Iowa State University Steam Rolls Prints in Ames

From Iowa State University News Service

Students from the Iowa State University College of Design and Augustana College, Sioux Falls, S.D., will join forces to create large-format woodcut prints with a construction steamroller this Friday, Oct. 14.

Using hand chisels and electric routers, 18 Iowa State students and 11 Augustana students -- some in teams, some working individually -- have carved their own original designs on 4-foot-by-8-foot sheets of birch plywood. They will use a steamroller as a printing press to create large-format prints from the woodblocks at Rueter's, a construction and equipment dealer at 5815 W. Lincoln Way in Ames.

This is the 10th year for the steamroller printmaking event. Friday's session will be from about 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. behind the main building. (Rain date is Oct. 21.) The public is invited to watch the printing process.

"The primary design challenge involved creating images with just black-and-white patterns and shapes," said April Katz, ISU associate professor of integrated studio arts. Katz teaches the fall-semester printmaking course and oversees the annual steamroller printmaking project.

The physical challenges associated with carving, inking and printing large-scale blocks demand collaboration from all participants, she said.

The Iowa State students have created eight different blocks.

Ian Ford, Fremont, Neb.; Cody Sherman, Stuart, and Carl Swenson, Wheeling, Ill., all integrated studio arts majors, designed "Comic Commemoration," which depicts multiple superheroes in different war-like scenes to commemorate dead heroes.

In "The Pursuit," integrated studio arts students David Tim, Ames, Anna Faerber, Arlington Heights, Ill., and integrated visual arts graduate student Celinda Stamy, Mexico, Mo.,, tried to capture the constant movement and chaotic energy of New York City by using bold, expressive, abstract shapes.

The team of Audrey Valentine, Fergus Falls, Minn., biological and pre-medical illustration; Michael Jolliffe, Cedar Rapids, integrated studio arts, and Jeff Diaz, Prairie City, graphic design, imagined a cover illustration for Life Magazine. "Eagaffear" -- their image of a hybrid eagle, giraffe and deer -- is intended as a commentary on evolution and the potentially serious consequences of science.