As an exercise in presentation and installation, printmaking professor Michael Loderstedt, M.F.A. 鈥85, challenged his students in Screen Printing 1 (Serigraphy)鈥攐ne of the first classes held in the Center for the Visual Arts鈥攖o create multiples of a 3D screen print and incorporate them into the new building for their critique.
鈥淚 encourage students to push the boundaries of what is considered fine art printmaking,鈥 says Loderstedt, who is the interim director of the School of Art. 鈥淲e want our media to capture a viewer鈥檚 attention and be as competitive as any other art form that exists in the contemporary world. A 鈥榩rintstallation鈥欌攃ombining printmaking and installation鈥攊s one way to do that.鈥
Students scouted the new center to find sources of inspiration and interesting spaces in which to install their projects, then set to work. For her site, senior Shelby Solomon, who has a double major in printmaking and metalsmithing, chose a ragged brick opening鈥攚hich the architects deliberately left raw to retain the industrial feel of the old buildings.
鈥淚 wanted to incorporate these messed-up bricks because they鈥檙e right at the place where the old and new sections join,鈥 says Solomon. 鈥淚鈥檝e always felt connected to crystal structures because they鈥檙e representative of growth, so I thought this would be a good way to utilize the architecture and express a sense of growth from old to new.鈥
Solomon screen-printed four different shades of pink onto glossy photo paper, plus a halftone of the city of Pittsburgh (鈥渂ecause that鈥檚 where I鈥檓 from鈥) to give the crystals more dimension, then scored and folded the paper structures and attached them to the rough wall鈥攃onnecting her artwork to the new center in more ways than one.