A small crowd gathered around a white tent in front of Hendricks Chapel. Printmaking professionals from the College of Visual and Performing Arts bustled about, smeared with ink as they made print after print. Interested students stood around, watching the screen printers hard at work.

The event, VPA’s first Screen Printing Studio on the Quad, ran from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday. It featured VPA students demonstrating screen printing. They sold custom screen printed T-shirts and posters to raise money for students in the Graphic Arts League, Syracuse University’s printmaking organization, to attend the Southern Graphic Conference in New Orleans in March.

Holly Greenberg, associate professor of printmaking at VPA, said she wanted to bring the experience to the main campus because the printmaking studio is on South Campus.

‘We want to educate the public on what printmaking is, show what we do and have a good time,’ said Greenberg, rubbing ink over a screen and lifting it up to reveal a white abstract design on a black T-shirt.

T-shirts sold for $20 and it only cost $5 to have a print done on your own shirt. Each individual could choose the color and design from the prints displayed on the wall and watch their shirt being printed.

First, the printmakers laid the item being printed on the board and aligned with the design, which is burned onto a screen and attached to the top of board on a hinge. Then, they closed the screen on top of the paper or shirt and rolled ink over the screen. After lifting the screen, a perfect replica of the image on the screen remains on the shirt in bold ink.

Greenberg said students from a variety of majors at VPA, and not just printmaking students, created the images on the screens.

Laura Napolitano, a senior communications design major, got involved though her screen printing class and created one of the prints.

‘I love that you can make several prints of the same thing,’ she said.

Napolitano and other VPA students and teachers made prints, washed screens, helped customers and demonstrated their craft.

Two members of an open street art collective called SUBPAR, or Syracuse Urban Beautification Public Art Resistance, brought their bicycle to the event. The bicycle had a screen print attached to the back and the members, graduate students at SU, demonstrated their screen printing process.

The members said VPA conducted a steamroller print demonstration on the Quad for about five years. They said they felt excited to see screen printing, more mobile than steamroller printing, was getting recognition with an event of its own.

Sarah Keimig, a senior fashion design major, came to the event to buy a T-shirt and support her friends.

‘It’s so fun,’ she said. ‘It’s different than the usual scene.’

amhider@syr.edu

 

Published on October 16, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Anna: amhider@syr.edu