KSOA Excited to Expand Lithographic Printing Access in Kingston Thanks to Generous Donation
A 130-year-old direct lithographic printing press that was recently donated to the KSOA will be a feature in programming and is available to students and community members for use.
There’s no manual for assembling a 130-year old lithographic printing press.
Instead, you call Otis Tamasauskas, and try things until they work.
That’s what Maddi Andrews, Executive Director of Kingston School of Art (KSOA), did when a direct lithographic printing press was generously donated to the organization earlier this year.
The press, made almost entirely of high-quality casted iron, had to be moved from where it had been stored for forty-some years at the donors’ home in Newburgh, Ontario. Volunteers loaded the heavy pieces of the press into a truck and transported them to KSOA in Kingston, where even more volunteers brought them into the studio, one by one.
Tamasauskas, a Master Printer and artist with decades of teaching experience who just happens to have a studio in nearby Gananoque, called it a 1,000-pound jigsaw puzzle.
“At the moment, I’m just using the theory of other presses that I’ve worked on” Tamasauskas remarks during one of several assembly sessions at the KSOA. “A lot of it’s trial and error. We’ve taken it apart twice now. But it will look very beautiful when it’s done. It’s quite a romantic looking press from the industrial era.”
Not much is known about the press, other than it was likely shipped to Ontario from London, England, in the late 1800s and was made by a company named Furnival. It spent time at the University of Guelph before it was kept by the donating family.
“A very kind couple reached out to us and they very kindly offered to give us the press. They were moving and so they were looking a new home for it,” Andrews says. “They really wanted it to go to a new home, and they thought of us, so we were happy to accept.”
Tamasauskas was also excited to lend his expertise to the project.
“Usually, someone’s got one in the basement, they don’t know what they are, and they can’t move them half of the time – so usually they’re a metal scrap delight,” Tamasauskas says. “For the [KSOA] to have one, it becomes like a relic of printmaking, it’s sort of a romantic symbol of things made by hand and art which is embedded in the human spirit.”
He explains that many printing presses were melted down for their metal during the First and Second World Wars.
“By the 1960s, presses of this nature were very rare,” Tamasauskas says.
“And as direct lithography has become automized – with offset lithography, which enables a greater capacity, so instead of one image every minute, they could print 1000 images in a minute – obviously these became even more obscure.”
In direct lithographic printmaking, ink is applied to a stone – a limestone, in fact – and pressed onto the page. Offset lithography, the computerized version, uses a metal plate.
“These [direct lithographic] presses are one of the means of making an original print, which is sort of the closest thing to your drawing or to your ideas. Of course, the advent of computers is challenging all of these notions. But there is an authenticity and an originality in both elements; you can make art with a computer and also you can make creative art of a different nature with hand printing images,” Tamasauskas says.
Many artists are drawn to working on limestone over a metal plate, according to Tamasauskas, because of the richness and depth to prints created by hand.
“There’s something inherently organic about working on a stone … in nature, limestone was originally living crustaceans – like, little shells and sea life, that turn into a sediment and layers and layers and pressure from the water and the earth create the limestone – calcified stone,” he explains.
“So that enables the stone to have a purity so that you can get quite consistently beautiful linework that is very close to what a drawing is, or even when it translates into ink. On the stone, the print is even more powerful than the drawing.”
The jigsaw puzzle was, eventually, completed, and the press is now assembled and in working order at KSOA . Andrews plans for it to become a feature in KSOA Programming, and it will be available for students and artists in the community to use as well.
“[Presses] are such important tools, and they’re sometimes hard to come by,” Andrews explains. “It’s something we’ve been working on in the past couple of years, expanding our printmaking programs. We have workshops where people can come and learn about printmaking, and we [are] very excited to see this press as a teaching piece in our community, where students and community members have access to it.”
With all the renewed interest in printmaking in recent years, Tamasauskas expects the press will be useful to a variety of artists coming through KSOA’s doors.
“It’s terrific, and I think a privilege, that you could try it. It might inform your other work, you know – if you’re a painter, or a sculptor, or another type of printmaker, you might grow with your own work by trying a lithograph,” Tamasauskas says. “I don’t know if many people are going to become lithographers, but they’ll become better artists by understanding all of that.”
The donation also comes at an important time, as Queen’s University recently announced the suspension of its Bachelor of Fine Arts.
“I think that will mean that our role in the community as a place for arts education will be really important, and having access to these presses for students will be key,” says Andrews.
In fact, the KSOA opened as a result of St. Lawrence College closing its fine arts program several years ago – the organization inherited some equipment, including presses, from the school.
“That’s when we became a charity, as a group – so I think [we are] continuing to provide that access with this new press,” Andrews says. “In Kingston, at least, being a smaller community, there is more limited access to printing presses – and they’re big pieces of machinery so it’s not like everyone has them in their home studios. So, our hope is that it will be accessible to students to continue these practices.”
The press, which would have originally had a motorized component, has also been retrofitted to now be operated manually. Meaning, the artist facilitates the entire printmaking process – and that’s where the magic happens.
“I love that visceral connection, that interaction with something so physical – you’re making art with your entire body, not just your mind, so that influences your art also,” Tamasauskas says.
“You realize there’s a magic that happens, a real alchemy that happens in the printmaking world. Lithography was always a medium that enhanced that. It has such an elegance and finesse.”
Article & Photography by KSOA Volunteer Elizabeth Cameron
There’s no manual for assembling a 130-year old lithographic printing press.
Instead, you call Otis Tamasauskas, and try things until they work.
That’s what Maddi Andrews, Executive Director of Kingston School of Art (KSOA), did when a direct lithographic printing press was generously donated to the organization earlier this year.
The press, made almost entirely of high-quality casted iron, had to be moved from where it had been stored for forty-some years at the donors’ home in Newburgh, Ontario. Volunteers loaded the heavy pieces of the press into a truck and transported them to KSOA in Kingston, where even more volunteers brought them into the studio, one by one.
Tamasauskas, a Master Printer and artist with decades of teaching experience who just happens to have a studio in nearby Gananoque, called it a 1,000-pound jigsaw puzzle.
“At the moment, I’m just using the theory of other presses that I’ve worked on” Tamasauskas remarks during one of several assembly sessions at the KSOA. “A lot of it’s trial and error. We’ve taken it apart twice now. But it will look very beautiful when it’s done. It’s quite a romantic looking press from the industrial era.”
Not much is known about the press, other than it was likely shipped to Ontario from London, England, in the late 1800s and was made by a company named Furnival. It spent time at the University of Guelph before it was kept by the donating family.
“A very kind couple reached out to us and they very kindly offered to give us the press. They were moving and so they were looking a new home for it,” Andrews says. “They really wanted it to go to a new home, and they thought of us, so we were happy to accept.”
Tamasauskas was also excited to lend his expertise to the project.
“Usually, someone’s got one in the basement, they don’t know what they are, and they can’t move them half of the time – so usually they’re a metal scrap delight,” Tamasauskas says. “For the [KSOA] to have one, it becomes like a relic of printmaking, it’s sort of a romantic symbol of things made by hand and art which is embedded in the human spirit.”
He explains that many printing presses were melted down for their metal during the First and Second World Wars.
“By the 1960s, presses of this nature were very rare,” Tamasauskas says.
“And as direct lithography has become automized – with offset lithography, which enables a greater capacity, so instead of one image every minute, they could print 1000 images in a minute – obviously these became even more obscure.”
In direct lithographic printmaking, ink is applied to a stone – a limestone, in fact – and pressed onto the page. Offset lithography, the computerized version, uses a metal plate.
“These [direct lithographic] presses are one of the means of making an original print, which is sort of the closest thing to your drawing or to your ideas. Of course, the advent of computers is challenging all of these notions. But there is an authenticity and an originality in both elements; you can make art with a computer and also you can make creative art of a different nature with hand printing images,” Tamasauskas says.
Many artists are drawn to working on limestone over a metal plate, according to Tamasauskas, because of the richness and depth to prints created by hand.
“There’s something inherently organic about working on a stone … in nature, limestone was originally living crustaceans – like, little shells and sea life, that turn into a sediment and layers and layers and pressure from the water and the earth create the limestone – calcified stone,” he explains.
“So that enables the stone to have a purity so that you can get quite consistently beautiful linework that is very close to what a drawing is, or even when it translates into ink. On the stone, the print is even more powerful than the drawing.”
The jigsaw puzzle was, eventually, completed, and the press is now assembled and in working order at KSOA . Andrews plans for it to become a feature in KSOA Programming, and it will be available for students and artists in the community to use as well.
“[Presses] are such important tools, and they’re sometimes hard to come by,” Andrews explains. “It’s something we’ve been working on in the past couple of years, expanding our printmaking programs. We have workshops where people can come and learn about printmaking, and we [are] very excited to see this press as a teaching piece in our community, where students and community members have access to it.”
With all the renewed interest in printmaking in recent years, Tamasauskas expects the press will be useful to a variety of artists coming through KSOA’s doors.
“It’s terrific, and I think a privilege, that you could try it. It might inform your other work, you know – if you’re a painter, or a sculptor, or another type of printmaker, you might grow with your own work by trying a lithograph,” Tamasauskas says. “I don’t know if many people are going to become lithographers, but they’ll become better artists by understanding all of that.”
The donation also comes at an important time, as Queen’s University recently announced the suspension of its Bachelor of Fine Arts.
“I think that will mean that our role in the community as a place for arts education will be really important, and having access to these presses for students will be key,” says Andrews.
In fact, the KSOA opened as a result of St. Lawrence College closing its fine arts program several years ago – the organization inherited some equipment, including presses, from the school.
“That’s when we became a charity, as a group – so I think [we are] continuing to provide that access with this new press,” Andrews says. “In Kingston, at least, being a smaller community, there is more limited access to printing presses – and they’re big pieces of machinery so it’s not like everyone has them in their home studios. So, our hope is that it will be accessible to students to continue these practices.”
The press, which would have originally had a motorized component, has also been retrofitted to now be operated manually. Meaning, the artist facilitates the entire printmaking process – and that’s where the magic happens.
“I love that visceral connection, that interaction with something so physical – you’re making art with your entire body, not just your mind, so that influences your art also,” Tamasauskas says.
“You realize there’s a magic that happens, a real alchemy that happens in the printmaking world. Lithography was always a medium that enhanced that. It has such an elegance and finesse.”
Article & Photography by KSOA Volunteer Elizabeth Cameron
