The Blackburn printshop in New York

During my last visit to New York, I had the pleasant opportunity to meet one of New York’s illustrious artists, Robert Blackburn, who was recently feted an eight-page article in American Visions, the magazine of Afro-American culture in the US. The meeting took place at the fabled Printmaking Workshop in Manhattan, just off the equally famous flat iron building on Fifth Avenue.

Blackburn, who just turned 80 this year, remains the picture of a dynamo, pushing the art of printmaking to heretofore-unknown possibilities and innovations. Last May, the forward-looking printmaker par excellence was conferred the honorary degree of doctor of fine arts by Pratt Institute at its commencement exercises in Brooklyn, New York. The degree formally recognized Blackburn’s "virtuoso gifts as an artist and printmaker," his "founding and championship of the Printmaking Workshop, an internationally treasured haven of the printmaker’s art," and his "lifetime of devotion to expanding the boundaries of the genre of printmaking and of the art world itself."

In presenting an inspiring portrait of the artist for American Visions, Edmund Gaither, director of the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists in Boston, eloquently advances that Blackburn has become "a figure of mythic proportions in the arts."

Out of his lifetime’s commitment and struggles have come the celebrated Printmaking Workshop, with its well-equipped graphic arts studio, youth outreach programs, and coveted collection of more than 12,000 prints by artists from around the world.

Blackburn started the workshop in New York as the Creative Graphic Workshop in 1948, later renaming it, circa 1963, as the Printmaking Workshop. Never unwavering with his noble mission of pushing the art of printmaking to unexplored heights, he continues to dedicate his formidable talents and energies to it, ensuring its survival as a laboratory and a safe haven for generations of artists.

The 8,000-square-foot Workshop makes available to artists lithographic and etching presses, marble slabs, rollers, acid bath trays, grinding wheels, and other printmaking equipment. Classes or demonstrations on lithography and intaglio techniques are offered by distinguished teachers at a minimal cost.

Since its inception in 1948, artists of practically all nationalities and persuasions have pursued their art in this environment, some working independently at night while others training alongside acknowledged masters reminiscent of traditional apprenticeships in Renaissance Europe. After more than half-a-century of existence, the atmosphere in the workshop continues to burgeon with art activities–from the encouragement and the sharing of ideas and technical knowledge to the scholarship, camaraderie and communication–exactly just how Blackburn envisioned the workshop to operate.

The Workshop does not only thrive because of the emotional and physical support it provides, but because of the intuitive understanding Blackburn breathes to the artistic process and his staunch belief in collaborative effort. "Each artist," he once wrote, "is a distinctly different individual. You cannot take the same yardstick for Jasper [Johns] and apply it to [Robert] Rauschenberg. I think that it is so important to preserve the creative identity of the artist. It is the marriage of the printer’s expertise with the creative energy of the artist that makes the fine print."

Doggedly, Blackburn believes that artists do matter and that their wonderful artistic expressions affirm the most quintessential elements of man’s humanity. Under his guidance, the Workshop helps accomplished artists and fledglings realize their dreams. Portfolios from the workshop include works by sculptors, painters, and printmakers, all because Blackburn encourages artists–black, white, young, old, American, foreign born–to render unfetteredly their artistic visions in prints.

It is fortunate that some Filipino artists avail of the Workshop for the enhancement of their art making. New York-based Lenore RS Lim regularly goes to the studio to do and pull her prints. Most of the prints she presented at the Corredor of the UP College of Fine Arts (UPCFA) in her homecoming exhibit last month were results of a highly disciplined artistic regimen imbibed at the Workshop. Recently, Amby Abaño of the Philippine Association of Printmakers (PAP) spent some time to quaff into the ambience of printmaking in the Big Apple. Manuel Rodriguez, Sr., the acknowledged father of Philippine printmaking, also goes to the Workshop for the much needed interaction with foreign counterparts to remain au courant with current trends and developments in the art form.

During my visit to the studio, I met other notable artists who frequent the shop like Devraj, a master printmaker from India, and Otto Neals, who was just sporting from a successful solo exhibition of his works at the Dorsey Art Gallery in Brooklyn.

Through the years, the Workshop has become one of the most vital and influential cooperative presses in the US, producing outstanding work for both renowned and emerging artists worldwide. As such, Blackburn has profoundly affected the course of American–and international–printmaking both as an artist and teacher. As artistic director of the Workshop, he continues to provide superlative instruction and a space that could serve all printmakers without respect to income, race or level of formal education.

The enthusiasm of Blackburn has informed the UPCFA’s decision to make available whatever resources there are today to both students and career artists. The renewed passion for the art of print in the UPCFA is fired by the return of Reynaldo L. Concepcion to the country after a three-year study stint as a Fulbright fellow at the Pratt Institute, earning a Master of Fine Arts in printmaking. Concepcion belongs to the same graduating class that Blackburn addressed last May when he received the honorary fine arts doctorate from Pratt.

Currently heading the department of studio arts, Concepcion, hopes to revitalize the art form within the next three years and make it as an independent academic program, alongside two existing offerings in the department, that of painting and sculpture. A degree program in printmaking when offered at the UPCFA will be the first of its kind in the country.

The success of Lenore Lim’s print workshop last month at the UPCFA, and attended by both faculty of the college and young members of the PAP, further emboldened the college to consider opening the printmaking studio to artists during weekends. Guidelines are currently being finalized on how the concept of an open studio will work without getting into the way of the college’s academic operations.

Concepcion is now in the process of equipping the studio with additional presses and other necessary tools of printmaking prior to opening it for artists’ use. He is also planning to expand the studio area to accommodate more working space and elbow room. This way, the printmaking process can have a convenient flow from the initial drawing of the design, to the preparation of the plates, to the transferring of the design onto the plates, to inking, to rolling the press, to drying, and to stocking the finished prints in horizontal filing cabinets.

Here the private sector, especially business corporations who have the financial wherewithal, can be of help to extend assistance in the form of maintenance and operational needs. Cultural centers, foreign embassies and artist aggrupations are most welcome to come to the UPCFA for program tie ups all to ensure the flourishing of the art of printmaking in the country.

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For comments, send e-mail to ruben_david.defeo@up.edu.ph.