10th Annual Art History Symposium: Cross-Cultural Connections in Printmaking.

Sacramento State's Festival of the Art's, art history Symposium, had a speakers talk about a variety of subjects relating to the cultural connections of printmaking. The Symposium started with the keynote speaker Kathen Brown, then the four speakers John Byck, Pamela Ivinski, Louise Siddons and Mary Godwin gave their presentations. The speakers spoke about a range of topics from ship engravings to the printmaking in Los Angeles in relation to Maria Sodi de Ramos Martinez.

The keynote speaker Kathen Brown spoke about Crown Point Press. She talked about the artists that were represented there, the influence of Asian printmaking and the etching technique which became an art form at Crown Point Press. Pia Fries was one of the artist that was invited to work at Crown Point Press. She experimented with printmaking and learned how to etch with color. She created her own style that made the etching appear like paint brush strokes. Kathen Brown explained that she originally started Crown Point Press for her artist friends so that they could experiment with printmaking. In 1965, Brown published two pieces by Wayne Thiebaud who was the first artist that was invited to Crown Point Press in order for Brown to publish his works. Thiebaud was looking for distinction. He wanted to understand his painting and etching better so he could make new kinds of art works. He always started with a painting, and then created a print from it. Susan Middleton, who was another artist invited to Crown Point Press, liked the ink to be embedded  in the paper. She wanted a dye transfer to occur which meant that the ink would sink into the paper.

Kathen Brown spoke of a significant exhibition that Crown Point Press did called "Yes, No, Maybe". John Cage was the artist that represented the "yes" in the title of the exhibition. His style was to set something up and continue on it until it was satisfying. Richard Diebenkorn was the artist that represented the "Maybe" in the exhibition because he emphasized change in his work. The artist that represented the "no" in the exhibition was Chuck Close, who made collages with his printed self portrait. Brown also talked about an interesting tradition that they had at Crown Point Press, where they would take two artists a  year to Kyoto Japan to work with Japanese print makers. In 1987 Crown Point Press took artists to China to work with a print makers. The influence of Asian printmaking was important for Crown Point Press and presented a good opening for rest of the presentations on cross cultural printmaking.