First edition: New printmaking classroom featured in Crowder's arts event

Apr. 19—NEOSHO, Mo. — A room with a stairway, used to stash away weaving looms at Crowder College, is now an active classroom dedicated to teaching the art of printmaking.

Instructor Joshua Knott said this new state-of-the-art classroom includes rooms and equipment for teaching many processes, including copper etching and techniques that call for exposures.

Fine Arts Week events

The bulk of events during Crowder College's Fine Arts week are set for Thursday. The full schedule includes:

* Student art exhibition, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily at the Elsie Plaster Community Center.

* Sidewalk chalk art contest, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday at the quad.

* Art sale, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday at the Student Center.

* Day of service, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. starting at the Student Center.

* Printmaking open house, noon to 4:30 at Newton Hall.

* U.S. immigration policy debate, 1 to 2 p.m. Thursday at the Elsie Plaster Community Center.

* Raku firing, 3 p.m. at the quad.

* "Masks and Music," 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday at the Elsie Plaster Community Center.

"When designing this, I tried to ignore the fact that I was at a community college, and tried to make this the best room I could," Knott said. "It's all because of our donors ... we're getting close to being able to offer everything that MSSU offers."

The most recent piece of equipment in the printmaking lab is an etching press, a versatile piece of equipment that can be adapted for use with wooden blocks, copper plates and some forms of lithography. It was provided thanks to a donation from Judy Smith, Knott said. John Garoutte and Rudy Farber also made donations that brought the lab to life, he said.

The classroom will be featured this week as part of Crowder's Fine Arts Week, a series of events that begin Monday.

While the event begins with a student art exhibition and a sidewalk chalk drawing contest Monday and an art sale Tuesday, most of the events are planned for Thursday. That includes an open house for the printmaking classroom from noon to 4:30 p.m.

Knott said the classroom has taken about five years to get to where it can accommodate students, after enduring an intensive construction process and delays caused by the pandemic.

Even for someone who is used to the delayed gratification offered by printmaking, Knott said he is eager to finally put all the work to good use. The instruction of printmaking is a window into both history and graphic design, as well as how printmaking gives art the power of mass production.

"You can spend 100 hours making a painting, or you can put that time into developing a plate, and by the time you're done, you have the ability to reproduce that work perfectly," Knott said. "I have friends where they can make a whole body of work, then ship those shows off in a tube, so that the same show is going on in New York and Japan."

Preparing a work for printmaking requires a unique combination of left-brain and right-brain thinking, Knott said. That process will be on display throughout the open house.

The event also will focus on other artists at Crowder, from potters to performers. and a debate about U.S. immigration policy will highlight the art of crafting language — the program falls under the fine arts umbrella at Crowder.

Director of theater Natasha O'Brien-Davies, organizer of the event, said this will be the seventh year fine arts will be featured on campus. It is timed to line up with Earth Day near the end of April, so that the arts can also be part of service, she said.

"There is no art without Earth, so that's why we'll do a cleanup and a day of service," O'Brien-Davies said. "This is a week where we can showcase our students and celebrate their achievements throughout the year, and to this point in the semester."

Community feedback was used to develop a dramatic presentation that will be featured Friday and Saturday. "Masks and Music" features students dramatizing stories of how people in the community have adjusted to all the hardships and blessings of the pandemic.

O'Brien-Davies said this year's event is loaded with activities.

"Other years have been smaller. It varies from year to year," she said. "This year happens to be a productive time for all of us."