Printmaking & Imaging Arts

Professor Brooke White's photograph of a tree trunk within a landscape

Printmaking studio slogan: Eat, Print, Sleep, Repeat

printmaking image of an angler fish in blues, blacks, and yellow

Students working on folding paper in the Book Arts course

image of a printmaking class project of a house with vibrant red and yellow color

two people working in the darkroom with leaves and chemical processes

A group of students standing together showing their nature-inspired work after a photography workshop

black and white etching of a forest scene

Two women working with the silk screen to create a pink design on a t-shirt

Printmaking project of birds circling a birdhouse that is one fire

A group of students pose with their alternative processing art work on the sidewalk in front of Meek

Photograph of a woman's silouette with red and white shadows in the background

The Printmaking and Imaging Arts emphasis includes a wide-ranging array of analog and digital image making processes.

Printmaking is a process in which ink is transferred from a matrix (i.e. metal plates or limestone matrix, wood blocks, or screens) to material like paper, fabric, wood, or stone. The process is capable of producing multiples of the same piece, which is called a ‘print.’ Our studio teaches the traditional mediums of relief, intaglio, lithography, and silkscreen while also encouraging the use of photo processes, digital, and alternative methods. Printmaking offers students a unique intersection of media and a strong foundation that enables them to tackle formal, technical, and conceptual creative problems.

Imaging arts encompasses both analog and digital processes. Students learn both established and experimental techniques of photography, lighting, and digital arts while refining their personal visual language as an expressive tool. Balancing commercial and fine-arts applications of imaging, they build a flexible foundation for multiple careers.

See more photos of Printmaking and Imaging Arts!

Blythe Summers

Meet Blythe Summers (BFA in Art, emphasis in imaging arts ’20).

“Wildlife photography has always been my favorite even though that’s not what I focus on at all, but my love for the environment still shines through in my work. Photography was just a great way for me to make my passion an art form.”

Mary Ellen Cobb

Meet Mary Ellen Cobb (BFA in Art, emphasis in printmaking ‘19)

“It’s really easy to get absorbed into your area of emphasis but try to invest time in these other classes that you have to take. It’ll make you happier to step outside of your main body of work. I think it makes you stronger as an artist to bring those other elements into your artwork.”

Meet the Faculty

The imaging arts studio is headed by Brooke White, Professor of Art, whose work about the landscape, nature and our response to place has been exhibited nationally and internationally. The conceptual framework of her projects is consistently driven by the politics of place, memory and time, and the role they play in establishing identity. In her focus on the land, nature is always the central figure where histories are established.

Bryce Heesacker, Assistant Professor of Art, who works as an artist under the moniker F. C. Zuke, creates audiovisual and interactive artworks that investigate the ways in which beliefs are acquired, transmitted, and performed in society.

Graduate assistant, Somayeh Faal, also contributes to the printmaking studio.

Graphic design professor, Virginia Chavis, teaches letterpress courses that support the printmaking studio curriculum. She merged her love of design and typography with the handmade through letterpress printing.