Printshop Tour | Washington University, St. Louis
On a recent visit to St. Louis, the multifaceted and very talented artist Sage Dawson gave us a look at the printmaking studios at The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University. Sage currently teaches at WashU and in addition to maintaining her own wonderful practice she also curates the ongoing public-art project - STNDRD - which recently exhibited new work by our own Graham McDougal!
One of the highlights of our spring visit to St. Louis was seeing the gorgeous campus of Washington University and taking a spin around their printmaking studios. In addition to hosting classes in lithography, etching, relief, screenprint and bookmaking WashU is also home to the storied Island Press. In their words, Island Press facilitates a program of visiting artists who “work in collaboration with the master printer, faculty, and students to create a reciprocal environment for education and research. Artists reap the benefits of numerous dedicated, energetic student assistants to help push to new levels of complexity and originality in their projects.” Needless to say the students lucky enough to work on these editions get an unparalleled sense of what it’s like to work in the environment of a professional printshop.
Our tour guide was Sage Dawson, a fabulous artist and printmaker who has been among the print faculty for a number of years and brings to her courses her own expansive reading of how print can interact with both contemporary art and the broader built environment.
Sage was among our first interviewees for our Womxn in Expanded Print series, you can read her interview here.
