a bit of tension but we soon began to understand each other by gestures and simple sentences. After our third or fourth print together, I felt comfortable suggesting things like paper, or ink color, always being sensitive to his wishes.

Once while printing and the colors were not working I suggested that we might try a different color and Ilmars gave me an odd look and then said lets try it. The color worked, and he gave me a big hug and exclaimed "you are my master printer". It was that experience with Ilmars that led me to open Anchor Graphics.

Do you work with special papers?
We work with Arches, Rives, Somerset and Lana Papers. all European 100 % cotton papers. We work with some oriental papers for Chine Colle printing, but most of the work we do is lithography.

How do you feel about the current moment in printmaking?
I think it is an exciting time. With all of this new technology available I'm interested in seeing how images are going to evolve over the next several years. As with any new technology there will be those who are threatened by the newness and the mechanical nature of it. Wasn't there an outcry when photography was invented? I imagine there was quite an outcry when the first lithograph was exhibited as art. And so it is with computer images.

Now, that being said, I see very little work that moves me coming out of this new medium. I am encouraged, however, to see that there are people who are bending the rules, learning the new language. I see printmaking as a hub in the wheel of expression. Printmaking embraces, painting, drawing, photography and digital media and makes each one its own, embraces it and celebrates the unique qualities of each. I find that very exciting.

What do you think are the major issues the community of printmakers needs to address?
I see the need for printmakers to change the way they see themselves, I for one have spent more than my share of time thinking like a second-class citizen of the art world. But I am now beginning to see that printmaking is able to flow through any medium, I think that fact can freak out some artists. We don't stay neatly in our box.

Another thing I would say is: Don't be too concerned about how a thing is done but concentrate more on what it has to say. Again, I have exclaimed more than once, "Wow, what a wash!" (lithographic) but I didn't see the image for what the image was in itself. I want to be more intentional about the image as opposed to pure technique. I am beginning to think: "To hell with how it was done, does it have anything to say?"

There is also the issue of integrity, I think that there should be descriptions, explanations given with every print sold or exhibited. I think this especially true with digital prints. There are individuals out there would have consumers believe that what they are getting is special and unique when in fact the images are nothing but glorified posters. The documentation is only as honest as the person writing it. Are disks defaced, not unlike plates or stones? Should they be?

I think the most important issue facing printmakers and artists of today is one of education. We have to be our own advocates, we have to teach the little ones of the importance of art, its impact not just on the culture but on the soul. We must be willing to teach the little ones what a blessing it is to work with their hands. I am not concerned about creating artists, that will be out of our control, but we must introduce the joys and freedom of creativity to those around us. That's what is important.

Do you have norms for the editions done in your workshop? What are they? What do you consider the numerical limit for a true limited edition?
Usually our editions number about 30. For a while we were pulling editions of fifty and that just seemed like too many so we cut back. Because our presses are hand operated the prints are smaller in size and in number. I'm not interested in competing with the shops with the biggest and fastest presses.

What's the best thing about having a printmaking workshop? The best thing is that there is this wonderful group of people who orbit around the press and that printmaking is a universal language which we all speak. I have worked with artists from different countries and at bottom we all speak the same language, the language of light, form, imagery, music and poetry.

And the worst?
Dealing with people who don't care about the beauty and subtlety of the medium, people who will say whatever it takes to make a sale, and have no qualms of misleading a public. Witness the explosion of giclee reproductions passed off as fine-art prints...

Regarding the marketplace, who buys limited-edition fine-art prints?
Hopefully someone who loves the image. I think the range is unlimited. I know people who don't really have the money to buy prints but they buy them on the installment plan because they just have to have them. People who purchase our prints purchase more because of a inward need as opposed to investment purposes, and that gives me a lot of satisfaction.

What do you think might be done to make art buyers more aware of the true limited-edition fine-art print?
Take the time to talk with people about what you do, even give demonstrations to those who might be interested.

What is your opinion of the current upsurge of digital fine-art prints?
Buyer beware! It was serigraph prints(silkscreen) not too long ago. In my opinion, digital prints right now are mainly a way for unscrupulous individuals to sell something to an unknowing consumer. Its again about educating the public.

Can the traditional hand-pulled print "coexist peacefully" with the digital print?
Absolutely!

What are your principal sources of information about the world of printmaking?
Books, workshops, other artists, experimenting.

How do you buy your supplies? Local suppliers? Mail order? Internet? I buy my supplies from suppliers,locally, through the mail and on the Internet. I look for materials that are not sold through traditional venues like art supply stores. I like to ask myself, is there a manufacturer who makes the same thing for some other purpose.

Whom do you consider the most relevant, best printmakers at work today? Michael Kreuger, Hugh Merrill, Jeannine Coupe Ryding, Anita Jung, and Tom Christison.

Where do you think printmaking will go in the next 10 years?
I think that digital image making will continue to put its stamp on art, but at the same time I think there will be swarms of individuals who will want to get their hands on a scribe, or draw on a piece of stone they will want to make contact with their hands and with their hearts. I mean we are still putting our hands on stones as a way of saying we exist, that we were here.

Anchor Graphics,
119 W. Hubbard St. 5W
Chicago, Illinois, USA, 60610
print@anchorgraphics.org
http://www.anchorgraphics.org