Spokane Print Fest highlights printmaking, a process that has ‘surrounded every single revolution’ in human history

For Reinaldo Gil Zambrano, the Spokane Print and Publishing Center co-founder and board member, Spokane Print Fest is about all creating awareness of printmaking.

“You know, this is a process that is often disregarded as something that is not valuable,” Gil Zambrano said. “By the art world, it doesn’t value prints, because they’re multiples, and that devalues the work. It’s also work that is done on paper. So, that also takes away some of the value by the big collectors, right? But it’s a process that has always been embedded into the human history.”

The eighth annual Spokane Print Fest begins Friday, with gallery showings at Liberty and Spark Central galleries. Spokane Print Fest, presented by Spokane Print and Publishing Center, will be hosting events through April 18, though the gallery exhibits will remain open through the end April.

“Printmaking has surrounded every single revolution that happened in human history,” said Gil Zambrano, also an associate professor of art at Gonzaga University, “because once you are able to reproduce an image or a message, you can make more people aware of that. So that’s why it’s a democratic multiple, it’s the art for the masses.”

On Saturday, April 4, the Hive will be the site of the Print Fest Fair. Running from 2-6 p.m., the fair will feature 23 printmaking artists, offering demonstrations and selling prints.

“In the print fair, you’re going to have artists from Eastern Washington University, from Whitworth and from the University of Idaho,” Gil Zambrano said. “They’re coming all together here, and we’re developing an environment that nurtures their creative careers.”

Directly following the fair, Gil Zambrano will present the documentary “Impresiones de Resistencia,” about printmaking in Puerto Rico, a project Gil Zambrano took on as part of his bilingual podcast, “Hello, Print Friend.” The documentary is about how the DIVEDCO (División de Educación de la Comunidad) was able to contribute funding for artists to develop imagery on posters.

“All this study was during the moment that the identity of Puerto Rico was struggling, because they have been a colony for over 100 years, and this was an answer to what it was called the gag law, which was basically this law by the previous government, that didn’t allow them to promote their national symbols,” Gil Zambrano said.

Most Spokane Print Fest events are free and open to the public, but there will be two workshops that require participants to purchase tickets. Kevin Haas will teach kitchen lithography on April 11, and on April 18, Mary Farrell will teach monotype. Both workshops cost $75 through eventbrite.com and include all materials.

Farrell said her workshop will be a drypoint process, and she will show participants how to use different tools.

“It’s a very direct way of doing an etching,” Farrell said. “So, you’re basically scratching a surface, and we’ll be using a type of plexiglass. And then once you have made some sort of a mark on that, some mar on that surface, that’s what’s going to hold ink when you ink it up and print it.”

Farrell said she hopes the students get excited about the process.

“I want them to be really kind of excited by the magic of it,” Farrell said. “You know that thrill, when you have done a drawing, and then you ink it up, and then you run it through the press, and when you pull that back paper off of it and look at it.”