Skill Criteria

While Black Women of Print considers a range of criteria to measure a printmaker's skill level, we center an African Diasporic framework and narrative approach vs. solely looking at a list of credentials or checked boxes. Within the African Diaspora, narrative is a connector. We understand that the Mid-Career Printer and Established Printer skill levels are not achieved by practice alone: some continuous exchange of knowledge from one or more sources to another must occur via meaningful, critical thought. Black Women of Print has chosen to offer a counternarrative that decolonizes our highest proficiency level title from the traditional Eurocentric usage of the term master, rooted in trade/union print labor, to the term Established. Established Black women printmakers have brought into being an expansive body of work—personal or through artistic collaboration. We understand that our praxis is not superior to our peers. We are representations of one way to expand knowledge in the discipline of printmaking.

MID-CAREER PRINTER CRITERIA

⟶ Advanced technical proficiency and specialized training and/or knowledge in chosen printmaking technique(s), including experimental printmaking

⟶ Minimum of 3 years’ experience practicing in the field of printmaking

⟶ Consistent studio practice

⟶ Exhibiting printmaker (has exhibited consistently within the past 2 years)

⟶ Active website with online portfolio

⟶ Developing body of work with emerging visual language

⟶ Continuous seeker of knowledge

ESTABLISHED PRINTER CRITERIA