Round 2-Themed Portfolios

Steps on Applying to participate in a Themed Portfolio 

 1. Log in to the membership portal to check your status/renew your membership status. Applicants need to be members at a Friend Membership or above to apply and participate in a themed portfolio

2. Browse the Themed Portfolio Descriptions below and follow the directions for application.

Applications due September 15, 2024

Themed Portfolio Descriptions

The AI Print Workshop

Organizer: Dana Potter

The AI Print Workshop is an exchange portfolio inviting printmakers to collaborate with AI. Participants must incorporate AI-generated material (text, imagery, or video) to address theoretical or material questions. The works can address any of these three prompts:

Materiality: Examine how AI image generators stylize images to be woodcuts, intaglios, lithographs, etc. What do AI image generators get right or wrong? How does it alter our approach to the aesthetics of traditional print processes? Artists are asked to question the value of and visually compare analog and digital mark-making in the creation of work.

Creativity: Investigate AI’s role in ideation. Artists who use narrative, visualization, text, or otherwise in their work are invited to incorporate AI as a step which disrupts or enhances their current artistic process.

Social Significance: Address the societal impact of AI, particularly concerning authorship, representation, and misinformation. Artists are asked to critique how AI tools are created (who controls the information and where it comes from) and the implications of AI tools on social progress, information architecture, and equity.

Once all participants are selected, a roundtable discussion with the artists will be held online to compile communal knowledge on AI, allowing participants to share projects, techniques, and insights. The roundtable outcomes will be published with the portfolio and shared with the SGCI community.

Those interested in participating in this Themed Portfolio should submit the following by September 15: 2-3 images of images of your work or related materials, a link to your website (optional), and a brief description of how you will contribute to the portfolio theme of “The AI Print Workshop”. Please email your proposal to danarenepotter@gmail.com with the subject line “The AI Print Workshop”

Applicants need to be members at a Friend Membership or above to apply and participate in a Themed Portfolio.

Tactical Communications – Comunicación Táctica

Organizers: Rae Helms & Francesca Lally

 Tactical Communications explores printed language as a tool for connection and advocacy. This portfolio will highlight multilingualism, poetry, and printed ephemera — posters, flyers, pamphlets, and other textual art — emphasizing printmaking’s historical and contemporary significance in counterculture movements as a means of public engagement. This exchange will showcase the enduring power of printed text in our digital age, emphasizing print as a form of public communication.

This exchange encourages artists to create works that convey critical messages, advocate for change, and foster connections. Participants are encouraged to experiment with typography, layout, and/or imagery combined with printed text to engage in translingual forms of communication and how print language shapes public narratives.

Those interested in participating in this Themed Portfolio should submit the following by September 15: 2-3 images of prints created in the last two years along with a brief description of how you will contribute to the portfolio theme of “Tactical Communications – Comunicación Táctica”

Applicants need to be members at a Friend Membership or above to apply and participate in a Themed Portfolio.

 Salt & Blood of Hidden Kinships

Organizers: Corinne Teed & Ron Abram

This portfolio invites printmakers to engage in a queer research praxis into family histories of migration. Queer communities have long had a practice of delving into archives to find hidden treasures, as community histories were often coded to hide queer erotics and existences due to dangerously homophobic societies. Using this approach to the archive: what can we rescue of stories of our families’ past that were overwritten by surviving empire, colonialism, and capitalism during migration? What can we imagine into their lives that the archive may not have captured? What wisdom do we want to recover from ancestral communities that may have been lost in watery passages or repressed to endure White-Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy (as defined by bell hooks)? The prints in this portfolio celebrate the healing work we do to embrace ancestral traditions, stories and all the outsiders whose lives were marginalized in their time – from cultural workers to queers to bootleggers to sexworkers to witches to revolutionaries. Printmakers do not need to be LGBTQ identified or be making work about queer ancestors, but be open to using a queer research praxis to approach what might be lost or hidden in our family histories.

Those interested in participating in this Themed Portfolio should submit the following by September 15: 3 images of prints created in the last five years along with a brief description of how you will contribute to the portfolio theme of “Salt & Blood of Hidden Kinships”  Additionally, would love to hear the family history you are considering as you approach this portfolio.

 Please email your proposal to abram@denison.edu with the subject line “Salt & Blood of Hidden Kinships“. Please note that there will be a $35 fee that covers the cost of the portfolio and shipping, prints will need to be interspersed with glassine

Applicants need to be members at a Friend Membership or above to apply and participate in a Themed Portfolio.

Print A Bird on It

Organizer: Daniella Napolitano

Puerto Rico is part of the largest biodiversity area in the Caribbean islands and provides important over-wintering habitat for many migratory birds. Puerto Rico has over 300 bird species, including 19 that are endemic to the island. In celebration of the birds of Puerto Rico, the Themed Portfolio – “Print a Bird on It” delves into the intricate and vibrant world of avian life through the lens of printmaking. The portfolio celebrates the diverse plumage, dynamic flight patterns, and symbolic significance of birds across various cultures. We admire birds for their remarkable variety and beauty, from the iridescent plumage of a tiny hummingbird to the graceful flight of a soaring eagle. Birds captivate us with their intricate behaviors, melodious songs, and the sense of freedom they embody. Their ability to traverse vast distances and adapt to varied environments also inspires awe, highlighting the resilience and wonder of nature. Birds often symbolize deeper themes such as hope, freedom, and transformation. This portfolio underscores the profound connection between art and nature, inviting viewers to reflect on the elegance and fragility of bird species. Just as birds migrate to the island for water weather, printmakers flock to Puerto Rico for camaraderie at SGCI.

Those interested in participating in this Themed Portfolio should submit the following by September 15:  2-3 images of prints created in the last two years along with a brief description of how you will contribute to the portfolio theme of “Print A Bird on It“.  Please email your proposal to daniella.napolitano@gmail.com with the subject line “Print A Bird on It“.  Please note that there will be a $40 that covers the cost of the portfolio and shipping to the conference.

Applicants need to be members at a Friend Membership or above to apply and participate in a Themed Portfolio

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LANDMARKING

Organizers: Alex R.M. Thompson & Vinicius Libardoni

The portfolio LANDMARKING builds on the overarching premise of Puertograbando, fluidly shifting between noun and verb in a linguistic play that enables a range of interpretations.

LANDMARKING could be understood as the process of surveying, identifying, defining and delimiting a given physical space. Such actions are often associated with the need to draw boundaries in order to preserve sites of historical, natural, cultural or architectural interest. The theme could also be read as an exercise in generating methods of wayfinding from place to place. Alternatively, LANDMARKING might refer to the process by which occupants inscribe a landscape with traces that irrevocably change it in some way. Similarly, etching, carving or burning a graphic matrix is also a way of intervening on a given ground or material, leaving traces, grooves and openings which, in their turn, will imprint the images that will bring this portfolio to life.

We believe that the curatorial idea for LANDMARKING is broad enough to encompass a variety of readings and responses. Whether considering permanent and impermanent human interventions (such as dam-building, constructing a wildlife crossing, or demolishing a city block), or reflecting on the reshaping forces of geological processes, climate change, or regrowth, the portfolio will engage with political, social, and economic questions related to the altered panorama of the land and cityscapes.

Those interested in participating in this Themed Portfolio should submit the following by September 15: 2-3 images of prints created in the last two years along with a brief description (no more than 200 words) of how you will contribute to the portfolio theme of “LANDMARKING“. Please email your proposal to alex.r.m.thompson@gmail.com with the subject line “LANDMARKING“. 

Applicants need to be members at a Friend Membership or above to apply and participate in a Themed Portfolio

De los árboles, para los árboles

Organizer: Kimiko Miyoshi & Tava Tedesco

The thematic print portfolio project, De los árboles, para los árboles, celebrates, and considers, the significance of trees and forests from various angles. The Central and South American nations such as Brazil, Columbia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Mexico, are among the top ten nations that have the most tree-species-diversity which corresponds to the degree of diversities in other plants and animals. Trees with roots appeared way before humans in the Devonian period nearly 400 million years ago. Trees not only dominate landscapes visually, but they also have decisive effects on humans, animals and the earth, physically, mentally and ecologically. The importance of the Amazon forest and other forests for reducing the effects of the manmade climate crisis is a scientific fact. Trees are also important in absorbing other pollutants, holding soil to prevent landslides, maintaining the temperature and humidity and providing shelters. Universally, trees and forests are often protagonists in folklore and mythologies throughout history as well. The very existence of trees and wood in our surroundings is beneficial to our health. New hospitals and schools often include prominent use of wood and plants in their facilities as hygroscopic (moisture control) ability of natural wood has been observed to reduce stresses and hypertension and foster learning activities. However, ironically, any industrial use of wood, even for hospitals and schools, can contribute to deforestation and we need to be aware of the environmental effects of its consumption. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations found that we were losing forests at a speed of 10 million hectares every year (FAO 2020 report). Printmakers who use wood also need to be consciously working with this material with respect. This portfolio project invites printmakers who celebrate trees and forests in expressing a variety of chosen narratives by utilizing wood and its visual mark makings. 

Throughout history, prints disseminated various ideas and helped to reveal newly discovered or constructed “truths.” However, today, where we communicate via online, what does it mean to interconnect one another through physical prints? I hope each participating printmaker in the folio will not only generates stunning art but also fosters and expands the conversation surrounding trees and sustainable practices. With prints in De los árboles, para los árboles portfolio, I hope to invoke a renewed awareness about trees in the viewers.

Specification: 

-Paper size and format: Archival paper, 20 x 15 inches, horizontal or vertical 

-Expected edition size: 17. Variable edition accepted.

-Media: Must include a layer that use wood, such as mokuhanga, moku-litho, woodcut, wood engraving, reused or found wooden objects and other wooden matrices. May include other printmaking processes. 

Those interested in participating in this Themed Portfolio should submit the following by September 15: 2-3 images of prints created in the last two years along with a brief description of how you will contribute to the portfolio theme of “De los árboles, para los árboles”    

Applicants need to be members at a Friend Membership or above to apply and participate in a Themed Portfolio

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Collaging Identity

Organizer: Dave DiMarchi and Brett Taylor

Collaging identity will explore the artists’ use of collage techniques through printmaking as a means of portraying, imagining, and authoring one’s identity. Artists are asked to consider a variety of collage applications including but not limited to chine colle, layering multiple print techniques, physically reproducible collage elements, etc. allowing for a variety of interpretations specific to their creative practice and individual identity. Artists should strive to create an edition of prints inspired by, employing and/or in some way relating to collage while engaging in traditional printmaking processes as the foundation of their edition.

Those interested in participating in this Themed Portfolio should submit the following to 9inhandpress@gmail.com by September 15: a brief 150 word statement on how they/their work relates to the theme and three images that represent their creative practice informing the final selection of participants for the Collaging Identity Themed Portfolio

Applicants need to be members at a Friend Membership or above to apply and participate in a Themed Portfolio

Aunque naciera en la luna

Organizer: Elisa Dore & Azin Yousefiani

Making up 5.9 million people, Puerto Ricans outside of Puerto Rico vastly outnumber those on the island. Climate disasters and the disaster capitalism that follows, economic decisions imposed by the colonial government that favor the US, archaic colonial laws continue to displace and decrease the island’s population by the year. As members of diasporic communities, we are prompted to ask: how do we relate to homeland from afar? How do we inform our identities if we have been removed from their geographic source? And how does a place, or memories of a place, continue to exist outside of its borders? This portfolio entitled “Aunque naciera en la luna” (“even if I were born on the moon”) invites members of Puerto Rican and other diasporic communities to reflect on these questions of the diasporic experience.

The title is taken from the poem “Boricua en la luna” by Juan Antonio Corretjer: 

yo sería borincano

aunque naciera en la luna.

/

I would be Puerto Rican

Even if I were born on the moon.

Those interested in participating in this Themed Portfolio should submit the following to  edore14@gmail.com by September 15: 2-3 images of prints created in the last two years along with a brief description of how you will contribute to the portfolio theme of “Aunque naciera en la luna”. Please email your proposal with the subject line “Aunque naciera en la luna”. 

Applicants need to be members at a Friend Membership or above to apply and participate in a Themed Portfolio

Lessons from Our Mother Tongues

Organizer: Danqi Cai

According to linguistic relativism, the language we use to discuss the world influences our perceptions. Bilinguals and multilinguals, then, afford multiple ways of thinking. In tandem with our bilingual Puertograbando conference, Lessons from Our Mother Tongues invites bilingual and multilingual artists to 1) explore how language shapes thoughts and 2) share their frames of reference with the world.

Portfolio contributors are encouraged to draw inspiration from words, phrases, or sayings in a non-English language that they are fluent in. Guiding questions include: how do you feel about this word, phrase, or saying? What is the history behind it? What may an English speaker unfamiliar with this language find amusing or perplexing? Do you agree or disagree with its underlying value judgment? Why, or why not?

Participants are encouraged to make variable editions, reflecting the importance of repetition and variation in oral traditions and language evolution. The substrate size is 11 x 15 inches. The number of participants, including the organizer, is capped at 17. Traditional and non-traditional printmaking techniques are welcome (e.g., risograph, post-digital, alternative photography, letterpress, papermaking, intaglio, screenprint, lithography, relief, monoprint, etc.) Digital output should be no more than 50% of the final image. Alternative substrates, sewing, inclusions, and collage are welcome if they do not make the prints fragile or harmful to others in the portfolio. Each artist will also include a written concept statement with their edition in the final portfolio.

Interested artists should submit an email to dcai@uark.edu with the subject line “Lessons from Our Mother Tongues” by September 15 with the following information:

• Your name
• CV
• Bio (max 150 words)
• Proposed ideas (max 200 words)
• 3 images of your work (jpg only, around 1 MB in size each)

Participants should be members of SGCI at the friend level or above. Please note that there will be a fee (anticipated to be about $20/participant) to cover the cost of a simple archival portfolio box. There will also be a fee to cover shipping, either to the conference or to the participants’ desired address.

Applicants need to be members at a Friend Membership or above to apply and participate in a Themed Portfolio

Image: Rafael Tufiño Figueroa (Puerto Rican, 1922-2008),
25 Aniversario (25th Anniversary), screen print on paper, 19 x 26.5 inches, 1974.
Courtesy of Thomas F. Anderson and Marisel C. Moreno Collection.

ReDivEdCo

Organizer: Barry O’Keefe

Puerto Rico’s  División de Educación de la Comunidad or DivEdCo was founded in 1949 by Puerto Rico’s first freely elected Governor, Luis Munoz Marin to help develop a sense of shared identity, common values, and purpose in a fractured and impoverished Puerto Rico. Modeled on the WPA program of Roosevelt’s administration, DivEdCo reached out to a broad popular audience through film, writers workshops and especially printmaking. DivEdCo, which was active through the late 1980s acted as an incubator for many of the most important Puerto Rican printmakers of the century including Lorenzo Homar and Rafael Tufino.

At a time when identity in mainland America is deeply fractured, shared ethical languages disintegrating, and common visions blurred, Puerto Rico’s DivEdCo can teach us how to rebuild. This portfolio asks printmakers to resurrect the communitarian content and proletarian form of DivEdCo, and apply it to social issues facing their own local communities. Printmakers are invited to partner with nonprofits in their home cities/towns to create an edition of hand-printed posters addressing an urgent issue of relevance to their community. Artists will produce an edition large enough to accommodate the SGCI exchange, and provide their local nonprofit with 30 posters to be disseminated throughout their local communities.

Interested artists should submit an email to barry@studiotwothree.org with the subject line “ReDivEdCo” by September 15 with the following information:

Applicants need to be members at a Friend Membership or above to apply and participate in a Themed Portfolio

Timeline: