Santa Barbara’s printmaking scene is alive and well and ready to share its enthusiastic creations and insights with the community. On Saturday, February 21, at 2 p.m., the Architectural Foundation Gallery is hosting a panel discussion, When Is A Print No Longer A Print?, featuring esteemed printmakers from Santa Barbara and beyond.
Environmental woodcut artist and curator emerita at the South Florida State College Museum of Florida Art & Culture Mollie Doctrow will be featured in the panel, as well as artist and associate professor of Art at Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) Stephanie Dotson, and finally artist and associate professor of Art at Westmont College Meagan Stirling.
The Santa Barbara Printmakers (SBP) is a group of 65 member artists dedicated to creating prints using intricate hand and press-printing techniques — etching, engraving, monotype, monoprint, woodcut, linocut, lithography, collagraph, and silkscreen.
“For me, the way a printmaker chooses to label their process or product is about who they are trying to communicate with in that instance — and I’m always rooting for the artist,” said Dotson. “If calling something a print helps it circulate, be understood, or find a home, that’s great!”
Their prints are a diverse array of aesthetic expressions, ranging from abstract to meditative and heartfelt. The artists use a variety of techniques to emulate these impressions, from complex viscosity etchings to contemporary photopolymer traces. Many of the prints are hybrids, combining multiple plate techniques.
“I also think of working in multiples as a concept in addition to a technical process, so some of my favorite works of art that I teach with in printmaking aren’t even considered prints by the artists,” says Dotson.
Regardless of the technique, each print reflects the miraculous moment when a piece of paper and an inked plate are pressed together, and the paper is lifted from the inked surface to reveal the inverse image.
“Many printmakers are quite insistent about keeping their prints within traditional parameters such as etching, monotypes, lithographs, and so on. Other printmakers take a more avant-garde approach,” said Cody Campbell of Santa Barbara Printmakers. “They want to enhance their prints with other artistic elements; for instance, pastel, pencil, collage, paint, twigs, jewels, sequins, etc. The question is often asked, ‘How many elements can I add to my print and still call it a print?’ This is the ubiquitous question we are asking our panelists to answer.”
The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara (AFSB) is also hosting People & Places by Santa Barbara Printmakers from January 17 to March 14, featuring unframed 10” x 10” prints in a range of artistic expressions.
For more information, see afsb.org.
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