Art students from the newly formed West Virginia University Printmaking Club will host a print sale at the Mountainlair to raise funds for their trip to an international printmaking conference. The sale will be held Monday, Dec. 2, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

On sale will be hand-made silkscreens, etchings, lithographs and relief prints. All prints will be $25 or less and there will be a wide variety of images and processes to choose from.

All proceeds from this sale will go toward student travel to the 2014 Southern Graphics Council International Printmaking Conference in San Francisco.

The council is one of the largest printmaking organizations in the world. Attendees to the conference come from all over North America, the U.K., India, China and Australia. WVU students have attended the conferences since 2004, in cities such as Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Chicago and Richmond.

While at the conference, students will experience an amazing display of prints, panel discussions about current issues pertaining to printmaking and demonstrations of the latest printmaking processes.

“On the last day of the conference, attendees are welcome to display their own artwork in an event called the ‘Open Portfolio,’” said Joseph Lupo, head of the printmaking program at WVU. “This is a great opportunity for our students to show their prints to a larger audience. Their work will be seen and discussed by professional printmakers who have been making prints for 40 years, or other students who may have been making prints for two weeks, and everyone in between.

“The success of our print sales helps make this experience affordable and possible,” he said. “Registration costs for the conference can be $150 or more, plus hotel and travel expenses. Students work hard all school year to make work that can be displayed and sold during this once-a-year sale.”

Art student Alex Martin, president of the WVU Printmaking Club, said the students are excited to host this sale as a new organization on campus.

“Although we have hosted successful fundraisers in the past, this is the inaugural year of the WVU Printmaking Club, so we are very excited about this sale,” he said. “We are making an effort to have quality hand-made prints that are affordable for students. I hope this will help create a strong turnout.”

For more information about the Print Sale, contact Joseph Lupo at Joseph.Lupo@mail.wvu.edu, phone 304-293-2703 or Alex Martin at Xander9210@gmail.com.

-WVU-

jl/11/25/13

CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4359, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu

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