Purchase College Celebrates Art of Printmaking Later This Month

Editor's Note: The following release was submitted by Purchase College.

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Purchase, NY—From its earliest form, printmaking has been a way to document, communicate and convey written and visual information. To shed a bright light on printmaking’s various mediums and to celebrate that printmaking is very much alive in what has become a very digital world, Purchase College, SUNY announces PurchasePrintWeek 2013.

PrintWeek 2013 will kick off with a presence at the prestigious PS1 NY Art Book Fair, held September 19-22 at PS1 MoMA in Long Island City, NY.  There, art books created by Purchase College students, faculty and alumni will be displayed and offered for sale, and internationally-known Purchase College Professor Warren Lehrer will present a keynote address, discussing his book works, from his classics of typographic and design experimentation French Fries, I Mean You Know, to Crossing the BLVD. 

The PS1 NY Art Book Fair presence will then be followed by a week-long series of printmaking events held from September 30 to October 4 at the Purchase College in Westchester County, NY.  Most of the events will take part in the college’s Visual Arts Building.

“The PurchasePrintWeek activities offer a fantastic opportunity for the community of Purchase College and the community at large to experience the visual art medium of prints.” said Stella Ebner, an assistant professor in the college’s School of Art+Design, who is spearheading the initiative

Ebner explained that prints and printmaking, through mass-reproducibility, “fulfill the social ideal of creating art for the people, which stands as an important counter-narrative to the view of art as ‘aura,’ as inaccessible, as only for the few.”  She added, “With its unique voice throughout history, from Lascaux hand-prints to Durer's Maximillian's Arch to the digital age, printmaking demonstrates how artists have grasped advancements in technology and used them for their own creative ends.”  

The PurchasePrintWeek 2013 activities at the college begin on Monday, September 30 with a demonstration of printing handmade wallpaper by Purchase College alum Amy Mills (’92), followed by a demonstration and gallery talk by Andrew Raftery, a printmaker specializing in narrative scenes of contemporary American life. 

On Tuesday, October 1, there will be an all-day installation of the Mills handmade wallpaper, followed by a retirement reception for Purchase College Professor Murray Zimiles. 

Wednesday, October 2, features a campus visit by Purchase College adjunct professor Breanne Trammell’s Nails Across America. In a 1968 Shasta Compact trailer repurposed as a nail salon, Trammell has been traveling cross country giving manicures and creating art on nails as an experiential art project. Wednesday will also feature “Wayzgoose,” an open house with hands-on printmaking demonstrations and, in collaboration with the Neuberger Museum of Art of Purchase College, an opening reception for the exhibition Home Maker: Prints of Houses, Houses of Prints curated by Faye Hirsch.

PurchasePrintWeek2013 concludes on Thursday, October 3 and Friday, October 4, with an appearance by artist Gary Kachadourian whose drawing work is designed to be copied, shown, and/or distributed as Xeroxed or laser printed booklets, prints or posters.. He will spend the two days collaborating with students and he will also present a lecture.

About the Purchase College School of Art+Design:  

The School of Art+Design, part of the School of the Arts at Purchase College, SUNY, offers premiere programs that prepare students for careers in the visual arts and design, as well as lives informed by aesthetic experience. The school honors tradition, encourages experimentation & collaboration, develops critical thinking, and embraces new concepts, materials, and technologies. A faculty of working artists is committed to creating a supportive climate in which students are passionate about learning to see, to think, to make, and to reflect. Our graduates are leaders in cultural production throughout the world.