A look back at 2017

Basking in the glow of another successful Pints & Prints fundraiser at the end of 2016, we started the new year energized and excited to continue our mission of bringing printmaking to the masses. Here are a few highlights from 2017.

Earth Day (April 22) found us back at Beats & Brushstrokes, a fundraiser for Emerging Leaders in the Arts (ELAN). The event embraced the Earth Day theme, and several of our members carved woodblocks with environmental imagery. We printed these along with others from our eclectic collection of blocks for those who came out to support ELAN.

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A new event for us this year was Studio Without Walls presented by ArtCity and the City of Eugene. The event occurred three times during the summer on the West Park block of downtown Eugene. Eugene Printmakers (EP) joined an impressive array of artists including painters, sculptors, dancers, musicians and more to create an outdoor open studio. The artists demonstrated their creative skills and invited the public to work along side them. Hundreds of people that attended had the opportunity to try different mediums, often for the first time. EP allowed people to pull prints on both etching presses and letterpresses, and demonstrated carving blocks and printing by hand.

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In September, we were invited back to Lane Arts Council's Fiesta Cultural, and again asked to carve and print posters for the event. Last year Sean O'Reilly, our vice-president, built a custom frame to hold the large blocks and we used a lawn roller (the type usually towed behind a lawnmower) to print the posters. We perfected our technique this year and multiplied our production. The posters were in high demand, and we printed nonstop throughout the evening, drawing a crowd each time we used the lawn roller. We also had a letterpress station set up so kids could print a card with an image of a Mayan-style animal.

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We held our fourth annual Pints & Prints in December, once again at Claim 52 Brewing. This event is our biggest fundraiser, and we had another successful evening of assisting both kids and adults in printing their own holiday cards. Like previous years, people could choose to try relief, monotype, or letterpress printing to create their cards, and even had the option to carve their own illustration in linoleum, then print it. Proceeds from this and previous events will be used in our effort to establish a community printmaking studio that is affordable and open to all.

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We are looking forward to what 2018 holds, and to getting inky as often as possible.

Letterpress love at children's museum

Eugene Printmakers recently joined Adventure! Children's Museum for their Valentines To-Do. The museum, located on the second floor at Valley River Center, invited us to bring our presses and give kids the opportunity to print unique valentine cards. We set up two antique letterpresses, one with hand-set type and one with a lovely heart image. Kids could print the heart on the front of their card then take it to the next press to print the text on the inside. Parents got involved too, and everyone seemed to really enjoy the chance to try their hand at this centuries old method of printing. The museum asked us to come back in the near future, so watch our Facebook page to find out when we'll be there again.

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