LINCOLN SQUARE — Printmakers have been on the forefront of social change since ink was first pressed to paper.
On Sunday, the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative is picking up that torch and joining a national movement — "Print. Organize. Protest" — in response to the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States.
People are invited to stop by the studio, 4912 N. Western Ave., anytime between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to print a poster, t-shirt, tote bag or any other surface of their choosing with a design provided by the collaborative's artists.
Among the options is a message of hope created by the collaborative's founder Deborah Maris Lader.
"Hope — I don't have it and I'm trying to convince myself," Maris Lader said.
She decided to open up the studio for "POP" after witnessing the cathartic role of art firsthand post-election, as she performed with her longtime folk band Sons of the Never Wrong shortly after Trump's victory.
"We were all feeling this 'uck,' " Maris Lader said. "It was a cathartic kind of evening. People were laughing, people were crying, people were hugging. It was the first time I felt like maybe I had a job to do."
That job, she said, is to make people feel included.
"I think the big wake-up call is that there are all these disenfranchised people who have a legitimate beef," Maris Lader said.
Which is why she opted for "hope" as opposed to angrier images of dissent, she said.
"Angry, in-your-face — to me, that doesn't work," Maris Lader said. "That confrontational in-your-face stuff is not a dialogue. That's never going to get us anywhere."
Though she acknowledged that printing a few dozen posters and t-shirts on Sunday isn't going to change the course of history, Maris Lader said that isn't the point.
"Even if all it does is bring people together, that's OK," she said. "What we can do is come together as a community and be inspiring."
For Sunday's event, the collaborative will provide the designs, ink and equipment for printing. Guests need to bring their own paper, t-shirt, etc., with Maris Lader advising that fabrics need to be smooth.
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