Printmaking
Printmaking students gain mastery in woodcut and relief printmaking, etching, drypoint, and other intaglio processes, plate and stone lithography and the arts of silkscreen, letterpress, book arts, and digital media.
Instruction includes both color and black-and-white techniques and provides advanced courses for in-depth experience and specialized technical training with printmaking methods.
Beyond the technical skills, PAFA also emphasizes professional skills including lessons on how to create an artist’s resume, digital documentation and artist’s statements, and how to make effective presentations.
Printmaking Facilities
All advanced Certificate and BFA students are provided studio working space. Students have 24-hour access to the studios, which are maintained in a facility with safety and security features.
The Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building houses large, completely equipped studios for lithography, etching (intaglio), silkscreen, book arts, and woodcut classes. These are spacious, open-plan studios with an abundance of natural light, a state-of-the-art ventilation system, a separate lecture, and student archives room, and broad areas of work and storage space.
There are three presses in the etching studio, two with motorized press beds. Separately ventilated acid and solvent washout rooms, each equipped with large vent hoods, provide students with safe and efficient working laboratories. The four presses in the lithography area are capable of pulling large-format work. In the woodcut area, there is abundant space for cutting, inking, and printing.
The Brodsky Center at PAFA
The Brodsky Center at PAFA empowers artists to explore, experiment, and extend boundaries by creating new work in collaboration with collaborative printers and papermakers. The mission of the Brodsky Center aligns uniquely with PAFA's mission to educate students and to develop and promote the work of outstanding and innovative artists. Since its founding under Director Judith K. Brodsky, the Center has completed over 300 editions with a diverse range of emerging and established artists, including PAFA alumnus, Barkley Hendricks, and artists in PAFA's collection such as Melvin Edwards, Joan Semmel, and Richard Tuttle.
The Brodsky Center provides internship and professional opportunities for students to learn about the process of editioning, marketing, and selling artists' prints.
