Egress Press and Research (EPR) is a fine art publishing and research component of the Printmaking Area of Edinboro University of Pennsylvania’s Art Department. Over the past 20 years, EPR has been working to foster an environment of artistic/scholarly inquiry, through faculty and student interaction with artists involved in creative projects and art production. EPR promotes this artistic activity / inquiry through fine art printing and publication efforts and through our development of an ongoing series of visiting artist lectures, workshops, critiques and discussions on issues relevant to contemporary art and printmaking.
These activities benefit the artist, the local community, the university, and particularly the students by building new connections, and through the sharing of knowledge and skills. Such connections, to artists, other print publishing entities and universities, create opportunity for internships, exhibitions and other rewarding endeavors. Egress Press and Research also has exhibited its archived prints, as well as donating prints to Edinboro University’s Permanent Art Collection, and the Erie Art Museum from these visiting artist publications.
Egress Press and Research was initiated through the previous experience of two printmaking professors, John Foard Lysak and Franz Spohn. Both had experience as master printmakers, assisting artists to create fine art print editions. John and Franz felt it was important to use fine art print publishing in various ways to give students opportunities and to enrich the diversity of activity in the printmaking area. Bill Mathie has been the Director of Egress Press and Research since 2014. Doug Eberhardt, also teaching at Edinboro University, has assisted with printing since 2018. Graduate students Henry Gepfer and Marco Sanchez have played major roles in organizing artist visits and printing editions while they were graduate students in our program, with Gepfer acting as master printer for Jeffrey Dell, and Sanchez set to act as master printer in spring of 2020 until the Covid crisis postponed our project. The press continues to publish work and recently opened a martketplace to sell its prints to support future projects. A number of educational institutions have similar print publishing components. Some examples are: Tandem Press at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, GraphicsStudio at the University of South Florida and The Experimental Printmaking Institute at Lafayette. While these examples are large, well-funded and very successful programs, many smaller print publishing entities are thriving on small budgets and are able to contribute to the artistic innovation and aesthetic development in printmaking mediums. A number of printmaking studios with educational and community enriching missions are listed on our links page.
These smaller print studios are the models for Egress Press and Research in its present state. Egress Press and Research is intended to be active when we, (the faculty and students involved) have time, attention and resources to devote. Currently, Egress is able to be idle when we are busy with other interests, teaching and development of individual artistic research. Despite its youth and the sporadic nature of its activities, Egress Press has been very successful aesthetically. The work we have printed has been exhibited widely. Our success can also be measured in our students' success. Many present students and alumni have practical experience in arts management, fine art printmaking, and a number of students trained by work on EPR projects are now working as professional printmakers. The experiences gained from the activities of Egress Press and Research give our students direct exposure to the artistic process. The workshops and lectures supported by Egress Press generate a knowledge base that translates into better student work and into their development as professionals. Our workshops and lectures are open to the local public and we often get visitors observing the creation of new print work when we have visiting artists in making prints.