episode twenty-five | reinaldo gil zambrano

Published 16 October 2019

Miranda Metcalf  Hello print friends, and welcome to the 25th episode of Pine Copper Lime (Hello, Print Friend), the internet's number one printmaking podcast. I'm your host, Miranda Metcalf. I release an episode every two weeks, and on the off weeks, I publish an article on the Pine Copper Lime website, which features images and maybe a bit more information about the artist I'm going to interview. 25. That is a quarter of a century in podcast episodes! It really makes a girl think. And truly, I've spent this past week thinking about how grateful I am for the reception of PCL this past year. But I'm sure there will be much more of that in a long, mushy soliloquy next week for our one year anniversary episode. Don't you worry. I was delighted to see new Patreon supporters sign up this week. Again, you know who you are, and that you are my heroes. Truly amazing. Just let me know if you ever need a ride to the airport, someone to read over your grant proposal, or to be your lover's lover's alibi. You know where to find me. I'm on Instagram at @helloprintfriend. Also, I want to give a little love this week to those of you supporting the podcast in other ways, like telling friends, forcing your students to listen, or leaving reviews on your podcast app of choice, like this one from waterpaint on the iTunes podcast app: "Listening to Miranda's interviews is like stopping in for a chat and a tour of small print shops around the world. Listening to artists talk about their background, process, inspiration, and goals is fascinating and gets the creative ideas flowing. Subscribe now, you won't regret it." Ah! You guys are the best. My guest this week is Reinaldo Gil Zambrano. He's a community builder, lecturer, printmaker, storyteller, and printmaking advocate. We talk about his childhood growing up in Caracas, Venezuela, when he left home at 16 to study in Costa Rica, learning about illustration as visual communication, and finding a sense of home through all of these changes. We also talk about the amazing things he's doing to build a spectacular printmaking community in his new hometown of Spokane, Washington. Oh, and you best believe we'll be doing a double release on this one. So stay tuned for the Spanish version of this episode coming out in the next few days. But for now, sit back, relax, and prepare for some top notch storytelling with Reinaldo Zambrano. Hey, Reinaldo, how's it going? 

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Oh, hello, Miranda. How are you doing? 

Miranda Metcalf  I'm good. I'm good. How are things in Spokane?

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Things in Spokane are great. And I cannot be happier of how exciting this city is becoming.

Miranda Metcalf  Wonderful. I can't wait to learn about that, because I grew up in Washington State. And we'll definitely dive into it. But Spokane when I was a kid, in the '90s, was something that you'd just see on Cops, the TV show. But I really have been hearing great things about that growing scene with the arts community and people building things. So I would love to hear about that a little bit later on. So I know your work really just from seeing you around the internet, and we definitely have some mutual friends in common. But for people who aren't familiar with you, why don't you just kind of let people know the who you are, where you are, and what you do questions.

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Yeah, well, my name is Reinaldo Gil Zambrano. I am a printmaking artist and educator from Caracas, Venezuela. I grew up in Caracas. I went to school there until I was 16 years old, I moved to Costa Rica, and then somehow I continued moving to go to school and I ended up in Idaho. So then after that, I got married in in Moscow, Idaho, and then I moved to Spokane, where I currently work and live. I teach out of Eastern Washington University and I also produce my work out of the Spokane Print and Publishing Center currently. And I specialize in relief printing in large and small scale and also intaglio printing.

Miranda Metcalf  Beautiful. So you said that you were born in Venezuela and you grew up there, and how old were you when you moved away?

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  So yeah, so I grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, and I moved the first time out of the country, I was 16 years old. When I got a scholarship to go to the United World Colleges that were located in Costa Rica. And that was the first time moving out of the house by myself and living in a different country.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah. And at 16. That's pretty young. Tell me a little bit about what role art played in your life when you were growing up.

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Yeah. Well, since I remember, I always loved to draw. I was always drawing on the walls of my parents' apartment, where I grew up, I was drawing on my notebooks, I was pretty much drawing everywhere since I remember. Always trying to copy my favorite cartoons, like Digimon, like Dragon Ball, and all that. But also my mom, she pretty much brought me a lot of children's books that this artist from Venezuela, Rosanna Faria, who I really admire, she illustrated them, and they really shaped me. I learned how to read through illustrative books. And I grew up fascinated about the storytelling that they can carry, like how these images somehow open the imagination and reinforce the message that is later on written. I grew up fascinated with that. And I always wanted to become a children's book illustrator, actually. And when I went to school, I was pursuing that. But my parents always were really encouraging. And they supported me a lot. They always bought me charcoals or temperas or acrylic paint. And they even allowed me to paint my walls and everything growing up. So I was really lucky to have parents like that that just allowed me to explore my visual language, and later on, that got refined when I moved out.

Miranda Metcalf  What was it like to leave the house at 16 and move away and start something like that?

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Oh, it was amazing. So in Venezuela, the biggest industry is the oil industry. So everybody back then wanted to be an engineer or a chemical engineer, everything related to the oil industry, or a doctor, or a lawyer. So there was not a lot of opportunities for the arts somehow where I grew up. So my parents talked to me, and they said, 'Well, you know, you're gonna go and do the science bachelor, you're gonna get your high schooling [in] science, and then you can do whatever you want.' So I went to school that was more related to the science, and I got my ass kicked with biology, with chemistry, and physics and all that, but I survived. But even when I was doing all this stuff that I didn't want to do, I was always drawing, doing projects inside my class, and painting pictures for people, or painting backdrops for theater, plays and all that stuff. So then I was getting ready to become the worst architect ever, because that was the idea, that I was going to study that in Venezuela. Because it was related to art somehow, I guess. And then when I got the scholarship to go to Costa Rica to the United World College there, it just opened up so many opportunities. I went there, and it was an opportunity to study art. And also, that was the moment that somehow I discovered that I could use my illustration or my visual narrative as a way to communicate myself or my ideas. Because this school, there were 75 people from 72 different countries. And I didn't speak English at the moment, or French, [which] were the main languages there besides Spanish. So it was great. That was the main moment that I realized the potential that illustration or drawings or art had to somehow create those links between people and also find those common grounds between all of us, even when we were coming from different backgrounds. Even beyond the limitations of our language, we were able to somehow share and find these common experiences and share them and laugh and become friends. So that was definitely the best two years of my life, 16 to 18, when I was in this school.

Miranda Metcalf  I love that. You've painted such an amazing story there about all of these kids from all over the world coming together, and the way that you can communicate, if you can't use words, is through visual communication. I think that's an incredible experience to have, particularly at that age, when it really will be so affecting, I think. That's so wonderful.

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Exactly. Yeah. That was really eye opening. It somehow reinforced what I knew before, so it was great. Yeah.

Miranda Metcalf  So then how did you come from illustration to printmaking?

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  I was in undergrad, and I had a printmaking class with an artist, Matt Bodett, who is a printmaker now out of Chicago. But that class didn't really resonate that much. I remember that I did the process, but I didn't really follow through. But it wasn't until I went to grad school. And in my first year there at the University of Idaho, I met this guy called Tim Khan, who is a fellow classmate. And then he showed me, because I was doing these large drawings, charcoal drawings. And then he told me, 'Hey, have you tried relief printing?' I was like, 'Yeah, I think so. But not really. I didn't get really into that.' So he showed me Korean wood blocks, a bunch of prints he brought from Korea. And he gave me my first tool, that I still use, and a block of MDF. And he told me, 'You should probably try, because it feels that you're trying to somehow make in your drawings this graphic quality that is possible to get through a relief.' So I just started drawing in the block, and I carved this really crappy drawing of a fish with a gas mask, which has been this thing that I have been doing forever, that now became the icon of my print shop. So yeah, so I did that thing, and I would say, 'Okay, this is fine.' It took me a while. And then when I printed, that was the moment. When they pulled that print, somehow I just got hooked on it. My professor at the moment, Mike Sonnichsen from the University of Idaho, he told me, 'Yeah, man, you just got into the dark side of printmaking. That's what happens.' 

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, he saw the look in your eye and was like, 'Oh, no, he's another lifer.' Yeah. 

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Exactly. He was just looking at me like, 'Oh, yeah.' 

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, I know that look. Yeah.

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Exactly. And that's how I got into it. That was in 2014, and I have been printing since then. And discovering more, studying more, and getting to know more people. And it's been fascinating.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah. And so it seems like now, you mostly do relief. Have I seen litho recently coming out of your studio? Is that your work as well?

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Yes. So what happened is, I got invited by Gregory Santos. So yeah, it's been great, because I did some litho out of the University of Idaho. But you know, all the equipment and all that, I haven't really done it that much. I did some pronto plates after I took a workshop with Professor Kevin Haas during the Spokane Print Fest. Then I did that Mixed Grit project, and now I'm looking forward to receiving those prints back and seeing how that turned out. So Gregory Santos got me again into that process.

Miranda Metcalf  Beautiful. Outside of that little foray into litho, it sounds like relief is your main - 

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Yes, yes. 

Miranda Metcalf  How would you just generally describe your current practice?

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  I have been just diving into narrative... I mean, so I need to go back a little bit. And I know that this might be a long answer, but I'm going to try to summarize. So the idea of Latin America in general, especially Venezuela - I mean, Latin America in general - I grew up in an environment [where] telling stories is our daily thing. That is like the trade that you get when you bring people to your table. When you bring new family members or friends to your table to eat, you will always share a story. That was the thing that I loved the most growing up. So that storytelling is something that I keep celebrating through my work. So I pretty much am a sponge. I establish conversation with people around me through music, also through reading, or just buying a casual beer, or you know, we're in Washington, so possibly a joint or maybe coffee, stuff like that, and then those stories somehow start to grow in my head, and then I develop those into an additional narrative into my blocks, that they become more and more intricate the more that I draw them. And then I allow them to evolve using my carving tool and become with a different mark making that my drawing cannot fully render. So the mark making of the tool just gives them an extra physical appearance that later on is reinforced by the printing. So basically, they're just visual narratives that tell a story in just one frame so far, and they go beyond the limitations of the written language. So they're wordless. Usually, they are big, because I just enjoy working large, it gives me more freedom of using my body language on my mark making when I draw. And also, I just love, because I'm fascinated with murals, so I just love work that can somehow absorb you. And so that's basically what I have been doing so far. And I have been playing also with color and also pushing that boundary of like, okay, prints are usually black and white, and they tend to be flat. However, after I studied under Tom Huck, he was always telling us, 'You need to push dimension.' So that's when you start doing the diamond cuts and things like that to develop mid tones in order to create a sense of depth into that two dimensionality. So it's basically that, doing all those different approaches in order to make an immersive narrative. That's basically what I like to do.

Miranda Metcalf  I'd love to hear you speak a little bit more to this idea of the visual language transcending verbal communication. Because as somebody who, we talked a little bit about before, my background is in philosophy of art originally. And so I love that idea. And I've got all kinds of my own theories about it. But it's something I really believe in. So I'd love to just do a little bit more of a deep dive into what you think that really means and what advantages visual communication has, and what exactly can it get at that we're lacking in verbal communication?

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Yeah, I feel that it happens, when we get to know each other, when we get to meet people, we just see the external part, right, we see their faces. And this is something that I explore also in my series of inner portraits, where I just play with the face to be a mask. And then the body is just created by all these different stories or bodies or other elements that somehow expose the inner world of the person. So when that happens, you make those connections with others that somehow get limited to the cultural backgrounds of the people and also their faces or their language. So this is an experience that happened to me in undergrad when I did this really large drawing for an installation for my undergrad show, I did the barrios from Venezuela, which are the favelas, or slums, with a sunset. And I draw them, and then one lady from Palestine came, and she was like, 'Oh, that's exactly where I come from.' So that was like, wow! And there was something else that happened when I was in Costa Rica, I drew this series of fruits that had the zipper, and they were somehow connecting, 'Oh, that's exactly like the fruit that we have back home,' because they have all these genetic modifications and stuff like that. So I noticed that when you have images, when you have stories that are just visual, somehow make those connections, and they go beyond that limitation that maybe the cultural background can create, and people will just associate them with their personal experience and open up those stories and create that dialogue with them. So that's something that I feel is just so important that I want to keep exploring in my work. I have one of my pieces that is called "La Sopa," or the soup, like my mom used to say, "Como Decia Mama." It's a bowl of soup, and the bowl of soup is a barrio, a city, coming out from it. And it's great to see, because that is a piece that talks about memories and being able to transport yourself when you eat, it's something that just resonates with you and reminds you of your childhood. But I mean, I have heard so many people looking at that and just getting into their own personal experiences, and telling us about how maybe they associate it with social issues that happened to them before, and also to specific dishes that they used to eat when they were kids, and they can assimilate that, or even pollution or issues like that that [are] related to how food is modified and it's been affecting people in a different way. I feel that there is something very important there. Because my visual work comes from, I mean, many things are coming from my background from Venezuela, but also experiences from here, and also experiences from Costa Rica, and all the other stories that are somehow becoming part of my work, like the people that I get to know around here, too. So all those things come together into this pot and become part of a visual narrative that, later on, they can also find themselves identify with.

Miranda Metcalf  Right, and I think that what you're touching on, which is really significant, when it comes to the visual versus verbal communication, is that verbal communication is so, in a way, prescriptive. So I'm imbuing the meaning as the communication is happening in this way that becomes really specific. And it's like, I'm telling you what this means. And I think that we're so focused on just understanding when somebody's talking to us that, while we obviously take it and process it, there's not that same kind of intimacy that happens when you're looking at visual communication and it hits you all at once. It's not linear in its narrative. You see the whole image, and then you bring to it, you come to it halfway with your own experiences to form the meaning. And that is where it happens. And I'm sure that arguments could be made that short stories and that sort of thing, people bring it, and not to downplay that experience in written arts, but there's something about visual communication, it becomes so personal that people tend to really bring their own baggage to it, but not in a negative way.

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Yeah, and sometimes that communication is a feeling. They just have this feeling inside that they don't know how to explain. They just get it. And that's the thing, sometimes I feel that that visual narrative produces this kind of reaction in some people that, we know exactly how they're feeling, but we don't know how to explain it or put it into words, because as you say, they can limit it somehow.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, somehow, words make people feel specific, and images make people feel broad and inclusive, in a way. And I wonder if it has to do with the fact that there's a little bit of separation from the creator in a visual language. So you know, if I'm just standing in front of you and I'm telling you a story, I'm a specific entity in that communication. Whereas if I created an image, and then you're seeing it on a gallery wall, I'm not there. So it really feels like there's this communication that's almost strictly happening between the object that's created and the perceiver, that maybe that's part of what allows it to go. So it's beautiful. And that kind of universality that allows is one of the very best things about visual communication.

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  But now, currently, I have been exploring also collaborating with writers. 

Miranda Metcalf  Ooh, tell us about that. 

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  So I have been recently experimenting with collaborations with writers. I did a collaboration with Luke Baumgarten, who is a local writer. So I gave him one of my pieces for him to react, and then he gave me one of his written pieces. And then we just reacted to it. He wrote a short story about my piece, and I did an illustration, or a print, a relief print, about his work. And then we put them together into a show. And we just realized all the common things that we had. Me growing up in Venezuela, and him growing up out of a small town here in Spokane, and how we have this common experience with magical realism, even when our cultures are so different. So that was great. And then I did this collaboration with Sharma Shields. We were 16 different artists from Spokane, we took several different parts of a poem, actually it was a short story, that she wrote called [Witch Lake], and then we just reacted and we found also these common grounds into magical realism too. And it was just great. And it just makes me wonder about what else can happen there if we continue collaborating, and just allowing people to write about these illustrations, and also me illustrating these ones, and see what else can evolve from there. Finding all these different common points between two different cultures. To consider they're so opposite, but somehow have something in common, which is this idea of explaining or telling or sharing these extraordinary events in a way that is just ordinary, it happens around us, like magical realism celebrates. So yeah, that's something that I feel that we're gonna be doing more pretty soon too. So that's another way to also explore my own work. 

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, I'd love to hear you speak to magical realism specifically a little bit, because I know it does come into play in your work. I've heard the phrase but only really know what it means kind of in a vague way. So I'd love to explore it really in context of your imagery, or within your collaboration, or whatever you think is best?

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Yeah, sure. So I was having this conversation with one of my good friends called Luis Reyes, he's a writer and anthropologist from Peru. We met in the United World College in Costa Rica. We were talking about magical realism and how that is so embedded in Latin America, the way that we tell stories. We just take something that is so common, but we give [something] extra to it. There is a sense of hyperbole, but there is also a sense of narrative and enthusiasm and just a little bit of exaggeration, too, to make it memorable. So those things can prevail and defy time and just continue living forever. So for example, we have this moment that happened, one of my cousins ran through a glass door once when we were kids. And that's something that my family still continues talking [about]. But I just love the way that the people in my family tell that story. You can just envision in your head this group of kids walking or running into a slow motion. And then there was this hit that sounded like thunder, that made everybody in the house shake, and everybody just turned around, and they started getting that feeling inside, in their backs. And then this kid just goes through and all the glass was spread out [like] pieces of candy everywhere from a pinata that no one wants to eat, right? And then this kid will jump, and then what happened is he just recovered from this hit that everybody was just so scared that he actually might die from. And he surprisingly has just two cuts behind his knees. He defied death in that moment, and now that became that memorable moment that made him a hero in our family. It's just the way that people tell stories and they embody them. And they just get so into it. And the storyteller becomes part of the story too, and then they just illustrate all that into your head. The stories become - they're common things, they're common characters - but they become bigger than life. And they resonate in our memory forever. So I feel that that's something that just makes commonality become extraordinary. That's something that I want to give back in my work, too. I want to be also using printmaking not only as a community building tool and education tool, but also as a storytelling tool that keeps these stories alive forever. I'll give them beyond those languages that cannot be written on, the stories that I don't know how to write about. I don't know how to write it in English or Spanish, so I just make it into an image, and they can prevail and continue being spread after that.

Miranda Metcalf  I think that's a wonderful illustration. So I think that might be a good transition to my next question, actually, which is that I feel like the idea of home comes up a lot in your work and seems sort of central to part of what you do. Would you say that that's accurate? And if so, would you speak to it a little bit?

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Definitely, yeah, my work also explores the universal idea of home. What exactly it means. Is home... because I have been moving so much, it makes me wonder what exactly it is. Is it the place where I grew up? Is it the house? Is it the material parts? Or is it the people around me? So since I first moved out of my parents' house when I was 16, I have been trying to find that. And I have been realizing that it's a combination of things. It's like this world. When there's a specific space, time, all the different elements that just come together into that specific time and place, they become that world. And that world becomes later on home. There is the inner home that we all carry inside ourselves that we can share with people eventually. And there is also the external home that is the specific time and place where we are growing or becoming the person that we are in the future, right, when we're growing. So yeah, it's just amazing to see how adaptable we are as human beings and how we can find these places that we just feel comfortable, and we can nurture our own selves. So I felt like that when I was growing up with my parents, and that's a home that I always can come back [to] when I go and visit them. There is something missing, but it's still there. In Costa Rica, it felt like home too, surrounded by 72 different strangers that later on became family. And now the whole world has these different portraits or these different faces that I recognize because all my friends are from different parts of the world. And then going to Idaho, I called that place home too, and when I came to Spokane, now this is my home. And when I went to Mexico, I had the opportunity to also find a home in these places where I can find these common things with other people, even when our cultures are so different. So I found that fascinating. And that's something that I always ask people about. And it's great to see the way that they interpret those experiences and how they somehow build that space where they feel comfortable. And they fulfill themselves and they bring other people into their family and they become this extended family that goes beyond blood restrictions, you know?

Miranda Metcalf  That's really hitting home for me, having been in Australia for the last year. As far away from home that I've ever been, to paraphrase a hobbit. And that kind of... the physical space versus the internal or emotional space of home. To quote one of my podcasting heroes, Esther Perel, she always says that the quality of your life is the quality of your relationships. And I think that that's something that is so true, and that I've really found more so after having left the states, and having left that beautiful, incredible community that I had in Seattle. And you know, as you say, we live in a time where we can have family throughout the world, chosen family and blood family. And there is a sense of comfort and kind of wonder in that. But having a home where you are is also really important as well. And that has to come from the relationships that you have where you are.

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Yeah, and it's beautiful. Because it's that moment when you actually go out of your place, the place that you grew up, and you immerse yourself into a different culture, when you start identifying or realizing these things that make you you. And also it makes you realize how influenced you are from the place where you grew up. Like I feel that the fact that I went out of Venezuela, it allowed me to really rediscover my own culture and really understand what it means to be Venezuelan. And then when I go back, I can also celebrate those moments, too, because I can identify them, I can share it with people, and I can point out those things to them. And somehow we can honor them all together. So yeah, I totally get what you mean.

Miranda Metcalf  Speaking of Venezuela, can you tell us a little bit about printmaking in Venezuela? And if there's a strong community, the tradition there, I realized I don't really know much about it. 

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Yeah, I mean, me neither. Which is great. So this is what happened. So I was writing my thesis from when I was doing my grad school, my Master's in Fine Arts at U of I, and I was just trying to find information about printmaking in Venezuela, and I couldn't find anything on the internet. It was like, 'Whoa, is this something that's not happening, or what?' So I haven't met any printmakers from Venezuela. But then when I went back home, my hero, Rosanna Faria, the illustrator that I love, she sent me an invitation to apply to a show in this printmaking shop called TAGA in Caracas that I'd never heard about. So I sent my work. And then when I went back to Venezuela in June, I was like, 'Wow, I really need to see where this place is, because I never heard anything about that.' So I went, and the outside was still being built and stuff, and when I walked inside, Miranda, that was... It just like, opened up my eyes, and it was like a little kid at Christmas. It was this beautiful atelier that, I mean, it's just amazing, the equipment there. They have Charles Brand, they have all these amazing presses, for lithography, for relief, also screenprinting, and all these things. And it's a beautiful house that Luisa Palacios put together a while ago, that now is run by master printmaker Norma Morales. They just show me around, and it was amazing, because I couldn't believe that Venezuelans were not making prints, you know, I couldn't find it. But then when I saw that, it just hit me. We have a really rich history also in printmaking, it's just that for the last 30 years people haven't really [written] about [it]. So that's why they don't know. So when I went there, and they saw my enthusiasm - I mean, because I was just so excited about getting to see my people there. So we got there, and we printed and stuff, we just talked about it, and they gave me a bunch of catalogs and they showed me their collection. And it was great to see me in that space surrounded by all my heroes from Venezuela. All the most important artists from Venezuela, in a period of their careers, they went to that print shop and did some printmaking. You can see works by Venezuelan artist Gego, Alerio Palacios, and it's just amazing. And Norma Morales. So it was great to find that connection. And then it just makes you, it personally makes me excited. I mean, there is that gap. We haven't told our story to the world about printmaking in Venezuela. And now might be the moment to do so. Because when I go to SGCI, I see the Mexican printmaking being represented, I see the American printmaking being represented, I see maybe some of the European artists also showing there, but then like, what about this tiny country? There is a rich [culture] there in printmaking, too, that hasn't had their voice [represented]. So that's something that I'm looking to contribute, and also to help out, to bring that Venezuelan narrative of printmaking into the world to see, especially here in the United States, too. So that's something that I'm looking forward to, to go back and continue developing some research with this printmaking shop. It was amazing. I'm still very excited about it.

Miranda Metcalf  I can hear it. I love it. And so do they have like an Instagram or anything that people could follow?

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Yes. So the Instagram is @tallertaga. One of our biggest artists, who is Carlos Cruz-Diez, who recently died, he also had printed there. So it was just amazing to know that all the different artists that I always loved, somehow in a period of their time, they were all there in that space producing work. 

Miranda Metcalf  What a great connection. I love it. Well, I'll definitely, like I said, I'll link to that so people can follow them, and looking forward to seeing any research or anything that you end up producing, or portfolios, let me know and I'd love to help share it because that sounds like... we want to know what's happening. It sounds like really good stuff.

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Thank you. And at this point, I would like to thank you for doing this, doing this podcast, because I feel that for printmaking to continue growing, and also for more people to appreciate it, there is this part of education, right, let them know what exactly the process is so then later on, they can appreciate the print. They can understand what it is in front of them, and they can appreciate it fully. So thank you for doing that through the podcast, and also bringing so many inspiring stories through this media and sharing them with us. Because it makes you feel that you're not alone, you know? Printmaking can be very solitary, right? Carving this piece of wood all day without no one. And then there's these beautiful moments of community when you print with other people, right? Like using the asphalt roller, or any other collaboration printing, and then you have that opportunity to make that connection and educate others about it. But thank you for doing this. Appreciate it.

Miranda Metcalf  Well, thank you for saying so. It's been my absolute pleasure. I think that on that note, I know that you're also a true believer like myself, and are about the proselytizing, spreading the gospel of print. And you've got a couple of ways that you're doing that in Spokane. And I would love to hear you talk about that. And so you've got Spokane Print Fest, but then you've also started a community shop there or something? Just tell me all the things that you're doing and what's happening in Spokane at the moment.

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Yeah, so I moved to Spokane, I realized when I was in my tiny apartment how spoiled I was when I was in the University of having the presses, everything, in order to make my work. So when I found myself on the floor of my kitchen carving a piece of linoleum, I was like, wow. I didn't realize how many materials were involved with - I mean, I knew about it, but somehow you don't think about them until you don't have them, right? So what it made me realize is that not everybody has access to these things. So that's why I applied for a grant for the Spokane Arts. And I got a grant to open what is called RGZ Prints, which is a small printmaking shop where I can do my work, but also to bring other people into the process and for other people to print. But when I was developing that idea, I got contacted by a group of artists also, and printmakers, in Millwood, which is really close to here in Spokane. They were like, 'Hey, we do letterpress and screenprinting. We want to move into downtown.' So we're like, 'Okay, maybe we should come together and do this thing, right?' And then we have our friend Derrick Freeland, who is an animator, illustrator, and also board game designer. He does all these... it's called Nerdcraft. So he also wanted to join us because he was looking for the space too. And then we have our friend Dorian, who is a master in bookbinding and publication. So all of us came together, found this space that Thom Caraway, one of the Millwood members, found. It's now this big space where we have all the presses for relief and intaglio, we have letterpress, and also we have screenprinting, publishing, board game design and illustration, digital printing, and bookbinding. So it's this space we put together to educate the community around Spokane, and also to open up for them to explore the process of printmaking. Because printmaking is limited to the universities. I mean, those are the ones that have the print shops. But now this one, you can become a member and you can explore and print and also understand the process. So that's something that's going on. We're offering classes, and it's going, it's running, we started in April, and it's going great. We're still developing fundraisers to expand our presses, so if you know anything about a press around the area right here, please let us know. So we're a nonprofit, we're just developing at this stage. And in the meantime, because education is such an important thing, and community, I believe strongly that printmaking is a community builder tool. So that's why we created this space, but also we have been doing events in association with other galleries to just keep bringing the community together and showing them what the potential of creating narratives can have in the community, right? So that's when that idea hit me of creating a Print Fest, the Spokane Print Fest, where as a viewer you can come to this space, and there [are] all these different people making demonstrations at the same time, printing live. And so you can see the demonstrations, you can see student work, and then you move into the gallery and you can see professional work that is the same techniques that you saw previously, but just somehow taken to a next level. So the whole event is to celebrate printmaking for a full month that educates people and introduces them to the process. So we did that the first day of the festival, and then every Saturday for the month of April, we were offering a different workshop in the gallery surrounded by this exhibition of prints from the region. And we have a workshop on relief, a workshop on lithography or pronto plates, one on monotypes, and one on intaglio. And there was Kevin Haas, Mary Farrell, and Margo Casstevens, and myself teaching these classes. So that whole event was such a success that we are doing it next year, we are incorporating more universities. We had so far this year, we had Gonzaga, we had University of Idaho, Washington State University, Emerge Gallery from Coeur d'Alene, Spokane Falls Community College, coming together. But next year, we're gonna be having the University of Montana coming all the way and representing, too, and we hope that this event continues growing, because we want to showcase students and also professional artists and educators at the same time and the same place. All of this to educate the people about the process, allow them to understand and enjoy what a print is, and they can be all part of making it, too. And they can explore the visual narratives and the visual language through this rich media. But later on, eventually, also develop our own market here in Spokane. So that's all the things that are happening right now that we're developing to somehow put Spokane on the map, because this is becoming a printing town, an art making town. This is no longer that city that people are like, 'Oh, you just go there to get stabbed,' no. This is a place where you come and you as a student who is coming out from all these different universities in the area, you now can stay here and you can produce your work and you can contribute to develop the artistic identity of this town. So that's what's happening here.

Miranda Metcalf  I love it. While you were talking about all the things that's going on, and what you're building there, you had a really beautiful turn of phrase that I'm not going to remember exactly, but it was basically about how printmaking is a tool for community building. And I think that there's something really significant in that kind of almost to just tie it all together in this way of, I think we know that we're in a time in human history when we're more connected than ever, but also more disconnected than ever. Where we have friends throughout the world who we met 20 years ago in art school, but we don't know our neighbors. We don't feel like we have someone in our town we could call when we're sick to just say, 'Hey, can you get me orange juice?' But I have 1500 Facebook friends. And I think in its own way, printmaking and the community around it is an antidote to that. It's a way that people, in the flesh, person-to-person, because that's the way printmaking has to happen, really forms bonds and broader reach and broader community that I think we so desperately need to live whole lives, is to feel that. And I think the success that you're experiencing, and the excitement that you have and that Spokane is having around print, speaks to that need and the wonderful way that our community and printmaking can address that. So you've made me so excited for print in Spokane, I love it.

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Yeah, good. Now you need to come and see it for yourself, with your own eyes.

Miranda Metcalf  I was just thinking that! I was like, 'Oh, I gotta go now!'

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Exactly. And especially coming from here, right? And also, you know, continuing that idea of community, all these different projects will not happen [without] the help of others. Like, the Print Fest, it was an idea that I had, but then I pitched in with one of the organizations here called Terrain, they helped out to make it happen. Then the Ink Rally that we do in Coeur d'Alane, we do it in association with the Emerge Gallery. And we just developed our first printmaking competition in the region where we're trying to motivate emerging artists and students to submit their work and also get gallery shows. Then the Spokane Print and Publishing Center we have been developing, the association, all the different people, the founders coming together, but also other organization like Spark Central. So these things, all these different things happen because we are able to ask for help. When we open up ourselves to ask for help for others, it's just amazing what happens. They are probably thinking something similar and they're willing to help you out. But what is happening here in Spokane, I feel, is everybody's so excited about what's going on, they're just so supportive. We do a new event and people are going there to see it. We do Spokane Print Fest, and they're gonna be there. A new brewery opens, some people are gonna be there. It's like they're embracing what is happening here, because they are feeling proud of what is being produced here. I feel that's another thing that community also makes.

Miranda Metcalf  And it all, in a broader social trend way, it all to me speaks to the decentralization of creative practice and the decentralization of power in this really great way. So it's not like, well, there are two galleries, and they're owned by rich white guys. And if they don't like you, people aren't seeing your work. Or there's one brewery, and if you're not in with that brewery, well then fuck off. It's just like, I think that people... more and more, I'm loving seeing this trend of creative capital, creative energy, all of that is flowing kind of outward, as people are seeking that to find something that feels like they can be a part of it. And it's such an exciting time to have that and to be people who, like you and I, are both people who are trying to build something. And it's such a beautiful time to be building something.

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Yeah, exactly. And it's just amazing to see when you do that. I mean, I'm gonna be talking about printmaking again, like you do this event, and you empower, you feel how the process empowers people, and they feel that they can tell their own stories, they can associate each other with other people and ask for help. But at the same time, they can take control of their own environment. They live here, and they can actually make something happen. They can build actively into their community. And that empowerment is what makes the biggest changes. And we are seeing that happening here. It's tangible. It's just great. Yeah, and it's not only me, it's not only us at the Spokane Print and Publishing Center, it's also the people from La Resistance, you know, doing their own thing, all the different chefs that are coming from here in Spokane and staying here to develop their ideas and creating things that are truly from the region. It's like that with our school teachers, happening with our students in Eastern Washington University, and all these things. It's just amazing.

Miranda Metcalf  I think that's the perfect note to end on. But before we sign off completely, would you please let people know where they can find you, follow you, learn about the wonderful print happenings in Spokane, all the things?

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  Well, so my personal Instagram is @rgzprints. And also I have my personal website which is reinaldogilzambrano.com. And Spokane Print and Publishing Center has its own Instagram, @spokaneprint. And also you can find us at spokaneprint.org, that's the website for that specific area. And I'm still developing more about the Spokane Print Fest (spokaneprintfest.com). And I hope that if you're in the region, please keep an eye out for April and May, because this is going to happen again, and if you want to be part of it, please do it. I mean, come over and try maybe taking a class or just printing or doing a demo or just being here. There's a lot of things happening. So yeah, that will do it. Thank you so much.

Miranda Metcalf  Beautiful. Thank you. This was such a pleasure. Yeah, we'll be in touch, and I'll put a link to everything that you mentioned in the show notes. So thank you. 

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano  That's awesome. Thank you, Miranda. I appreciate it. 

Miranda Metcalf  Well, that's our show for this week. Join me again in two weeks' time when my guest will be Peter Lancaster, and for the one year anniversary episode of Pine Copper Lime (Hello, Print Friend). It kind of only seems fitting to ring in my one year anniversary with my first Australian guest, despite the fact that I've been recording this podcast in Australia since the beginning. And while Peter has been a collaborative printmaker down under for decades, I was lucky to chat with him as he's in the process of setting up a new incredible print residency in Fiji, where he grew up. You will not want to miss this one. This episode, like all episodes, was written and produced by me, Miranda Metcalf, with editing help from Timothy Pauszek and music by Joshua Webber. I'll see you in two weeks.