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Week in the life as a placement student - print studio

I started my work placement at a print studio in Manchester around a month and a half ago, so here is a little week in the life of my placement at Hot Bed Press, a print studio that is open to artists and runs classes on printmaking. I work from 9:30 till 5:30, four days a week (Monday to Thursday) so I will break down what I have been doing on average so far.

On Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays I spend the mornings setting up the studio for the day such as clearing the drying racks, putting away screens left in the dryer, topping up any materials that are low, and setting up the presses for the day. For the rest of the day, I help with anything else that needs doing such as more studio maintenance like organizing and cleaning screens in screen printing, bringing in and sorting out deliveries, helping the tutors and artists. However, at the moment, I have mainly been helping out in the exhibition space, setting up their next show.
Sometimes when the tutors do a tutorial for their classes, I sit in and observe as this knowledge is useful to my own practice. Recently we had a visit from a very successful etcher called Jason Hicklin who came in to do a talk about his practice and then did some demonstrations, I was very honored to be able to sit in and participate.

Recently I have also been doing a lot of screen-printing as part of my daily tasks. Hot Bed Press runs a big print exchange around this time of year, so me and the other placement student have been screen-printing boxes to send out all the prints in. This has been one of the best jobs so far as it helps me practice screen-printing, allows me to try out printing on a new material (cardboard) and includes me in the process of the amazing print exchange. The studio is also in the process of printing new aprons for everyone and bags to sell. I have never printed on fabric before, so it has developed even more skills for me to print things I could sell myself like tote bags and t-shirts.

The last day of the work week for me is Thursday, my ‘teaching day’ where the technician spends the day teaching me whatever new print method I want to know. So far, I have been learning how to etch on metal plates with various acids and this week I learnt how to photo etch for the first time and used a new metal (steel). Soon I think I will swap to learn how to do wood cut prints as this is something I have always wanted to learn how to do. There were also a few spaces left on the beginner’s letterpress course on a Thursday morning so for the past 3 weeks I have been learning how to typeset with old fashioned lead type. Next week will be the last session, but I have really enjoyed being able to learn this new skill.

That is my complete week at Hot Bed Press in Manchester which I will finish working at in 3 months : ))

Vee (Kingston rep)