Jay Ryan visiting artist…

We were so lucky to have Jay Ryan visit the WVU Printshop for the last few days. If you don’t know, Jay Ryan has been making silkscreen posters for the last 20 years and is the artist behind “The Bird Machine”. He is easily one of the most important living American poster artists, and the WVU School of Art and Design was buzzing with excitement over his visit.

Despite being a national treasure, Jay Ryan was so easy to work with and he was extremely helpful and patient when working with our students. I believe this will be a visit that WVU students will be talking about for some time. Thank you to all the students and alumni who came to the printshop to help print some of Jay’s work.

Jay Ryan is now one of Speedball Ink’s “Print Posse”, which means free swag and free ink! Thank you to both Jay and Speedball for donating materials used to print during Jay’s visit.

As soon as Jay got into town, we got right to work!

On top of all the work in his exhibition, Jay Ryan also brought a ton of prints for students to see…

Jay did a really great job of starting the edition, showing students how he runs a silkscreen and letting the students get to work…BFA printmaker Anna Allen getting to run a layer…

Then it was first year MFA student Hanna Kesty’s turn to print…

Then BFA printmaking student Michael Parson’s turn…

Immediately after running the first layer on roughly 85 prints, Jay had to move downstairs to give his lecture, which was really great…it was funny, lighthearted, and informative…

Back at it the next morning…the pressure was on to get the next few layers done before having to leave for Chicago Friday afternoon!

On top of everything else, Jay agreed to run a one color laser cut relief print…we editioned this little guy at around 25-30 prints in one morning.

Dynamic duo of printmaking alumni Leslie Norris (above) and Mateo Fuentes (below) running a layer…I was so surprised and excited about the turnout to help print with Jay on Friday!