episode five | deborah maris lader

Published 9 Jan 2019

Miranda Metcalf  Hello print friends and welcome to the fifth episode of Pine Copper Lime (Hello, Print Friend), the internet's number one printmaking podcast. I release an episode every two weeks, and on the off weeks I put an article up on the Pine Copper Lime website that features images, and maybe a bit more information about the artist I'm going to interview. You can also find Pine Copper Lime (Hello, Print Friend) on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. This week, I'm thrilled to have Deborah Maris Lader as my guest. For the past 29 years, Deborah has been the founder and director of the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative. It's a community print shop for professional printmakers and students, offering lithography, intaglio, and relief. CPC is also a commercial gallery, which features prints from artists all around the world. They have a storefront, which is open to the public, and Deborah is very active in engaging the community in which she lives and works. She has beginners' classes regularly and printmaking events, such as steamroller printing, often with a live band. Because along with being a printmaker, a studio director, a mother, and a dog rescuer, Deborah is also an accomplished musician. I was lucky enough to visit her beautiful shop in the autumn of 2017. And it is well worth the hype. It's a gorgeous space, and it's deeply inspiring to see what Deborah has built. In this episode, Deborah shares with me the story of how she came to build the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative. It's going to be a great episode for anyone who's dreamed of starting their own print shop, or anyone who's keen to start something new. As you'll hear, it takes a lot of moxie, a work ethic that does not privilege sleep, a pinch of good timing, and a little bit of divine intervention from a favorite grandmother to complete this story. One final note before I start this episode: you'll hear at the very beginning that Deborah mentioned that I'm living in Sydney. So despite my standard American accent, I do indeed live down under amongst the wombats. How I got here is a long story, but if you'd like to hear it, or if you're curious about anything else, please drop me a line at miranda@helloprintfriend.com. So now without further ado, here's Deborah.

Deborah Maris Lader  Hey, Miranda, how's it going out there in Sydney? 

Miranda Metcalf  It's good. It's good. 

Deborah Maris Lader  You might hear my new little dog in the background. She's our new shop dog. So I'm here at the studio. 

Miranda Metcalf  It's not a shop without a dog, in my opinion. It's so cool that we've got you here in your shop, because that's exactly what I'd love to chat with you about. So do you think that you know, so you said you've been doing this for 29 years? And we were talking about that sense of community. Do you think that that's evolved much? Is there more of an appreciation for it now that we live in a world that we're so divided by technology, or has it seemed pretty much the same, that printmakers just want to find other printmakers? I feel like - Okay, so I'm dating myself, but I was here in the age of no internet. Yes, that's true. And in fact, you know, it was, I find it was harder back then to connect with other printmakers than it is now. You can only imagine, in the days of the telephone, it was a whole different ballgame. So you kind of were aware of what people were doing in other places, but it was all done by snail mail. So you would get something from Anderson Ranch and you'd say, 'Oh, look, they have a printmaking thing there that people can take classes at.' And then you might meet someone from Anderson Ranch at maybe the College Art Association Conference or some other place like that, but it was not easy to connect. And now that we have all these social media platforms, and you have, like, have you looked at Facebook recently to see how many printmaking groups there are? I'm astounded. But on the other hand, you know, I can most likely walk into any print shop around the world and they'll know what the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative is because we've got 30,000 followers on Instagram. And so that's significant. I don't know how it happened but I did get really good at making videos. And you know how printmakers are, they want to see those process videos.  We love the process. 

Deborah Maris Lader  It is so fun to watch that kind of explode. And you know, maybe we got on somebody's, you know, radar at some point and they just, you know, went crazy after that, but it's a nice thing, because I can say 'Well, yeah, you know, you might not have heard of us, you know, my name is Deborah from the Chicago-' 'Oh, the Chicago- oh we follow you on Instagram!' It's much easier now. And so when I wanted to get ahold of - every time I go to a new city anywhere in the world, the first thing I do is Google, where's the print shop? So I was in Barcelona last year, and I did the same thing. And I went to a bunch of places, and it was phenomenal, because they're all there. And it's easy to find them. So I do think that the global community of printmakers is much easier to find now. 

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah. So 29 years ago, when you were setting up shop in Chicago, how did you get the word out? How did you get printmakers to come find you? That's a really good question. Because I didn't know anybody in Chicago, except for this guy I was about to marry. So my husband lived here, he was an architect. And, you know, I moved here, out of the blue, you know, didn't really know anybody. And I was actually looking for teaching. Because I was, I'd been teaching at University of Indiana at Fort Wayne, IPFW, and I was the printmaking department chair there. And I just assumed when I moved to Chicago, I would just look for the same kind of employment. It really hadn't occurred to me at that time that I should run a print shop. I don't know why. But it just didn't. It wasn't the kind of thing, you know, anybody in their right mind would do. I showed up here and I talked to lots of people and so initially, I was meeting all the other printmakers in the city because I was going to the Art Institute, and I literally would just drive down to UIC and stick my foot in the door. And there Steve Campbell was, printing up something, and I'd say 'Hi, you don't know me. But you're Steve Campbell.' And he'd be like, 'Yeah.' I said, 'So, you know, tell me what's, you know, are you guys looking for adjunct?' Or, you know, I told him what I was doing, and so I met everybody. And they were nice enough to not shove me out the door and say, 'Who are you, you're just like a pipsqueak, you know, in your 20s. And we don't know you.' But again, printmakers are fairly generous. So first I meet everybody. And then, I'm reading in this Chicago Artists Coalition newsletter, paper newsletter that we would get every month, that there was this print shop for sale called, it used to be Hard Press Editions in the 70s, and it had gone fallow for many years. And the guy, luckily, who was selling it, decided to keep the whole shop together rather than selling it off in pieces in which you would have made more money. So 3000 bucks. So I had saved money teaching in Fort Wayne, because there's not a lot to do in Fort Wayne, you know, think about it, the rent is cheap there. So I had saved some money from teaching, and I basically suck it all in this print shop, moved in, and by myself, decided, well, maybe I'll just have the university of me, you know, in the sense of like, well, I couldn't find a position. No one was hiring. And so I just started the print shop and I thought, well, the worst case scenario is that no one will come, but I'll make, you know, a ton of prints. So I had, you know, I had time I and I had, you know, this space and my husband's you know, working at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill at the time, before he had gone off on his own. So I just did it. And because I had met all these University people, I was like, reaching out to them. Janine Cooper Eithing and Michael Miller at the Art Institute, and, you know, the people down at UIC and elsewhere. And I said, 'Hey, you know, when your students leave your programs, they need somewhere to go.' There were no print shops in Chicago at the time, if you can believe it. And that was the thing because as I was looking for teaching jobs, I was also looking for a place that I could go print, and there was no place to print. So that's why I realized that this was the right thing, that Chicago needed it, and I've been doing it ever since. But the thing about these professors is they brought all their students for field trips, to see where they should go when they finished. And then I opened my doors and I was inundated by people wanting to print and I realized, okay, and all I did was turn right around and advertise, in that same Chicago Artist Coalition newsletter, that I had this shop open and everyone came for my first event and that was it. So it kind of was needed. It was needed here in the city. So I never went back. I taught all the classes at the beginning. All of them, you know, I taught litho, I taught etching, I taught - the only press I bought was the litho press, which was curious, that has a whole nother story of how I afford that one. It was just like, I mean, it's kind of a neat story. But um, you know, I taught all the classes and I did that for a long time until I slowly started to hire other people to teach the classes. You know, when I would meet an exquisitely talented teacher of printmaking, I would then hire that person to teach the class. So now I, you know, mostly administrate and work on my own work and that kind of stuff. But yeah, back then it was a lot different.  Yeah. So how did you come to get your litho press? 

Deborah Maris Lader  Oh, I'm so glad you asked. So, right before... I opened the shop in September of 1989. So I had started to put the shop together that summer. Actually, that summer is when I went to Tamarind for the summer. And I worked with Jeff Sippel on a course in plate lithography. And right before that, my grandmother had passed away and I was very close with her and she was always my champion and everything and she's just like one of those people, when everyone looks at you like, you know, thinking you're a dork, your grandmother comes to your rescue and says, 'No, you're not a dork!' You know, she was just lovely. And she passed away, which is really tough. And I had some tough times getting the shop together, you know, kind of all by myself. And you know, I kept thinking, oh, she's watching my back. And at some point, my dad called me up. And he said, 'Oh, your grandmother left us some money in her will.' And I had already done this budget for the studio. Exactly what I would need to buy a new litho press. As I love litho, and I wanted to make sure I could do litho in the new shop. And I basically needed 10 grand, both to buy it and get it here. Now I think those presses are a lot more now. I'm definitely dating myself. But my dad calls me out of the blue, he says 'Your grandmother left you some money,' and of course it's the last thing I was thinking about. I just missed her, I didn't even think about wills and all that kind of garbage. But I said 'Well, how much is it?' And he said 'It was 10 grand.' And I said 'That's just meant to be,' you know. 'That is what I'm spending that money on.' And that is exactly what I did. And I got a brand new Takach Garfield litho press. And I'd already, because I was at Tamarind, I had already, you know, seeing the Takach factory and met Dave Sr. and all that and looked at those presses, saw how they're machined by hand in that space. Love, still love those guys. They're incredible, that whole family and the business they run. But anyway, so they sent me a press. And I took the whole thing apart and walked it up a two story walk up to get into the space. I know, doesn't that sound frightening? I swore I'd never do it again, and then I did it twice more. But I really know how to take those presses apart and put it back together. I've gotten very good at that. Unfortunately. Again, this is our final resting place of that Takach, hopefully. So that's how I got the litho press. And I called her Edith, it's a she, of course. And so Edith, I'm looking at her right now, and she is very regal with that big bar sticking up in the air and we have a teacher, Melody Vaughan right now, is teaching somebody how to do litho on it right this very minute. So I love it.

Miranda Metcalf  I love it. Well, yeah, that was certainly meant to be. 

Deborah Maris Lader  Yeah. So I think about her all the time. 

Miranda Metcalf  That's great. So how did you come to printmaking out of all the arts? You said you're a musician as well, so you have that side of your creative output. But how did you find printmaking? So I intentionally did not go to art school. I wanted to get a real well rounded kind of, you know, education in the liberal arts. So I ended up at Cornell University in upstate New York. I think I went there because it was the furthest away from where my parents could come visit me. But I did like it there a lot. Anyway, so I end up at Cornell, to get a - I always thought, you know, art's about life, not about art, so I didn't want to be too enmeshed in art initially, even though I knew  from the get go, I was going to be an artist. And I actually started out in sculpture. So I did a lot of metal welding and wood sculpture and stone and kind of the gamut. But I really loved to draw and I was really missing drawing, and I had never taken a printmaking class until I was at Cornell, and so I took my first printmaking class and I thought, oh my god, this is - I love the material of sculpture. And I, you know, was making things on stone and I was carving things in wood, and I was working in metal. And so printmaking kind of was the perfect marriage of the love of those materials and the physicality of it, along with a love of drawing. So for me, it was about that. And also, the process of printmaking is very aligned to the way I think about art making. Lots of layers, lots of sort of things laying on top of other things, you know, the process being a little bit separated in its parts. And I never looked back. I loved printmaking from that very first class. And then I learned all the different printmaking methods, spent a lot of time on each of them over the years. And I just love the way prints look, too, and what it does with the drawing process. And I learned from some incredible teachers, and I don't know, I was tagged. I don't know how to describe it. Yeah, and I'm always learning. Yeah, that's definitely something that printmaking offers, is it just continues to unfold with new techniques and new tricks and new people. And it really is - it keeps on giving, for sure. Yeah, yeah, and we've definitely evolved. I've evolved, you know, as an artist, obviously, but also our shop has evolved over the years. And when I first started the studio, we did not offer screen printing. We offered that about five years in. And it was just because it wasn't quite on my radar. I mean, I did learn it. I went to grad school at Cranbrook for printmaking. But I, you know, just dabbled in screen printing, I didn't really learn screen printing until later. I offered it here. But it was just the beginning of when people were switching over from oil based to water based. And then eventually, I started really using it in my own work and appreciating it much more. And the accessibility of screen printing is very nice for our students, so we have a lot of interest in it still. But yeah, I mean, that's just one way how we've evolved in, like you said, lots of new techniques and nontoxic alternatives and those sorts of things. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about that balance of your own practice where it's being, you know, Mrs. Chicago Printmakers Collaborative as well? And that's quite a feat.

Deborah Maris Lader  Juggle. I know. So I have also two boys. So I raised them here in the shop, basically, just threw a pair of overalls on them and just let them crawl over the floor to clean up the floor. 'Okay, go clean the floor. Try not to eat anything.' You know, it was hysterical. But a lot of us had babies in the shop. I mean, I was maybe the first, but honestly, all these printmakers started showing up with these big bellies, and then they'd pop out these kids and they would come to the shop, too. It's sort of like my dog now. Who's laying here right next to me being very good - You're being very good. So yeah, I mean, so I had these two kids. And of course, that's a lot of work. And there were times where I think the juggling of everything was pretty tough. I didn't actually join my band until my kids were sort of like six and seven. So, I mean, I always played music. But you know, it was kind of thing I mostly did it once in a while or practiced at home and that kind of thing. So with the band that, again, was another commitment. But as they, as the kids became more independent, then, you know, I was actually able to fill in my schedule with - I do a lot, you know, I definitely do a lot. I have a lot of energy. And people kind of kid me about it. This dog's been good, because it's like, she lowers my blood pressure a little bit. I actually know how to calm down, rest a little bit more than usual. But yeah, I am always working on something. So when I do have time to work on my own work, which is really important to me, I do and I'm pretty good at doing lots of things at once. So, you know, I may come in to do administrative work at the Collaborative or fix something. I mean, a typical day could be, oh, gotta fix the litho slab, oh, there's a light flickering, and fix that, need to make phone calls, need to sit on the computer and get an email out, do a little social media, work on my own work for an hour or two, go back to the other things. I mean, I am always working and sometimes I'll go home late at night and keep working on the computer stuff and the social media stuff until, like, two in the morning. So I'm kind of consumed by it, but I think I wouldn't have it any other way. And I think when people say 'I want to, you know, I want to start a print shop, can you talk to me about that?' And I'm like, 'Are you crazy?' But, and you know, cuz, you know, your husband does this, um, you know, they have to, it has to be the right person who's willing to put in those hours. And there have been times where it's been really tough. Or my family needs me more. And I do like to see my husband once in a while, absolutely. But, you know, he knew who he married. So we both love our work, so it's been pretty nice. Yeah. I mean, it's a juggle, and you know, and then just staying healthy. And I do love to be outdoors. I think we talked about that at one point, I love to, you know, exercise and be outside and do other things as well. Yeah, so kind of try to juggle it all. But I don't feel like - I'm not the kind of person that has to spend a full day doing just this, and then a whole day doing just that, like, I love you know, oh, I want to make sure I can work for a couple hours today, which is what I just did before, you know, interviewing with you, and then I will keep scraping, then I'll walk the dog home. And then I'll maybe do some social media stuff and get the email out about the small print shop. So, you know, kind of constant, you know, but it's okay. I love that my kids kind of grew up, you know, being on tour with a band or living in the print shop. Like the dog is now.

Miranda Metcalf  No, that's wonderful. Yeah. And seems like it's definitely something that, you know, it was like you said, you were sort of tagged with it. And it's once you have it... you know, like with Tim [Pauszek], if he had his way, he'd be in a studio from 8am to midnight, every day. And that's just it. And he doesn't mind, you know, not ever watching an episode of Game of Thrones ever or even knowing what that is. Tell him, I'm his partner in not watching Game of Thrones ever. Because I think I saw a half of an episode once. I would like to watch Game of Thrones someday, but...  And I think that that's it is that, you know, and I've experienced that a bit, and I think I'm sure I will more as as my project and as our lives together and our want to start our own print shop comes to fruition, that I will much be more of that person that's like, 'I hear television is really good these days. Haven't seen it.'

Deborah Maris Lader  I know, I know. It's funny, because I have like this whole ritual where I like get my news in the morning early, you know, when I get up, and - and that's not that early in the morning. And, you know, so I'm informed about what's going on. And we get the New York Times every day and all that but yeah, I mean, it's definitely... I love this - there was a moment when I moved out of the old space into the new one three years ago, where I could have just said, 'Enough, you know, I just want to work on my own work.' That was something my husband said, 'Don't just want to do your own work all the time?' And that sounded kind of amazing in some ways. And I thought about it, and I realized that I really love running this workshop. And you know, where you you make the lists, and you say, 'Well, what do I not like? What do I do like? You know, what would I... How would...' you know, I'm 57 years old. So you know, I'm not a spring chicken, but I'm also not old. So I'm kind of right in there. And I could make that decision. And I thought, no, everything about the shop is something I want to keep doing. I just love it. I love, you know, gathering the artwork from all over the world of brilliant artists to show here in the gallery. I love the students who walked through the doors every night of the week. I mean, I just like it all. So I could have not done it, and I chose to, so that must say something. 

Miranda Metcalf  Absolutely, and you know, you're talking about coming out of the studio feet first in the end. I mean, that's the sort of thing that Tim and I talk about. And I think, you know, with our generation - I'm sort of a borderline millennial and Tim, being eight years younger, I think is a full-fledged millennial - you know, we don't have an expectation of having a retirement, really, you know, that idea of like, you know, you can make investments and then at a certain age you stop working. And so with that in mind, it's like, well, we just want to keel over dead in the shop, then. We may as well do something that that we love, and that sort of sacrifice of doing something you hate for 40 years for doing things that you're okay with for 20 just doesn't exist for us. 

Deborah Maris Lader  No. And, you know, we talk about, my husband and I talk about, you know, we have all these friends who are retiring early, and I'm like, I don't even know what that means. I mean, I really, I realized that what I've been doing my whole life is what people do when they retire, you know? Make art and make music and, you know, play with my dog and go on a bike ride. So we're kind of like, living the life, you know, and he loves architectural work. He loves designing buildings. So I think we'll just do it till we're, like I said, feet first out the door. And that's great. You can wheel me out on the press, it's fine. Put wheels on the bottom of the thing and, you know, wheel me down Western Avenue. There's a funeral home right up the street, it's perfect. You know, I just, I think it's gonna be the way it goes. And I might feel at some point that I, you know, we want [to retire, but I think probably someday people will be saying] 'Oh, that's the shop that old lady runs.' But, you know, we'll get there when we get there.

Miranda Metcalf  I love it. So I think sort of with that in mind, I'd love to wrap up. What's coming, what's in the future for CPC that you're looking forward to, where do you want it to be in in 10 years and all of that, sort of future looking things?

Deborah Maris Lader  Well, there's something - if there's something I've learned along the way, both from my colleagues who run shops and who have run shops, I don't have any plans to expand the studio, I have a great, beautiful, brand new for the most part, you know, three year old studio that's customized for what we do well. I don't have that feeling like I need to go find a warehouse space off the beaten path. I feel like the size is right and manageable. And as I get older, and as the studio gets older, I want to always be that place where, you know, you want to do something the best it can be, you know, you're going to go to Chicago Printmakers Collaborative for printmaking. And so you know, we run a very professional, tight knit, tight ship shop, and - try to say that fast. And so in that sense, that's gonna be pretty much the course in terms of, you know, my plan for it. On the other hand, we, over the past, I would say, 10 years, really became more and more global in scale in the sense that the art we bring in, and the artists we bring in, are a lot more international, especially as I travel and meet new people, and they come here, we probably will start a more formalized visiting artist program, maybe kind of with some sort of accommodation aspect to it. So that's another program we're working on, we're still working on having an online gallery on our website, that should launch next year. We are continuing, you know, to partner with new great organizations to put on events. I think, in the future, I probably will expand the steamroller event because it's become very popular and it might be a good thing to do more in the neighborhood in some big Plaza or something. So kind of improving and expanding on the things that we already do. And, you know, maybe doing some more publishing, we are right now working with Tony Fitzpatrick on a series of etchings. So we continue to do a little bit more of that.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, Tony's wonderful. He told me one of the nicest things that I've ever heard here, when he heard I was leaving Davidson, he called me and he thanked me for all the work I've done for him and he said that he hopes I stay in this game, because I dignify it, is the word he used. 

Deborah Maris Lader  Oh, I just got chills! That is so perfect!

Miranda Metcalf  Right? It made me, like, I completely teared up on the other end of the phone when he said that, I was like, Tony!

Deborah Maris Lader  Well, you know, he is he is such a wordsmith. And that is just the perfect thing. But it's true, Miranda, you do, and I'm glad he said it better than I could. But it is true and working with Tony is a lot of fun. We really enjoy his presence around here.

Miranda Metcalf  Well can you tell the people where they can find you and find Chicago Printmakers Collaborative and find out more about you?

Deborah Maris Lader  Find us on the website at chicagoprintmakers.com. You can find us on Instagram @chicagoprintmakers. You can find us on Facebook, of course, just look us up. My Instagram is @debmarislader. And my band, just in case anyone was curious, is called Sons of the Never Wrong. And we are at sonsoftheneverwrong.com.

Miranda Metcalf  Thank you so much. You've been so generous with your time and chatting with me and thank you and I will be in touch.

Deborah Maris Lader  Awesome. Thank you so much. Have a great night - or more of the day. We're having a great night, you're having a great day. We're halfway around the world from each other. That's amazing.

Miranda Metcalf  Definitely. And that's our show for this week. Take a look in the show notes for any links that may have piqued your interest. Otherwise, I'll see you in two weeks. This episode was written and produced by me, Miranda Metcalf, with editing by Timothy Pauszek and music by Joshua Webber. See you soon print friends!