Happy Black History Month!
While here at Print Renegades we specialize in printing on clothes, we know that printing is an art that has evolved from AND into various different forms. Its history is long, nestled in several cultures worldwide, and utilized in different ways. Some use printmaking processes to make clothes, others to make posters, others to make art, or anything you can think of printing on really!
Black artists have been imperative to the development of American artmaking. Artists like Dox Thrash were elemental to popular forms of printmaking today and are cemented in the practice’s history. There are skilled Black printmakers living, teaching, and working across the United States and they are essential to the continued evolution of printmaking.
Black Women of Print was founded in October 2018 by Tanekeya Word. Word created BWoP because she was interested in creating a safe equitable place for Black women printmakers who are often underrepresented in the discipline of print making.
It is a collective designed to help sustain and encourage the Black women printmaker’s collective creative processes.
Their website: https://www.blackwomenofprint.com/ is a great look into the history of Black women in printmaking and into modern-day resources and events available to current or aspiring printmakers.
I personally LOVE their glossary of printmaking terms. It was created through a combination of citations from the International Print Center of New York, the International Fine Print Dealers Association, Print Club Cleveland, and many more. And although not all print-making involves clothing, it is important to understand how printmaking developed as a process into what it is today and into what WE use it for.
For example, have you ever heard of the Chine-colle process? It was developed in the 19th century to give artists greater variety in their etchings by allowing them to add color in different shades. Paper was attached to a heavier support then passed through an etching press, over and over again.
I learned that today, on Black Women of Print’s website. So check them out and learn a bit of history while you’re at it!