Printmaking Defined  

Online magazine set to go  

He wants to turn the switch to “on,” as it were, and let the PrintmakingWorld online magazine go; but much remains to be done including the definition of what the printmaking experience is at its core. Printmaking is more than physical action in printing.

What is the printmaking experience?

Our criteria at Printmaking World Online may surprise you, because it’s not what appears to be on the surface; there is more than meets the eye and hand. To start an online magazine for the printmaking world, we had to reconsider what has made the medium so successful over the past 400 years. What brought it to its initial success, and when did it all start?

What differentiates printmaking from a painting, drawing, or a sculpture, or a craft like weaving or pottery or any other collection of artistic engagement? We refer to both as the maker and the observer of the printmaking experiences.

The printmaking experience is a making experience like no other which has survived being initially a mere commercial step toward industrialization and technology history to become a medium for hundreds and thousands of artists’ time and attention.

I have always loved printmaking; but over the years I have had occasion to wonder if the printmaking—as a unique medium—would survive. With the advent of photography a century and a half ago and digital printmaking forty years ago, it seemed like making prints by hand would be a dead end—that printmaking is dead.

I am no longer worried that the old-world kind of printmaking mediums will die and disappear. In fact, I believe it will evolve and thrive, and here’s why: The essential core characteristics of printmaking are those that define the maker experience, and the maker experience is universal.

The attributes that define printmaking are not necessarily better or worse than those that define making in other art mediums—painting, drawing, sculpting, potting, photography, etc. They are simply different for printmaking in terms of the printmaking experience.

The combination of printmaking’s attributes make this medium desirable and “survivable” for some part of the art world (and worlds not associated with art) population, for certain topics. Printmaking will survive because printmaking lovers will continue to demand this printmaking user and watcher experience, which transcends the physicality and obvious things.

Whether a person is making prints by hand on paper or working at some stage of it on a digital tablet, the essential attributes of hands-on printmaking—the ultimate maker experience—will not change. Consumers are not going to let digital publishers change the characteristics of printmaking that have made the medium so successful over the years.

This is especially true now, in the age of digital reproduction. That it has traditionally been only ink-on-paper; physicality is not an essential characteristic of printmaking. Some makers—especially the most dedicated printmakers—will inevitably disagree, but they are mistaking physical appearance for the printmaker and print collector experience.

Here’s what I believe is the core of printmaking. As your making is transformed from your non-physical assets, such as your vision, ideas, questions, curiosity, passion, and so forth that are fit to print, you can make certain that your assets do not lose their essential attributes, which define the printmaking experience.

We live in a time when we have the perfect platform for the printmaking experience because we can blend the inspiration of our assets and hands-on making with digital making in the fullest sense. Thanks to the web, we can connect with other makers and surmount the obstacles that have kept people apart from the printmaking experience.

The web has links to connect you with the way people make prints, are thinking and writing about the printmaking experience; and it’s getting even better as we define printmaking as experience in addition to mechanical, physical reproduction for commerce only.

The age of mechanical reproduction brought printmaking into every social and political realm of life, for better or worse, but it also brought about the amazing digital age of reproduction in which we can experience printmaking in undreamed-of ways.

Our PrintmakingWorld Online project—on-line magazines for the printmaking world—is set to make dreams come true for other people as it has made my dreams of fifty years ago to be coming true every day.