Silkscreen seattle
"Then the four or six visitors crowded into our tiny kitchen.
The third color was before tea time," Di explains. It "took a while." "Four colors at least, before dinner. He printed color after color on the same piece of paper. They all knew to be there around Lou's printing schedule. In the early years, Lou and Di Stovall took breaks every day for tea "and some yummy sweet," says Di. Talking on the phone for hours (with Lou's beloved jazz in the background), unable to see the work together, they counted out leaf by leaf, so Lawrence could say where he wanted slight adjustments in color. They mailed colors and proofs back and forth, for the artist's approval.
Jacob Lawrence was in Seattle Stovall in D.C. The foreground is framed with rows of spear-shaped leaves in varied greens. It's a landscape, six small white houses in the far distance, their brown rooftops lined with flames.
At 85 now, Lou tells the story of how he and Jacob Lawrence got Lawrence's The Burning printed decades ago. In the days before computers and FaceTime, the telephone and post office were part of the partnership. Screenprint, 34 x 21 in.Ĭollection of Lou and Di Stovall © Estate of David C. National Gallery curator Harry Cooper, in his foreward to Stovall's new book Of the Land, edited by his son artist Will Stovall, describes Lou as "a small figure.calm and smiling, Buddha-like amidst the clamor." (That book - a collection of Lou's poems, prints and drawings, is featured in a second show at the Kreeger.)ĭavid Driskell, Dancing Angel, 2002. To sustain such collaborations, the printer needed "to be open-minded, sociable, creative and welcoming, to create an atmosphere where artists can thrive," says Danielle O'Steen, curator of Washington's Kreeger Museum exhibition "Lou Stovall: On Inventions and Color." In his quiet, focused way, Lou is all of that. Their collaborations produced extraordinary works. This watershed period saw greater professionalization of standards and marketing, resulting in an expanding and dynamic art form.Lou made prints with and for some major American artists: his hero Jacob Lawrence ( known for his "Migration" series, which tours top museums), his neighbor Gene Davis ( whose stripe paintings look as if a clutch of rulers got lost in a paint box of primary colors), his close friend Sam Gilliam ( canvases dyed and draped along the wall) all came to Lou's studio to make their screenprints. Bruce and Mary-Louise Colwell gifts to SAM in 20, Inked! surveys the first four decades of local Indigenous print production. Stencils are ideal for producing bold graphic designs-like the crest animals and mythic beings from oral traditions-and exciting experimentation in subject, composition, and style are hallmarks of this ever-evolving genre.ĭrawn from the R. Silkscreen printing is a method in which ink is printed through stencils that are supported by a fabric mesh stretched across a frame (screen). Since the 1970s, prints have also created a lucrative market for artists from Washington to Alaska. Like other intercultural art forms, silkscreen prints have been fully absorbed into Native life as potlatch gifts, which serve as a means of passing down family histories, as markers of survival, and as conduits of artistic experimentation and personal expression. Since the early 19th century, Native Northwest Coast artists have repurposed materials like copper, coin silver, and cloth and integrated them into an already established aesthetic, resulting in vibrant expressions of Indigenous modernity.