Over Thanksgiving Break, my family and I had an opportunity to visit friends in South Africa.
It was an amazing experience! While in South Africa, I had a chance to meet the two printmaking professors, Stephen Inggs and Fritha Langerman, at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town. They showed me around their shop, talked about printmaking in Cape Town, and we discussed the possibility of a student portfolio exchange in the Fall of 2017. I can’t thank them enough for taking time out of their summer break to talk, and a big thank you to WVU Associate Professor in the Division of Forestry and Natural Resources Ben Spong for helping me facilitate all this while he spends his sabbatical in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
We met Stephen (middle) and Fritha (left) in Stephen’s amazing office. Ben (right) is seen here as well…
There was artwork everywhere, and little pieces of ephemera and artifacts…
Felix Gonzalez-Torres “Untitled (death by gun)”. What? Your office doesn’t have one?
William Kentridge as well…
Stephen started breaking out portfolios…and every one was more amazing than the last…
This is a four color separation lithograph printed on their offset machine! You’ll see it in a bit, its beautiful!
IMPACT Conference ephemera…obviously, Stephen and Fritha had a large part in this…
After we talked and looked at art, we walked around the printshops…
It was the start of summer break, so obviously not much was happening…but the first thing that you notice is how open the shops are…so much space!
Old stand by, Charles Brand press…these things are built like tanks.
I always get a kick out of printshop signage, especially when they are close to what I have in my shop…
Acid vent hood…Stephen and Fritha mentioned etching brass with ferric as an alternative to using copper…something I never heard before.
Rosin boxes…
Something I’d only seen pictures of, a system for smoking plates…
Aquatint time charts…
The litho shop…Takach press…
A few students allowed to work on a few stones…
Stool…
Here’s the beaut! A gigantic offset litho press…it’s located in a separate room, and the school as a dedicated tech person on it…I think my jaw literally dropped on the floor at this point.
An undergraduate student seeing the results of his work…gorgeous!
Upstairs (yes the printshop has an upstairs!) is the relief and silkscreen shops…here is their silkscreen exposure unit, it shoots screens vertically…
Power washer all locked up…
Signage…
Silkscreen studio…
Tamarind trained former student…
While peeking my head in various studios and places I wasn’t supposed to, I met a student who was working in one of the painting studios…he showed me some of the silkscreens he was working on…
This was an amazing day! I can’t thank Ben, Stephen, and Fritha enough. Stay tuned to see if and how our student portfolio exchange comes together…
Joseph Lupo 
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