Printmaking will be available as a class this spring quarter for the first time in eight years.

If you look up printmaking you will find a number of definitions, as there are many disciplines attached to it. Dave Roholt, the instructor of the class and the head of the art department, explains, “Printmaking is drawing on steroids.”

Roholt wants students to know that this is a beginner’s class with no pre-requisites. You don’t have to be a drawing expert to come and enjoy the class. It fulfills a humanities credit and has doesn’t have the health and environmental impacts that printmaking has been associated with in the past.

The hope is to have the class offered once a year. It has not been offered since 2005, when Paul Clinton, the former teacher, retired and the class space was converted into a sculpture studio.

The class will encompass many different styles of printmaking: relief printing, intaglio, woodcuts and linocuts to name a few. These methods are done either by hand or with the steel bed etching press. Printmakers will find it is easy to do replications of the work they do in class, which will lead to a print exchange among classmates.

Printmaking began simply enough as a desire to have multiple copies of a single work such as a book or work of art.  The process began as a form of mass communication of an idea or artistic work. It was used for many different world-altering purposes, such as Gutenberg’s Bible, which paved the way for

mass-produced books and literacy.

Printmaking is a precursor to advertising and packaging design all over the world. When asked if any specific program might benefit more than others  Roholt said, “Any discipline that finds observational techniques and reproduction valuable.”

Pierce College plays host to the International Printmakers event. The bi-annual event showcases print work from around the world, which involves exchanging prints with fellow artists and adding their own to the colleges permanent collection. Students will participate in a similar exchange on a smaller scale.

This class might be of particular interest to students in Art and Digital Design programs, but everyone is welcome and able to register. They will find themselves undertaking a process similar to that pursued by Rembrandt, Andy Warhol, Picasso, and Hokusai.