Screenprinting Posts

Selective Focus: Tommy Kronquist

Tommy Kronquist began his career as a graphic designer, and combined his minimal, classic aesthetic with a love of skate / snowboard culture and Lake Superior activities like hiking, biking kayaking and the occasional surf session. His company, The Medium Control is know for screenprinting and apparel with bold, clean graphics. He has a show at the Duluth Art Institute, and will be hosting an opening reception and artist talk Thursday, February 6, 5-8 PM.

TK: I grew up in the country on a hobby farm with horses in Annandale, MN (near st. cloud). Here my love and inspiration of nature was born. I lived outside exploring, creating and building with my brother and friends. My mom worked at Powder Ridge ski area, which somewhat became our daycare while starting skiing at age three. This is where my passion for snow sports thrived. I was heavily inspired and involved with the snowboard / skateboard culture; sports that respect and promote creativity and the individual. A strong innovative community was developed here mainly due to the fact that my friends ran the skate/snow shop in St. Cloud (Sticks / Youth Shelter Supply). My parents were very supportive in my creative outlets and allowed me to travel for snowboarding. Inspired by travel I would get up to Duluth / Spirit Mt. for snowboard competitions and for fun. Which led me to cast my college decision of UMD quite easy with Spirit Mt. being so close.

Selective Focus: Carrie Schaefer

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Carrie Schaefer is a Duluth graphic designer, illustrator and screen printer. She tells us how she started selling her own products with her designs on them.

C.S.: I’ve been doing all kinds of design work since 2008 (marketing materials, illustrations and logo design). A couple years ago, I got the itch to learn screen-printing. My husband, who is also a graphic designer, taught me a little bit about the process and I was able to pick it up pretty quickly. It soon became a fun and exciting craft for me. My processes starts with an illustration on paper, moves to digital, then to a negative on a transparency, transferred to a silk screen using emulsion, and finally ink is drawn across the screen to yield a printed image.

Selective Focus: Joel Cooper

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I’ve been fascinated by screenprinting for a long time, because I’ve done it, and I know how difficult and frustrating the process can be. Joel Cooper tells us about his process for this week’s Selective Focus.

JoelCooperJC: I am a silkscreen printer. I became interested in this medium when attending a workshop at the Duluth Art Institute in the late ’80s. I guess the whole process appeals to me. It fits my personality … It is slow. Each color is drawn with black ink on acetate using a pen or brush, exposed to a screen, and using oil based ink squeeged to sheets of archival paper. The colors are layered one on top of the other starting with the lightest and ending usually with black. Most prints take well over a month start to finish. I take a lot of photos to get ideas in the summer and save the printing for our long cold winters. My style would be considered representational.

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