The third annual printPHILLY! truthful will deliver collectively printmakers and printmaking fanatics on Saturday, April 12, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., on the Parkway Central Library.
“I contemplate the truthful as a lot of a networking occasion for the group as it’s for the group to have the ability to share their work with the general public,” mentioned Jennifer Manzella, an organizer with the Philadelphia Print Consortium, whose members arrange the truthful yearly on a voluntary foundation.
The truthful grew out of a necessity inside Philadelphia’s long-established printmaking group to come back collectively and share their work. Throughout its years of planning and existence, it has confronted a number of challenges.
“In 2017, it began with a gaggle of wherever from 10 to fifteen individuals. We’d meet each six months in any individual’s studio, at any individual’s store,” Manzella mentioned. “We have been making an attempt to determine what we must always do. Ought to we do an exhibition? What can we put our vitality into?”
In 2019, Nicole Donnelly, an artist and professor and one of many Consortium members, instructed they create a good. “And it got here collectively fairly quick,” Manzella mentioned. No less than, that was the case originally. The primary print truthful was initially scheduled for March 14, 2020, and, as everyone knows, in-person occasions throughout the nation have been canceled round that point because of the pandemic.
“Clearly, the occasion didn’t occur. We went into lockdown for a few years. So, after we reconnected in 2022, we then determined that we would have liked to place our energies in direction of the venture,” mentioned Manzella. Nearly after six years of planning, they held the primary truthful in Spring 2023.
Throughout its first two years, the truthful passed off on the College of the Arts. Nevertheless, after UArts abruptly closed in June 2024, the Consortium needed to discover a new venue for this 12 months’s truthful. “So, that was a little bit of rising pains proper there,” Manzella added.
However the group of 8 to 10 volunteers organizing the truthful stays simply as enthusiastic and values the significance of this gathering. This 12 months, the truthful will deliver collectively college applications, group print retailers, printmaking collectives and particular person printmakers and artists, multi functional place. There will probably be greater than 47 tables, which might be reserved for people or teams.
Apart from the desk price, the Philadelphia Print Consortium doesn’t retain any proportion of gross sales, providing attendees an opportunity to instantly put money into native or small Philly companies. “It’s a chance for artists, group print retailers and print communities to promote their work and it’s very profitable,” Manzella mentioned.
This occasion welcomes artwork lovers, anybody interested in printmaking, and even these skeptical about how enduring this artwork kind will be on this digital age. “[As a professor], I’ve to suppose how this out of date media is necessary, proper? As a result of not can we depend on it for industrial functions anymore and it has change into extra of an expressive medium,” Manzella shared. “And I believe it’s necessary as a result of it connects us to the bodily world. It connects us to that materials tradition that’s a part of our historical past. It’s a part of our cultural heritage.”
This one-day occasion is free and open to the general public. You could find a full record of distributors and contributors at printPHILLY! 2025.
Some highlights:
- Visitor speaker: Lauren Rosenblum, Curator of the The Print Middle, at 11:00 a.m.
- Fingers-on Printmaking with Mural Arts – a chance to take part in a collaborative mural from 12 p.m. to three p.m.
The place to seek out extra occasions and submission requires the printmaking group in Philadelphia: