Children thought it was awesome when the ArtOrg steamroller rolled over their projects at the Clearwater Library on June 9.
Clearwater was one of the first stops in ArtOrg’s Thousand Print Summer project that gives individuals the opportunity to create a piece of art made by a printing process with the assistance of a steamroller!
The steamroller provides pressure to transfer ink from an image to paper. Children create the images, and the ArtOrg staff do the inking and drive the steamroller over the art to make the prints. Then children are photographed with their art as part of documentation that ArtOrg will refer to if and when they use copies of all 1,000 prints to create a single massive artwork.
The project is a creation of artist Dave Machacek (driving the steamroller). He did a similar project in 2008 that included printmaking during the grand opening of the St. Cloud Public Library. “We’re hoping to exhibit all of those prints in a hall at St. Olaf, once we can secure the funding,” Machacek said. He hasn’t yet decided how prints from the Thousand Print Summer may be exhibited, but he said he’s working on a plan to present them as an island.
This program is funded in part with money from Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.