The Little Free Print Exchange started as portfolio exchange that I organized for the 2016 Mid America Print Council’s, Print Matters/ Printing Matters Conference in Louisville and Southern Indiana October 5th through the 8th. I invited lots of Kentucky printmakers from Louisville and Lexington and places in between and ended up with a great mix of stylistic approaches from 15 students, professionals and even a 6-year-old artist! Each participant started with the portfolio theme “community” and created an edition of 25 hand-pulled, original prints. A portfolio or print exchange is a printmaking tradition that speaks to the medium’s democratic and collaborative nature. Participating artists agree to create an edition large enough to supply one print for each participant and sometimes extras. Exchange coordinators then collate the prints creating a set of prints that each artist receives.
Modeled after the spirit of Little Free Libraries, three small “houses” were built and each will hold a set of prints from the exchange that will be viewed as a contained exhibit – like a book – while simultaneously encouraging conference visitors to “take a print, leave a print.” After acting as vessels for the free and open print exchange, the little houses will have a second life as Little Free Libraries in small communities without a public library. Made of reclaimed plywood from the defunct Folk Art Festival, I love how the material has a history that will carry on and how we were able to reuse the wood, following our mantras to be good earth stewards.
If you’d like to participate in the open exchange, please bring an 8 by 8 inch original print that you created – it doesn’t have to fit any theme – proofs cut to size work perfect.
Thank you to all the participating printmakers: Stephen Wiggins, Brad Vetter, Sara Turner, Brian Turner, Debby Stratford, Leslie Shane & Gray Zeitz, Robert Ronk, Joanne Price, Anna Marie Pavlik, Jakob Lee, Sarah Madison Brown, Todd Herzberg, Maggie Jacobson, Nick Baute, and Augustus Baute.
Little Library construction was made possible with the generous donation of time and materials by Joanne Price (Starpointe Studio), Josephine Sculpture Park, Jimmy Reynolds and Debby Stratford and family. Thanks also to Sarah Madison Brown and Dan Torpey for their time and energy in building the Little Libraries.
