Platemark episodes and shorts on YouTube

More on reproductive prints, the backbone of the history of prints

In a Platemark first we speak with a previous guest for a special update. Artist Tom Hück agreed to talk to hosts Ann Shafer and Tru Ludwig at his Evil Prints studio in Park Hills, Missouri, in August 2022. Hück is releasing his latest print edition on Thanksgiving Day, a…

Platemark series two, A History of Western Prints, returns with an episode about reproductive prints. In s2e21, Tru Ludwig takes listeners back to a time when lives were lived with no images save for maybe what one saw in church. Prints were the way the first images were widely consumed;…

In s3e12, Platemark host Ann Shafer speaks with Maureen Warren, curator of European and (North) American art at the Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. For ten years Maureen has been studying, researching, and writing about prints in the Dutch Republic, which was the basis of her…

In s3e11, Platemark host Ann Shafer talks with artist LaToya M. Hobbs whose commissioned installation will be on view as visitors enter the IFPDA Print Fair at the end of October 2022. The works will be front and center at the entrance and will no doubt garner lots of attention…

In s3e10, Platemark hosts Ann Shafer and Ben Levy talk with Julia Samuels, master printer and owner of Overpass Projects, Pawtucket, RI. Ann and Ben were thrilled to visit Overpass in person for the recording of this episode. It’s so great to see what guests are talking about and to…

In s3e9 of Platemark, host Ann Shafer talks with James Siena and Katia Santibañez. Both artists, who are married to each other, are painters and printmakers who split their time between New York City and Otis, MA. In the past few years, they have collaborated on four reduction woodcuts with…

In s3e8, Platemark host Ann Shafer talks with Dave Cloutier who recently opened Center Arts and Studios (CAS) in the Mill Centre, Baltimore. CAS offers classes, equipment, critiques, guidance, and studio spaces to second-career artists. A passion project for Dave, it has long been his goal to encourage artists and…

In s3e7, hosts Ann Shafer and Tru Ludwig sit down with Elizabeth Wyckoff, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Saint Louis Art Museum, to talk about the exhibition Catching the Moment: Contemporary Art from the Ted L. and Maryanne Ellison Simmons Collection, which ran June 26–September 11, 2022. The…

In s3e6, Platemark host Ann Shafer talks with Bill Hall, master printer (retired) at Pace Prints (https://paceprints.com/home) for nearly thirty years. His earliest years in New York were spent working at the legendary Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop (https://www.rbpmw-efanyc.org/) . After his arrival at Pace Prints, his intaglio skills were honed…

In s3e5, Ann Shafer talks with fellow podcaster and print lover Miranda Metcalf, whose show, Hello, Print Friend, is the internet's most popular podcast about prints and printmaking. Hello, Print Friend’s Instagram account has over 53K followers! Both Shafer and Metcalf are self-described print evangelists and have much to discuss.…

Platemark’s series three offers its first interview with an artist, Tom Hück (https://www.facebook.com/eviltommy?__cft__%5b0%5d=AZVpe1zsjGqh3tx6So8NWKV6lGrG0t8dSqdb0F4Pt7cJ7DTod2KUeo-2DzPtggF8vQavJ_cnZYgLkxTsjCC-YpTvgQzimG7JZWt26hTvAvTRAJ4teMKhQnlmI_3WTOFyVoT-y2Vc3h7GwTOcdkQmBgnNkSYU2DPplIaymbAXW_2WVcRL5EWw6vi698FIVnslUw4&__tn__=-%5dK-y-R) . And what a great place to start. In s3e4, Platemark hosts Ben Levy and Ann Shafer sit down with Hück whose large-scale, multi-panel woodcuts skewer rural life in the American Midwest in all its unabashed weirdness…

In s3e3, Ann Shafer and Ben Levy talk with James Wehn, Van Vleck Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, about prints, museums, curatorial work, and Israel van Meckenem. Episode photo: Eric Baillies Israhel van Meckenem (German, c. 1445–1503).…

In s3e2, Ann Shafer and Ben Levy sit down with the three master printers at Tandem Press: Joe Freye, Jason Ruhl, and Patrick Smyczek. Find out what makes a dream team in a print shop.

In this first episode of series 3 (interviews with luminaries of the print ecosystem), Ann Shafer and Ben Levy sit down with Paula Panczenko, executive director of Tandem Press, and Russell Panczenko, retired director of the Chazen Museum of Art. Both entities are affiliated with the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

In s2e20, Ann Shafer and Tru Ludwig conclude their discussion of Rembrandt van Rijn, the man who made etching was it is today. In this third of three episodes on Rembrandt, they tackle his etchings of religious scenes. Rembrandt made a lot of them and they are intense. They are…

In s2e19, Ann Shafer and Tru Ludwig continue talking about the best etcher ever, Rembrandt van Rijn. In this second of three episodes on Rembrandt, they tackle genre scenes (those would be scenes of everyday life) and portraits. Rembrandt is the consummate storyteller and in these etchings he gives us…

In Platemark e2e18, Tru Ludwig and Ann Shafer begin a three-parter about the master of etching, Rembrandt van Rijn. In this first episode on RvR, Tru sets the stage and takes us through some of Rembrandt's key landscape etchings, including the iconic The Three Trees. (The second episode looks at…

In s2ep17, Ann Shafer and Tru Ludwig talk about one of their favorite engravers of all time, Hendrick Goltzius. A Dutchman, Goltzius was preternaturally gifted with a burin and made glorious prints of all sorts. Ann's favorite is the Farnese Hercules, a large engraving showing two Dutchmen looking up at…

In s2ep16, Ann Shafer and Tru Ludwig talk about the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter Reformation that affected so much of the 16th century in Western Europe. The focus of the episode is Pieter Brueghel the Elder who developed a new vocabulary to talk about the lives of peasants,…

In s2ep15, Ann Shafer and Tru Ludwig continue talking about game-changer Martin Luther and the effects of his 95 theses against the Catholic Church, which brought about the Protestant Reformation in 1517. In this episode they talk about the biting criticism of politics in the church and the schism with…

In s2ep14, Ann Shafer and Tru Ludwig look at Martin Luther and the effects of his 95 theses against the Catholic Church. Once the only patron of the arts, the Church faced a reckoning when Martin Luther brought about the Protestant Reformation in 1517. In addition to getting rid of…

In s2e13, Ann Shafer and Tru Ludwig talk about reproductive engravings and how they helped spread Italian art and style to Northern European countries. Italian Giorgio Ghisi worked for Antwerp publisher Hieronymous Cock and did much of the heavy lifting. The episode concludes with Federico Barocci and two of the…

Platemark host Ann Shafer is thrilled to announce the first Baltimore Fine Art Print Fair is scheduled for April 29-May 1, 2022. Ann and Tru Ludwig talk about the print fair's origins as a production of the Print, Drawing & Photograph Society of the Baltimore Museum of Art. That former…