Screen Printing: Art, Ad, or Alchemy

Meet artist and screenprinter Dominique Desbiens of Montreal and get inky.

Art, Ad, or Alchemy Podcast number 32, explores a screen printing technique that imitates nature and defies logic. It’s not practical, it’s unpredicatable, takes longer, and wastes ink. So of course some screenprinters love it, and artists eat it up. The split fountain.

There is a written story with pictures of Episode 32 in the latest issue of screenprintingmag.com, (link) but if you are listening thank you for visiting Art, Ad, or Alchemy, push start and let’s get going.

This episode of Art, Ad, or Alchemy takes us from state of the art in Orlando, to seat-of-your-pants printmaking on the side of a volcano in a 3 room schoolhouse. From Tito’s Cantina in Veracruz, to the biggest rock festival in Mexico. Screenprinting may be a process, but it’s also a vehicle to meet people, get creative, and have cool adventures. Join us.  

In episode 30, Andy takes stock of the changes that have happened since he started writing for Screenprinting Magazine 32 years ago, and the demise of the once mighty printing industry worldwide. The changes at the Magazine reflect this, but with the switch to digital, it’s the opportunities we need to look at, not the demise of certain types of printing and media. One thing that hasn’t changed - the need for skilled screenprinters to continuously adapt their particular abilities and amazing process to an evolving world of manufacturing that not only relies on it to label and decorate 3 dimensional parts, but helps rebuild North American manufacturing capabilities in the 21st century. Print that part!

In Episode 25, Andy MacDougall interviews John Magee of Avient Inks about his long-time tenure as an industry expert and educator about the ongoing conversation on where the tried-and-true screen-printing industry is headed. Oh, and Andy wrote a song especially for you, Printers. Check out the video!

In the 2-D world of screen printing, somewhere between puff tees and posters, exists the world of the 3-D printer. The human version, not the machine. That’s someone who knows how to print images or logos directly — and permanently— on 3-dimensional housings or fabricated parts with weird angles or print locations, all of them made with challenging materials and finishes. 

In Podcast 23, we meet Ken Johnson, a lifelong screen printer who started in printed circuit production in the Bay Area when electronics manufacturing in the USA really took off. After going through ups and downs, and ended up with a unique business called www.specialtyscreenprinting.com. That specialty? Printing industrial parts using screen printing, servicing a range of manufacturers and fabricators in Oregon and the western USA.

Just so readers know, I got roped into this article to present some kind of counter argument to Marshall Atkinson’s devotions to Midjourney and the cult of AI, one of the newer crop of prompt-based art production tools. Read his article before or after you are done here (The Marshall Plan, “Point/Counterpoint: AI Image Generation Pros”). The podcast is better than both, because…Two words: Jeral Tidwell. Give him a Google if you don’t know his work.

I’m no designer or artist, but I know one when I smell one. Many of my friends and associates are involved in creative endeavors — in print, in art, in design, in music, in life…the makers in our world. I love them all. These are the people who create. They invent and drive the look and feel of our surroundings. Or have, for millennia. Now we’re seeing the devaluing and theft of their creativity and ability, and the years putting the time in to develop their skills in whatever area they work in. A couple of prompts, a bit of editing, done! Hear my take in my article and accompanying podcast.

It seems like the entire printed graphics world has turned to digital processing and imaging. The need — and skills — required for custom mixing and printing of spot colors faded into a blur of stochastic dots spit out by 4-, 6-, and 8-color print heads. The actual printing of a specific color is controlled by the algorithms of the computer and a button. Don’t get me wrong; that’s some fancy printing hardware and software. But nobody is mixing inks in the digital world.

Screen printers, being a different species of printer, continue to work in a world where designers still call for spot colors, because it’s what we do. And Pantone, the color matching system that has been a worldwide common language between designers and printers since 1963, still remains in use.