Chicago Printmakers Collaboration: Small Prints, Big Ideas
by Claire Haasl
Bird's eye view of the CPC Holiday Sale
Founded in 1989, the Chicago Printmakers Collaboration (CPC), serves as a studio and resource center for over 100 artists in 14 different countries. This December CPC is holding the 20th Annual International Small Print Show and Holiday Sale that will be up until December 20th, so if you haven’t gone to see the fantastic work on display, hurry up there aren’t many days left. The exhibiton and sale includes about 60 artists 50% of which have at one time or another been apart of the CPC. The artworks for sale at CPC are tiny and fairly large, simple and detailed, functional and non, and work that is traditional as well as work that challenges our conventional notions of printmaking. But most importantly, the work is original and thoughtful. Truthfully, with the holiday season in full force, it was difficult to keep my wallet in my pocket. There was a print for everyone on my list, and cards to go with. Even the work of one of my favorite letterpress printers, Amos Paul Kennedy, was on display.
A sample of the work available at CPC
The art featured in the Annual Holiday Small Print Show and Holiday Sale is neither mainstream nor predictable, and those are both adjectives that I would use to describe the CPC also. A completely unique place, the CPC plays a distinct role in the Chicago printmaking community. Not long after the CPC moved in to the building that I visited on 4642 N. Western Avenue in Lincoln Square in 1999, the founder, Deborah Maris Lader, was awarded the Columbia College Paul Berger Arts Entrepreneurship Award “honoring the CPC as a forerunner and innovator among arts organizations in Chicago.” The CPC is no only a place for artists to exhibit and sell their work, it’s a place for artists to learn and grow their skills in all areas of printmaking from intaglio, lithography, and relief, to monotype, screen print, and photo processes for printmaking. Classes and workshops are held frequently at the CPC, but they have also collaborate with other organizations like the Hard Ground Printmakers Studio in Cape Town, South Africa, and Open Press Studio in Denver, Colorado, extending the dialogue of how to broaden our definitions of what printmaking can be across borders. Kudos!
