Printmaking

A lasting impression

The KCAI printmaking program will provide you with a deep understanding of the processes, creative concepts and issues that inform contemporary printmaking and art in a global creative environment. The faculty will challenge your pre-conceived notions of the world to help you express your ideas with a greater level of competence and clarity.

You’ll become engaged in a dynamic interchange involving individual studio narrative, collaboration, professional practice, and digital media possibilities and concepts. All printmaking students must have experience working collaboratively and be able to organize graphic work production in a studio setting. A minimal of graphic experience is required to work with silkscreen, plates, and blocks. Students must have a strong sensibility in drawing and form.

Traditional printmaking processes and concepts — etching, lithography, drawing, collage, silkscreen, letterpress and book arts; as well as post-modern processes, including mass media, collaboration, simulation, appropriation and dissemination — are taught concurrently.

 

Full-time Faculty

Miguel Rivera

Associate Professor and Chair

Miguel Rivera

Associate Professor and Chair

Miguel Rivera joined the KCAI faculty in fall 2008 to serve as chair of the printmaking department. A practicing artist, as well as an experienced educator, Rivera has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in Mexico, Japan and the United States. Formerly, he was chair of the art department at the University of Guanajuato in Mexico and also served as an associate professor of printmaking and computers in art. Rivera also has given visiting artist lectures in Mexico and the United States. He was an associate artist at Inkling Studio in Portland, Ore., and an instructor at West Virginia University in Morgantown, where he completed his M.F.A. degree in printmaking and applied digital media in 1997. He earned a B.F.A. degree in printmaking and painting from Southern Oregon University and an associate degree in printmaking from the University of Guanajuato.

Contact: Mrivera@kcai.edu

Laura Berman

Professor

Laura Berman

Professor

Laura Berman has taught printmaking and book arts at KCAI since 2002. Her work is represented by Long View Gallery (Washington, D.C.), Olson-Larsen Gallery (Des Moines) and Uprise Art (New York City). She publishes new prints regularly by invitation with Pele Prints (St. Louis) and Círculo del Arte (Barcelona, Spain). Her work is exhibited and collected around the world and featured in ‘The Book of Probes’ by David Carson/Marshall McLuhan, ‘Printmaking at the Edge’ by Richard Noyce, ‘A Survey of Contemporary Printmaking’ by Egan/Ehlbeck/Muise, and ‘Contemporary American Print Makers’ by E. Ashley Rooney and Stephanie Standish. Berman received her B.F.A. degree from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University and her M.F.A. degree from Tulane University.

Contact: lberman@kcai.edu

Ruben Castillo

Visiting Assistant Professor

Ruben Castillo

Visiting Assistant Professor

Ruben Bryan Castillo is a visual artist and educator born in Dallas, TX and currently working in Kansas City, MO. His work investigates themes of intimacy, queerness, place, and the body using a range of media including print, drawing, sculpture/installation, and video. His most recent imagery draws from a personal archive of photographs and materials, seeing the ordinary as a site for transformative potential and feeling. Castillo’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and is included in multiple public and private collections. He co-chaired the panel “Queer Ephemera, Et Cetera: Encounters in the Archive” with artist Amy Cousins at the 2020 Mid-America Print Council’s Remote Symposium, organizing a conversation about queer archives and printmaking between five artists. He received an MFA in visual art from the University of Kansas and a BFA in printmaking from the Kansas City Art Institute. 

Classes

Once you declare your major, printmaking students take the following core courses as they progress from sophomore to senior year. For additional electives and liberal arts courses, download the complete Course Catalog.

Printmaking Major Requirements

Double Major Art History & Printmaking Requirements

Double Major Creative Writing & Printmaking Requirements

Sophomore

  • Relief & Monoprint
  • Etching
  • Drawing Applications for Printmaking
  • Silk Screen
  • Lithography
  • Digital Applications for Printmakers

Junior

  • Dimensional Printmaking
  • Junior Print Seminar
  • Color in Printmaking
  • Advanced Printmaking I

Senior

  • Advanced Printmaking II
  • Professional Practice
  • Printmaking Senior Thesis

Student Work

 

 

 

Professional Practice

Professional practice is a compulsory component of the KCAI program in which students benefit enormously from insights provided by world-renowned visiting artists, scholars and professionals.

Jobs + Internships

Printmaking graduates now work as professors, educators, and artists across the country. Recent graduates also have become professional printers and engravers working for commercial printing companies.

KCAI printmaking majors have worked or interned for the following studios and companies: Vahalla Studios, Hammer Press, Lawrence Lithography, Landfall Press, Porter Teleo, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, KC Ink and Paper Center for the Arts, design studios and fine art galleries.

Find out more about the Landfall Press Summer apprenticeship.

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