For 20 years, our Director of Print Luther Davis has met with other printmakers at fairs and exhibitions around New York City parting with hopes of visiting each other’s shops, exchanging ideas and experience in the industry, and building a synergistic community amidst his peers and colleagues. Yet the hands-on nature of the print business doesn’t often allow time for this. As an advocate for printmaking, Luther sought to bridge this gap by visiting local print shops to learn their unique skills, equipment, and production methods. As the third installment of vozarrón, I’ve set out to highlight how an artistic community is redefined and unified through its unique history and plethora of services — through the lens of the recent printshop tours Luther has undertaken as a personal initiative.
Luther began by visiting print shops he was familiar with and has slowly branched out with the goal of visiting one or two per week. So far, he’s only been to ones that he can walk to and hasn’t even exhausted those. I was surprised to learn of just how populous the print community is in New York.
The initiative has since expanded to include members from the Powerhouse Arts print team, who have also identified print shops they wish to be more familiar with — aggregating an ever-expanding list of destinations. It’s seemingly an endless journey. When they visit one shop, that shop reveals more to visit, and so on and so forth. This ongoing process has yielded a growing itinerary: next stops include ShoeString Press in Crown Heights, Ten Grand Press in Prospect Heights, and Kayrock Screenprinting in Greenpoint. Luther’s goal is to connect with others immersed in the craft. During the tours, he has met a vast array of people including assistants and printmakers, offering insight into the printmaking ecosystem and economy. He’s interested in reflecting on who printmakers are as a community and underscoring the qualities that distinguish the community to date, namely known for their connectivity, mobility, and support.
What is a printshop?
At its most basic, traditional fine art printmaking produces both fine art editions and unique works for artists. Through these tours Luther’s printmaking vernacular has expanded. He describes a printshop as nebulous territory. Take, for example, how contemporary industrial and commercial print practices have come to offer vast possibilities for collaboration and have expanded the definition of a fine art print. For example 3D printing is in its true golden era and is being taught in public schools while also being used for cutting edge research. There exists a myriad of specialized techniques such as garment printing, cut and sew, and computerized numerical control or CNC cutting for relief printmaking technology. Scientists are researching methods on how to print parts of the human body such as veins and arteries. Check out an article on print replacement for skin, bone, muscle and even organs in the link here. As humans, we are at a point where our main relation to the world is through phones and computers. Here, printmaking is especially important because it offers a tangible anchor for our day to day. We are immersed by print in the very texture of daily life: billboards, newspapers, advertisements, subway banners.
Greater NYC
I’ve come to appreciate that there is a seemingly endless number of independent print shops in the city. The commercial aspect of printing is vast as it involves product design, product packaging, and marketing especially in a cultural capital like NYC. What is at the top of Luther’s NY printshop list? The Department of Transportation Sign Shop where signs are printed, the New York Times to see how the newsprint is cranked out, and a historic business cards printer who produces old-fashioned card printing in letterpress.
Diversity of the practice
Print touches every part of society. The farther you get into it, the more diverse and all-encompassing the practice gets. For example, there are specialty medical printing firms that only print pillboxes. Oddly enough, before it became the current Powerhouse Printshop, the phone number directed you to a shop that printed pens and pencils. For the first two years, people called Luther to ask for a quote to print pens.
Learning the history of NYC
We live in a city that embraces its robust historical printshops. As an extension of familiarizing oneself with the printshop landscape, one effectively learns the commercial history of NYC. For instance, in Downtown Brooklyn, all the legal paper including divorce papers and blueprints for buildings are printed. Bowne & Co., Printing Office is one of the oldest in the seaport area and has been there since 1770. It continues to work under its original name. There are disaffiliated machines in basements that have been in operation since the 1800s or early 1900s. An interesting piece of history around this time includes the creation of air conditioning, which was invented by Willis Carrier to keep Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing & Publishing Company in Brooklyn air dry so the paper wouldn’t change size with humidity changes.
How does it serve the community?
Overall, it serves the print community to understand its history and unique services. With time, Luther hopes that Powerhouse can become a platform where talented people from all over the world come to NYC to exchange their knowledge and further their craft. By talking individually to shops and inquiring about their hopes and needs, Powerhouse can support local artists and businesses as a conduit and a counterpart in a meaningful way.
Printshops toured thus far:
Atlantic Ave Print Club
The Arm Letterpress
Bushwick Printlab
Dieu Donné
Flavor Paper
Fourth Ave Press
Jungle Press
Kentler International Drawing Space
Lower East Side Printshop
NY Printing & Graphics
Pace Prints
Pegasus Prints
Radix Media
Victory Factory
By Angélica Maria Millán Lozano
