The printmaking studios-perhaps the best printmaking environment to be found anywhere-attract students from across the country into an open and intensely focused art-making experience. Professor Nona Hershey says that "Fred Liang and I have both worked in schools and print shops all over the US and abroad and we’re both convinced that the faculty, the curriculum, and the high caliber of students promotes a most exciting atmosphere for professional level creation and production."

The curriculum offers a classical education in traditional print techniques; we also support experimentation within the technical processes or any combination of processes, from artists’ books to installations. Students work in etching, lithography, silkscreen, and non-toxic photographic processes. Courses in artists' books and monoprint allow printmaking students to explore alternative techniques and methods of presentation.

We continue to experiment with nontoxic materials. We use the latest computer technology and materials to augment traditional approaches. Students use the computer for color separation and also to modify their own drawings, which they scan into the computer and transform into a variety of print media, including IMAGON and polychrome plates.

Printmaking students work together with one instructor in groups of 15 to 20 per section in a common studio. Students meet with their instructors for 9 hours per week and are expected to work an additional 6 or more hours in their studios per week.

An active Graduate Program and a Master Print Series involves collaborative work with Visiting Artists and training in professional edition printing. These artists create new work with students, who see first hand how celebrated artists work and think. Artists usually stay with us for up to a week. The scope of projects varies from print installations with Kiki Smith to silk screen monotype with Annette Lemieux to a series of etchings with Pat Steir. Students produced monotypes and variable edition etchings with chinecolle with Sam Messer. They explored photo silk screens and photo lithographs printed on layered fabric with Lesley Dill and a wide variety of digital, and traditional editions as well as nontraditional (such as shaving cream imagery) with the Seattle-based artist Jeffrey Mitchell. Other visiting artists with whom we have worked are Gregory Amenoff, John Walker, John Scott, Jane Kent, Nancy Bowen, and Rochelle Feinstein. Visiting artists are always impressed with the professionalism and with the sense of community among our students.