Adept and Adapt

 os200814 Adept and Adapt:  Finding the true value of printmaking knowledge

  Do or die

Printmaking professors everywhere, it is time to adapt to the changing times. You have the power to help make the world a better place. Adaptation is the name of the game – and students, or anyone who loves printmaking, prints and printmakers, must adapt.

It’s not too late! But we must start now.

Adapt and adapt

What does adept mean? I think I learned it from practices as found in monasteries, referring to members who are skilled. As a noun, someone might say he is an adept, as, for example, one who is adept at writing.

Adapt means to change according to the changes in the environment. For example, in evolution a creature must adapt to changes in the weather. This is biological adaptation and occurs over Millennia.

I am thinking about printmaking professors and how they are adapting to a changed world caused by the pandemic.

Their havens for teaching printmaking are almost gone. Their printmaking studios are closed for safety reasons. It used to be safety meant not to use toxic materials to teach printmaking. Teachers adapted and now they teach with nontoxic inks.

But today’s corona-virus pandemic is not as easy to adapt to.

What can printmaking professors do?

My suggestion is to teach printmaking not in ways they found effective in the times dating back decades but teaching printmaking as their students will find useful in decades to come.

For example, the printing press most professors in colleges use for teaching etching will not be available to their students in the future. The presses in schools are too big, too expensive, and worst of all, what they are used to produce will not be affordable to consumers in the coming times.

There is more. All the accouterments associated with printmaking such as frames, art galleries and museums changed.

In my opinion there is only one way for printmakers to adapt so their students have a chance put what they learn in college to good use. That one way is to rewind printmaking history to its origin, which is the hand print on the wall. It represented the mechanization of image-making.

But there are even more aspect.

With printmaking in universities there was a spirit or culture of cooperation and teamwork. No one talked about it, yet often the printing press was the center of productivity, and everyone depended on it.

Therefore, it was the culture of cooperation, sharing time and interactivity with other people. This is the social prospect and perhaps the most important thing about printmaking. It is more important than having a show or winning a prize.

Really, those values are dying.

What will go on living is the need for cooperation and teamwork, socializing and conservation of materials.

And time.

Time is perhaps the most important resource. Students have only a short time open to grow knowledge.

What use are obsolete practices the printmaking professors knew? Most printmaking professors are middle-aged. They received their education’s in the last century.

It’s over. The new world students face needs them, but not to decorate the walls, but to understand the handprint on the wall was the invention of mechanization of visual communication.