THE AIR PROGRAM


An Artist in Residence (AIR) program offers working facilities and housing to artists, in order to foster creativity. Each year, the Serie Project selects 10 to 18 artists through a juror system and invites them to participate in its AIR program. They come to the Serie Project’s facilities in Austin and are accommodated on site for at least a week.

During their stay, the artists gain access to a range of serigraphy equipment and create an edition of 50 prints under the guidance of a Master Printer. They also learn the process of serigraphy in a collaborative workshop setting that fosters an interchange of ideas and experience. All this is achieved at no expense to the artists.

 Master Printer at work

The Serie Project strives for diversity by ensuring that two-third of the participants in its AIR program are Latino or of Latin American descent. Geography is also a factor in the push for diversity, with 30% of the artists arriving from the Austin area, another 30% from Texas, and another 30% from across the United States. The remaining 10% of the artists come from Mexico or other Latin American countries.

CREATING ORIGINAL PRINTS


All serigraphs from the Serie Project are originals. Yet, what exactly constitutes an original print? This is a common question in the printmaking world that the Serie team would like to address. The distinction between original and reproduction prints can be easily confused! Above all, the artist’s hand contributes to the originality and value of serigraphs from the Serie Project.

Creating Original Prints

The concept of an original print is often misunderstood because, in printmaking, an original can exist as a multiple. Serigraphs, like most kinds of prints, are produced in editions. An edition of prints is a series of impressions based on the same design. A limited edition is a series created with the intention of producing a fixed number of prints, after which no further prints will be produced.

Artists from the Serie Project individually produce and personally sign a limited edition of 50 serigraphs. No more than 50 serigraphs of each design will ever be created or sold.  Moreover, each artist creates an original image that is designed specifically for their edition, unlike the designs found in reproduction prints.  The latter may be considered photographic reproductions of original artwork.


THE ARTISTS'S HAND


The artist’s role in creating an original print is often underestimated. Serigraphy, made famous by pop artists such as Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselmann, is a labor-intensive printmaking technique that uses fabric screens as stencils. At the Serie Project, each artist begins printmaking by drawing his or her original design onto a transparency. After applying emulsion onto a screen and exposing the transparency to UV light, the drawn image is “burned” onto the screen’s fabric. The screen becomes a stencil since the emulsion “blocks out” areas in its matrix, leaving other areas of open, porous fabric.  The artist may then force ink through the screen onto paper beneath, using a squeegee to push the ink through its open areas.

Throughout the serigraphy process, each color must be printed individually. An artist will create several different stencils and run a succession of colors to make a multicolor image.  In other words, each color you see in a serigraph has been individually pulled with a separate hand-made stencil. The technique thus relies on artistry rather than machinery, and no two serigraphs will ever be identical.

 Exposure