What Happens When a Canadian Screen Printer Takes His Squeegee to Mexico

I asked Tapia how he was promoting our tour….I got this! It seemed to work. We did workshops in 2 universities, 3 middle schools, 2 cultural centres, a rock festival and an art store.

ONE DAY YOU’RE playing around with a fully automatic, state-of-the-art printing press, with CCTV cameras driving servo motors adjusting register on a half million dollar machine. A day later you’re screwing hinge clamps smuggled from Canada into a board found in a junk pile, printing book covers with excited kids in a rural school on the side of a volcano. Once again proving variety, plus habaneros, is the spice of life.

Screenprinting is a lot of things to a lot of people. For me? Last fall? It was my ticket to see and experience places and people from glitzy Orlando to small town Mexico. Plus free Spanish immersion 24 hours a day…mezcal tours…baseball… incredible food… capped with printing at the Corona Capital Festival with the ultimate old person perk! ….a backstage bathroom pass.

Evolving/Devolving Technologies

Picture it: Printing United in the Orlando Convention Centre last October, a hall full of the latest printing machinery from around the world, including the above-mentioned cylinder press, with every bell and whistle, including auto feeder, takeoff, stacker and camera driven registration system. Automation for the nation in all aspects of print…

A day later I’m in Veracruz, the original Spanish colonial port where Cortez launched his invasion of Mexico, and I would start my Gira Serigrafica. The riches of empire flowed through this place. It has many old warehouses and pleasant neighborhoods. The centuries are all jumbled together and it’s still the vibrant hub of the same-named state, and a main shipping point for European and Asian goods entering or leaving Mexico. Hundreds of miles of unspoiled coast north and south, mountains, savanna, jungle, rivers, incredible coffee.

We were a bit light on technology compared to Orlando. I brought some hinge clamps. Manuel Tapia, the tour director and a screenprinter/calligrapher/bookmaker with Tapia Editions had a stapled screen with a stencil of some cartoon character (!) a squeegee, and an itinerary that led south through Oaxaca state, then over to Mexico City for Corona Capital Festival. We would pick up ink on the way…. Don’t worry. No te preocupes.

With some of the instructors at the university, along with Gisela and Tapia. Vilma was taking photos!

The Team Assembles

We met Vilma Cruz Lopez, a project manager in charge of logistics and direct contact with artists for the reproduction of their work using screen printing. She would be joining us for parts of the tour, and really did know everyone, everywhere. The first presentation was the next morning at Gestalt Design School, where we would join Gisela Bertora, a researcher from Argentina.

Staff and students at Gestalt Design School in Veracruz show off their book project.

Coming from Canada, to Orlando, and now Mexico, I had a lot of questions about the next month’s activities, and a bit of culture shock. Tapia suggested we head to the office. The taxi seemed to go back in time as we passed colonial mansions with 100-year-old trees growing out of windows. A good reminder that nature here can swallow anything, including a pyramid. We pulled into a cobbled square. I recognized the place…..Tito’s. Tapia Editions has offices all over Mexico.

Gisela Bertola is a researcher and promoter of Indigenous dyes and textile fabrication techniques. She also plays hockey!

Gestalt Design School is a private art college that teaches graphic art, web design, fashion, and marketing. We were scheduled to do interviews for their educational archive, and then learn about Gisela’s work with natural pigments and dyes and indigenous textile artisans throughout South America and Mexico. I gave the first of an evolving PowerPoint presentation on the basics of screenprinting, a quick step-by-step with film- and stencil-making, and the uses and products. Everybody was amazed when they learned their cell phones and electronic goods are all full of screenprinting. I brought a few sample posters; Vilma and Tapia brought sample prints as well. The students then screenprinted a cover, and Tapia taught them to stitch a booklet together.

At University de Oriente, we conducted our workshop outdoors, under the flags of Canada, Mexico, and Argentina. It felt a bit like the Olympics!

The next day we repeated the program at Universidad de Oriente. They set the class up outside in the courtyard and it was really touching to stand under our national flags. The kids all lined up to try their hand at screenprinting, and then diligently worked folding, stitching, and then trimming their books. Hands-on work like this is good for designers and students, to get them off the digital screen, and on to a different type of screen – serigrafia! Everyone had lots of questions, and my traveling partners helped me with translations. Although the overall program was good, one thing was clear…. we needed to work on our press setup…which consisted of the clamps….We need a portable printing base! Luckily we found it in the junk pile at a new gallery space in Veracruz. Innovation. It’s what screenprinters do.

Santiago Tuxtlas is in the centre of Olmeca territory – a civilization pre-dating the Aztecs and Mayans. These carved heads were found all over. The people are proud of their heritage.

Onward to Los Tuxtlas and the Future

We headed south three hours, then east through a nature preserve and cane fields towards the ocean, and the village of El Porvenir (the future). Tapia Editions had relocated here and was building a studio. We would meet with René Gabino Garcia, the principal of Cuauhtemoc Telesecundaria, a three-room middle school located on the side of a volcano in the rugged area known as Los Tuxtlas. It’s a little hard to explain how bad the road in was….I live on Vancouver Island. I know logging roads in the mountains. The dirt ones, the rocky ones… This one in Mexico, in a 2WD Chevy, was every bit as bad as the Canadian version. And Rene and daughter Regina drive it four days a week.

Rene’s three-room school was perched on the side of a volcano. The kids were enthusiastic printers— fun is fun in any language.

This school was incredible. Remote, in a small village. Great teachers. They had a full garden and chickens everyone looked after. Some kids rotated helping prepare a lunch every day. We used an outdoor area, so children set up chairs and tables with the help of the teachers. We did our project, then a couple of kids were assigned to sweep up and clean the mess. They were polite, curious, and funny, I saw this in all the schools and classes we conducted. And they loved the books they made.

We spent some time with René’s family. As it was approaching Día de los Muertos I was invited to add my late wife Nancy to their family shrine and in the process learned a lot about the traditions around it. To me it was an incredible honor, and Nancy would have been thrilled, because she loved Mexico and the people, the customs…we even got married there! In the nearby town of Santiago Tuxtlas, where the ancient stone heads of the pre-Aztec Olmec people still dot the landscape, we attended the annual Day of the Dead parade, where René’s daughter Julia joined her schoolmates. It was incredible as streams of school kids and local groups massed to the centre of town.

The Flatstock show at Corona Capital Festival in Mexico City was a high point of the trip, with artists from around the world converging on this massive festival.

Oaxaca and Some Screenprinting Innovation

Moving from Veracruz state south to Tlaxiaco in Oaxaca state, involved a 15-hour journey by a combination of car, three buses, two vans, and a taxi. I don’t think we ever waited more than 15 minutes between connections. We went from 100 degrees at the beach, to 36 degrees in the mountains. After another school and a cultural center, we arrived in the city of Oaxaca, reunited with Vilma, who proceeded to introduce us to some of the best printmakers in a city famous for printing — the woodblock/letterpress artists known around the world. Turns out Vilma has been in the art printing business in Mexico a long time, and has connections with artists all over the country. We visited Lapistola where I met Roberto (Beto) and Rosario and saw something very new to me.

In the world of street art and murals, it’s typical for an artist to cut a stencil from card, and use it for creating a distinct image. But it has that look…. Now what if a person could get some really coarse mesh, coat it, and expose an image with different graphics, halftones. Then be able to spray through it. And have images tiled so they could be built up into a larger image….oh, it’s helpful to be a screenprinter, because…. The results are amazing and the work gains an extra graphic dimension.

Oaxaca (the city) has a vibrant tourist trade, and of course that means screenprinters decorating things. We visited Alejandro (Alex) Priego de la Rosa and Elizabeth Velasco Hernandez. Their company is called Impresos Mizraim. They have a storefront, actually a couple, where they display bags and drink containers they print for a range of clients using, screen, DTF, and a few other decorating techniques. The day we arrived, they had a 1,000-item order of non-woven bags, set up on a jig, and rack- drying some wicked smelling solvent ink. I gave it a shot, but couldn’t produce as fast as their ace printer.

Corro and Gustavo from Laguna print shop in Mexico City fixed me up with art, screen and squeegee for my last workshop.

Alex decided he would drive us to our workshop at Teotitlan del Valle, at a community cultural center and museum Laaz Galnazak Xtee Xigya. Interesting to compare the number of people speaking Zapotec, the local language. Almost everyone! In Canada, the indigenous tribes are fighting to save their languages, with fewer and fewer people who can speak fluently.

With Jair from Fenix, a happy class and a nice end to a great trip. Can’t wait to return!

Tapia took off to Honduras, and I hopped onto a bus that puts most airlines to shame, landing in Mexico City. My friends at Mercadorama a merch and event company coordinate the yearly Flatstock poster show at Corona Capital Festival I’ve been going every year, doing live printing and seeing my helpers from those first events now run things – both the live printing and the Flatstock exhibition – I was demoted to racker! It was great!

Tapia and Luciana Astuto, a local screenprinting artist, talked about their work to the class, hosted by Fenix Art Supplies and Rodin, the Mexican importer of Speedball products.

I had a demonstration to do for Speedball Art Products, but that meant lining up a new screen and images – the travelling rig might have ended up in Honduras – and once again Vilma came through, introducing me to a local studio who hooked me up with art, film, screen and squeegee. Fenix Art Supplies hosted the workshop, and Rodin, the distributor, provided inks and assistance. We wanted to introduce people to water-based inks and screenprinting, ending up with a packed class with everybody from scientists to graphic designers, artists and other screenprinters. Tapia and artist and print maker Luciana Astuto helped and we answered questions.

I left the next day. My ‘gira serigrafica’ was over. I can’t wait to do it again. From high-tech Orlando and Printing United, to a series of tabletop setups in classrooms and a rock festival. Looking back, the squeegee made it all happen. It was the connector. Doesn’t matter what press or product. Doesn’t matter age or nationality. What does matter is we all get the thrill of making. Who knows where that can take you…

PHOTO GALLERY: ANDY’S EPIC JOURNEY (15 IMAGES)

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