Learn foil imaging technique created at UI in summer workshop

The School of Art and Art History in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will hold its annual two-week Foil Workshop in Printmaking from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday–Friday, June 9–13 and June 16–20, in the Studio Arts Building in Iowa City.

Participants will learn the basics of hot stamped foil and create unique artwork in a professional printmaking studio setting. No previous experience or training is required.

“The only prerequisite is a healthy curiosity,” says Deanne Warnholtz Wortman, adjunct assistant professor in printmaking and the workshop’s instructor. The workshop is open to the public as well as to current UI students, who can enroll for two credit hours.

Foil imaging is a printmaking technique first developed in 1992 by UI professor Virginia A. Myers in which artists transfer roll leaf foil to a variety of materials using heat and pressure. The process is facilitated by a special tool called the Iowa Foil Printer, which was invented at the UI by Myers, machinist Dan Wenman, and engineer James R. Phillips. The resulting artworks, says Wortman, “shimmer, shine, and reflect or absorb the light around us.”

Virginia A. Meyers works with a young artist. Photo by Deanne Warnholtz Wortman.

The UI offered its first foil imaging class and summer workshop in 1990. Over the past 24 years, people of all ages and backgrounds have come from around the world to attend the workshops.

The 2014 workshop will kick off with an opening reception for “Foiled Again!,” a three-week-long exhibition of works by former students of Myers and other artists working with foil.

View the complete workshop schedule here.

Rolls of foil await the Iowa Foil Printer. Photo by Deanne Warnholtz Wortman.

The first week will demonstrate basic techniques and offer studio time for trying them out, as well as a student print exchange. The second week is an optional open studio for uninterrupted exploration of the aesthetics of hot stamped foil as an art form. A student exhibition and reception will be held at the end of each week.

Fees include all basic supplies, instruction, and workshop time in the University of Iowa’s renowned printmaking studio.

Fees for the workshop are as follows:

• 1st week: Noncredit workshop $700 (Two-semester-hour-credit workshop: undergraduate=$900, graduate=$1200)
• Optional 2nd week: additional $300

To register, contact Annette Niebuhr in the School of Art and Art History at 319-335-1376 or annette-niebuhr@uiowa.edu by June 6.

Wortman, who has led the workshops since 2012, holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking, an Master of Arts in drawing, and an Master of Fine Arts in intermedia arts from the University of Iowa, where she studied under Mauricio Lasansky, Myers, Joseph Patrick, and Hans Breder. She currently operates the Black Bart Press.

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all UI-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation in order to participate in this program, contact the School of Art and Art History in advance at 319-335-1376.

For more information about the history and process of foil imaging, visit this website.