Exhibit: Looking Out / Looking In: A Survey of Edition Prints at the Mill

Title: Exhibit: Looking Out / Looking In: A Survey of Edition Prints at the Mill

Curated by: Hiroki Morinoue

On View: September 1 - October 13, 2018 during gallery hours of Wed - Sat from 10:00am - 6:30pm

Description: The Mill’s printmaking program began over two decades ago through lectures and workshops held in the homes and studios of a group of artists who would eventually become the Mill’s founders and earliest advisors. As their efforts gained a following, a shared space at the Kona Imin Center in Holualoa was rented and led to the purchase of a larger, more permanent space in a historic coffee mill building, the Mill’s current home since 2002. 

Printmaking is inherently collaborative with a communal focus around the printing press. It can be an exacting process with little margin for error in multi-plate prints that demand perfect alignment (registration) as the same sheet of paper is run through the press multiple times to add layers of color. The same press can capture the immediacy of a brush stroke added to a monoprint plate moments before printing. No matter how precise or carefree the artist’s style and method of approach, there is for all concerned a shared element of surprise and delight in seeing how the print has turned out, being a mirror image of the original matrix. For all of its technical precision, the results can be magical. 

Given the many variables that require fine-tuning in the print process--from the viscosity of the ink to the pressure of the press for optimal transfer of ink to paper--printmaking comes with a centuries-old tradition of training under a master printer, who has learned by trial, error and years of practice under mentor(s). Hiroki Morinoue has led the Mill’s printmaking program from its inception and collaborated with some of the best in his field, including Bud Shark, of Shark’s Ink and studied under master sumi-e and woodblock printing artists Masahiro Takade, in Japan. The world of master printers is one of instant friends in far-flung places given their relative rarity and shared commitment to perfecting and teaching a demanding art form.

Master printers make it possible for artists with little or no printmaking experience to explore its boundaries with a high probability of success. A master printer determines the technical requirements and limitations of the medium involved in facilitating the manifestation of the artist’s vision. Yet, it is a shared adventure, as Morinoue has described, “Day one, print a yellow. There’s no turning back.” 

The Mill’s press was the first in West Hawai`i dedicated to fine art printmaking, arguably spawning today’s thriving printmaking community in West Hawai`i with nine presses in the area today, many privately owned by former students of the Mill. This exhibition offers a comprehensive survey of the Mill’s print editions collection and additional works showcasing the techniques of etching, drypoint, monoprint, monotype, mokuhanga, woodcut and more.

The community of the Mill’s press has drawn internationally-recognized local artists Mayumi Oda, Sally French and Jon Goebel; and from across the country, David Curcio, Elizabeth Ferrill, Karen Kunc, Prawat Laucharoen, Richard Notkins, Phoebe Toland and more.

Multi-layered in process and meaning, John Buck’s complex woodcut print Crystal Lake Study depicts a tortoise in a jar; seemingly an invitation to examine mankind’s fractious relationship with nature as the tortoise looks out and the viewer looks in, fates unknown. Buck’s was the first of many print editions produced at the Mill over the past twenty plus years. The edition is typically divided between the artist and the Mill, which typically retains one signed print for its archive while the remainder is made available for sale to the public in support of the Mill. This exhibition is the result of many such collaborations over the years. Additional edition originals of selected prints on view are available for purchase.