Printmaking
Sean Hurley, assistant professor of art, teaches the newest as well as the oldest techniques in his courses on printmaking.
“The cool thing about printmaking is that it’s a lineage that starts in basically the 1300s, and most of the methods that we use in my classes are rooted in ways that were practiced hundreds of years ago,” he said. “We do them both the same way they were done at that time, but we also add technology and update them.”
One of the oldest and most complex methods of printmaking is lithography. The technique involves drawing a design on the surface of a limestone slab or aluminum plate and using the repulsion of oil and water to make a print.
All the good limestone, Hurley said, comes from one quarry in Bavaria, but many of the stones VSU has were found at thrift shops and antique stores, since lithography with limestone slabs is no longer used in commercial printing.
Sean Hurley
“These old stones will have old bank notes, bonds, or contracts still visible on them because, in 1910, lithography was not just the purview of university students. It was actually the way that commercial print was made, using the same techniques we’re using.”
The lithography process is physically demanding and tedious. It requires using chemistry to create a design that attracts oil-based ink and repels water. When ink is repeatedly rolled across the surface, only the oily parts retain the ink, while the watery parts remain blank. When paper is pressed on the stone, the end result is a print of the initial design.
Once the printing process is completed, a lithography stone can be smoothed down and reused. Since only a tiny sliver of the stone is used through each design cycle, one lithography stone will last hundreds of years.
There are much easier and more convenient methods of printmaking, but Hurley said it is important for students to learn not only the modern, cutting-edge techniques but also the historical processes that brought the art form to where it is today.
“Tradition has a lot of value in art, to know where techniques came from,” Hurley said. “As an artist, you are always benefitted by knowing another technique, knowing another way to realize your ideas.”
