The first Saturday in May every year is Print Day in May, a global celebration of printmaking, creativity and community. On this day, printmakers and art lovers around the world come together to do what they love to do: make prints. Printmakers in over 70 countries, on all seven continents, open their studios to friends, teach others to make prints, use cars and pasta makers as presses, make footprints on the beach, print with vegetables and pets’ paws. All to spread the joy of printmaking. Additionally, Print Day in May continues to build community throughout the year as participants benefit from interaction with other printmakers world wide, via our social media sites.
Through social media and our website www.printdayinmay.com , Print Day in May is like watching the ball drop on New Year’s Eve around the world, as studios open and printing begins in Australia and New Zealand, and continues hour by hour across the globe.
Printmakers register at no cost on our website and post their images onto our blog and social media sites. There is no jury, everyone is welcome. Through our hashtag campaigns, we have gathered a large number of sponsors who support individual artists by awarding printmaking supplies, equipment, residencies, and exhibitions.
Each year our print community keeps growing. 2020 enjoyed tens of thousands of participants.
We believe that when people come together in a common, creative goal, that action improves lives and makes a difference in the world. Print Day in May is one such action. This celebration of the creative process is free, fun, profound and absolutely, entirely inclusive.
Artist’s Statement: Robynn Smith Personal Work
My work is a visual record of my connection to the world. Through pilgrimage to places of historical and psychological impact, I have collected a vast library of images that I use to travel between the present and the past, connecting the dots of humanity’s magnificent opportunities and repeated mistakes. Contrasting images are used to create detailed comparisons of the wretched and the sublime, life and death, light and dark. Lines blur and connections are made. Borders are drawn and crossed. Profoundly spiritual observations are presented alongside the moral bankruptcy of war.
My work explores these dualities through physical processes as well as through the use of specific imagery. The images combine with process to form the content. Through the processes of layered techniques, the paintings and prints reveal moments of beauty and horror. The tactile subtleties of surfaces contrast with images of catastrophe and destruction. Embedded photographic processes help to focus and sharpen the impact of the imagery, creating a surprising visual language that reaches places of submerged memory and subconscious reality.
Through the presentation of authentic imagery that explores humanities triumphs and foibles, my work invites circumspect examination of individual and collective history. This in turn increases our ability to be better to each other and ourselves. Coupled with my work as Founder of Print Day in May, I strive to create a collective community of thinking individuals, working toward a common goal of connection and truth.
