♪ Hi.

How are you?

-Congratulations.

-Thank you.

Woman: I hadn't seen the new "Blossom" series.

They're kind of more modern, more, like, simple.

Curry: At an open house at Long View Gallery in Mount Vernon Square, artist Susan Goldman is holding court.

Goldman: These are my silkscreens.

Those are my blends.

Curry: Goldman is a printmaker.

The exhibition contains her own work, as well as that of her friend and client Eve Stockton.

Goldman: So this is Eve's work.

We print together.

Stockton: We printed a surround in blue.

I threw the silver on just taking the chance, and it worked.

It's so much fun to work with Susan at Lily Press and make these.

To have this end result of framed prints in a beautiful gallery setting is just terrific, and I couldn't be more thrilled to be showing here with Susan.

Curry: The prints in the gallery were made in Goldman's studio in the back of her house.

She supports artists using a variety of traditional printing techniques.

For her own work, she often uses a method known as silkscreen.

This is the shape I'm gonna print.

I created the stencil by laying a piece of black paper against the back of the photosensitized screen, and we exposed it.

Wherever the black is, the stencil washes away.

We're gonna be putting ink on here, so what I've done is the green color is that photo emulsion that's dried.

The printmaking, you know, you have steps in between making an image.

It doesn't just happen, and I like that.

I like the physicality of it.

I love the ink.

There are so many ways to arrive at an image.

This is when I fell in love with printmaking right here.

This was like...that.

That is what it's all about.

Curry: Goldman grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Goldman: I went to Indiana University undergrad, and I took a printmaking class, and that was it.

I never looked back.

The printmakers were just a lot more fun.

I like having that inner connection with people.

My big thing is color.

Color for me is sort of like my soul.

I think it's one of the best elements of art making.

There's line, shape, value, texture... ♪ And color ♪ And now the fun begins.

Heh heh.

And Idrissa, my wonderful assistant, is amazing.

This is an existing work in progress that I want to add this shape to.

Goldman, voice-over: I'm not trying to create 3-dimensional space.

I'm very interested in the way color moves and the way it moves through textures and patterns.

-Ready?

-Mm-hmm.

OK. Goldman, voice-over: I look at my work as sort of deconstructing traditional still life.

So there is an image in there, but it's kind of broken apart, and it's fractured, and it's sort of a support that holds the color.

This is like a flower on acid.

Ha ha!

Oh, my God.

♪ [Indistinct chatter] ♪ Woman: They're beautiful.

Stockton: Thank you.

Everything's woodcut blocks.

Curry: Eve Stockton works in woodcut, one of the ancient printmaking techniques Goldman specializes in.

Stockton: I like communing with the material of the wood.

That's part of the fun.

I'm a nature-based artist, and these "Burst" series are full of ambiguity for me.

One doesn't know if you're looking at something atomic or something galactic, and I like that interplay.

So that's what you want, ultra blue and Valentine red, right?

Yep.

You have to make it look natural.

Curry: Stockton is printing a woodblock depicting an upward view into a tree canopy.

Stockton: We'll do strong ink, ghost on white paper.

♪ Goldman: Woodblock is one of the earliest forms of printmaking.

You think of the woodblocks, the ukiyo-e woodcuts are some of the finest examples of printmaking, and yet it is still employed today in contemporary printmaking.

One can make very bold, dynamic images with it.

Goldman: The artist cuts into the block, and so where they carve out, that is below the surface of the top of the block, and then we roll ink over the top of the block, and all the parts that are carved away, the ink can't get down in there, and then the top of the block hits the paper, and all those marks that you cut away are, like, the white part, and the top of the block becomes the color.

Fabulous.

Yeah?

Stockton: The choreography and the flow would only work if the artist has complete trust in the master printer.

Something new and different.

Goldman, voice-over: I work with a lot of artists, and I think sometimes inside they feel, "Is this really my work?"

And it is really their work.

So fresh sheet of white paper or on the back of this?

Goldman: Fresh sheet.

I guide them, and I advise them, and I'm more familiar with the process of printmaking, so that allows me to teach them what to do with it.

♪ Oh!

Ooh!

That's interesting.

Curry: Yet another historic printing method Goldman supports is called intaglio, where an image is incised into a surface.

♪ Artists like Rembrandt raised intaglio to new heights with the etching method, which uses acid to control the depths of incisions and, in turn, the darkness of the ink.

I've been doing a series of prints with the theme of popsicles and frozen treats, anything that you would find from the ice cream truck.

I do a lot of repeated images in my work, and it kind of lends itself to printmaking, also.

So intaglio is not direct like silkscreen.

It is a reversed image, so when we print it, it's gonna flip.

Goldman, voice-over: I don't think I could be a solitary person that just only does me.

I like the energy of working with a group.

It's looking good.

Wow.

Goldman, voice-over: I think it's really important, and it feeds my art.

I like the texture on it.

Yeah.

We have ice cream.

Goldman: When I studied in the Midwest, you had a lithography room, an etching room, a screen print room, and when we moved east, I taught in so many different schools.

I was shocked at the size of printmaking departments here in the Washington area.

All techniques were combined into one room, and I was wondering, you know, why the Midwest had these outstanding print programs, so I interviewed over 50 artists from Wisconsin to Indiana to South Dakota, and that was the beginning and the seed of "Midwest Matrix."

Narrator: Printmaking found its most fertile ground in the Midwest.

Curry: Goldman's film documents the history of printmaking in the United States since the mid-20th century.

I didn't realize the impact of the G.I.

Bill post-World War II and how it affected education and culture in this country and specifically printmaking.

Curry: Argentina-born graphic artist and printmaker Mauricio Lasansky arrived at the University of Iowa in 1945.

Goldman: So all of these people came back, and they went to Iowa and trained with Lasansky, and they were sent out, and they opened up print departments across the country, and that story came alive.

Because of the "Midwest Matrix" and the NEA grant that I received, it catapulted me out of teaching into being in the studio full-time and running my business, and that's how Lily Press was born.

This is my living room.

Being an artist, I'm a collector... and my favorite print in my collection.

This is Elizabeth Catlett called "Black Girl," and I just love this print.

There's maybe one piece that I printed, and this is Sam Gilliam called "+Miles" after Miles Davis.

Curry: Internationally renowned artist Sam Gilliam emerged from the Washington, D.C., art scene in the mid-1960s.

♪ With works in major institutions like the Hirshhorn and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, he's best known as a painter.

♪ Goldman: Sam Gilliam was very big into print, works on paper, papermaking.

I interviewed him as part of the "Midwest Matrix" film because he was really important in Midwestern print studios.

I got this phone call and he said, "Hi, this is Sam Gilliam.

I want to make a print with you," and I'm like, "OK." Ha ha!

And we talked for 3 hours.

Thus unfolded this incredible relationship.

You can see how this color just lights up a room, even if there's sort of salon style hanging.

It's like..."That's Sam."

This was along the lines of those pieces that are in Georgetown Lombardi Cancer Center.

Curry: Georgetown University Hospital commissioned Gilliam to create an installation for the renovated lobby of its cancer center, which Goldman printed and helped install.

Isn't it great to see them again?

-I know.

I know.

-Look how amazing they are!

I forgot how absolutely gorgeous they are.

I was so nervous because that was one of the first big projects we'd done together.

I was so excited that I could call you, and then you called Sam and asked him to come over.

Yeah, and he's so mindful of how to activate the space and make it really powerful with all the choppiness of the lobby.

This is a very difficult place, and I didn't even realize until you and Sam brought this that what we needed was color... Yeah.

that there's something so inherently healing about finding your color.

Yeah.

And with this piece, you can sort of walk through and see yourself reflected.

Right.

Curry: Flowers are a theme in Goldman's work, which can also be found at the Lombardi Cancer Center.

Here are the pieces that I wanted to show you that I moved over here.

I love the way they are in conversation with the Sam Gilliams behind us.

It strikes me so much how you and Sam's work complement each other, and you use these beautiful colors.

These have a lot of energy, which is what I love about your work.

In the new work, I've taken the amphora out, and it's just purely the blossom, which has turned into the "Squaring the Flower" series.

Curry: The "Squaring the Flower" series is on full view at Long View Gallery, as is the passion that people have for the art and for her.

Man: The prints are just beautiful.

It makes you want to stand there and really look at it, see the little subtleties that she has in her prints.

I'm always in awe of Susan, who really is sort of the hub of my printmaking wheel.

What I love about printmaking is it's about community.

You have a group of people that make prints together, and we collaborate in a very unique way.

Let's hear 3 cheers for printmaking.

All: Yay, yay, yay!

Stockton: Thank you for being part of the celebration.

Curry: Georgetown University Hospital's Lombardi Cancer Center's lobby, with its Sam Gilliam prints and other artworks, is open to the public from 5 A.M. to 9 P.M. every day of the week, and find out where to see art by Susan Goldman at lilypress.com.