Laser-cut Pressure Printing

Embrace the unexpected in this experimental printmaking workshop with Morgan Conservatory Artist in Residence Dana Potter! Explore the instinctive and playful technique of pressure printing. This process combines collage, laser-cut blocks, and letterpress printing to create images that favor silhouetted shapes in textured atmospheres of color. Prefabricated laser-cut blocks of geometric shapes, common objects, and natural forms will be provided so participants can dive right into the process. This workshop will embrace a maximalist approach, using the blocks and the boards the blocks were cut from, using the intended print and the unintended ghosts.

Full Description:

In this workshop we will explore the instinctive and playful technique of pressure printing. This process combines collage, laser-cut blocks, and letterpress for making images which favor silhouetted shapes in textured atmospheres of color. Prefabricated laser-cut blocks of geometric shapes, common objects, and natural forms will be provided so students can dive right into the process. This workshop will embrace a maximalist approach, using the blocks but also the boards the blocks were cut from, using the intended print but also the unintended ghosts. Nothing will be considered useless or discardable. In this way, you will learn an approach to a process which is antithetical to an edition, a process that branches outward, produces anomalies, is collaborative, and self-cannibalizes. In full, we will embrace how our intentions and decisions are responded to by the press with gorgeous unexpecteds.

Instructor Bio:

Dana Potter is an artist and educator specialized in two fields: printmaking and digital studies. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Communication and Media at the Univeristy of Northern Iowa.