Master printer Cole Rogers and assistant printer and studio manager Mei Lam So stared intently at a single bright blue-hued square printed onto thick white paper.
Artist Julie Buffalohead walked over to the printing press, slipped on her glasses and examined the color square.
"It's a little intense for me," Buffalohead said. "I would like it to be more toned down, but I am not sure if a white on top of it would tone it down."
"White will, some," Rogers said.
So marked the shade on the edge of the paper. Rogers started scraping off a sample of the color from a glass sheet on a nearby counter, making room for the next iteration. Then So began rolling out the new color.
Creating lithographs, a process that uses a metal plate or a flat stone to create an image, is quite slow. Like fitting together puzzle pieces, each color must separately be selected and added onto the print.
Rogers has been making prints for over 40 years, and he wasn't going to stop even though in 2023 he left Highpoint Center for Printmaking, the nonprofit he co-founded with his wife, Carla McGrath, in 2001. McGrath retired in 2021, the same year that Mia acquired a huge number of prints and hosted a show of Highpoint's work.
"About three or four months [after leaving Highpoint], I started thinking I wanted to do my own thing," said Rogers, whose Southern accent betrays his Alabama roots. "First this really nice American French Tool press became available down in Denton, Texas, and then this screen press became available in Chicago, really cheap, so I ended up buying them."
It wasn't the plan to start anew, but after the first two presses, a third popped up in Berkeley, Calif. Then master printer Jack Lemon of Santa Fe, N.M.-based Landfall Press closed up shop and gave Rogers more presses, 30 big lithography stones, rollers and more.
"All of a sudden I've got these presses all over the place, and the equipment, and I was like, 'I need to find a place,'" Rogers said.
That place is C&C Editions, a printmaking studio that specializes in etching, lithography, screen printing and woodcut. Whereas Highpoint is a nonprofit, C&C is an LLC. No grant-writing madness, or loads of interns. It's just Rogers, So, artists and the quiet hum of the studio.
At Highpoint, Rogers worked alongside internationally acclaimed artists such as Julie Mehretu, Dyani White Hawk, Willie Cole and Buffalohead, nurturing their potential.
His new spot, a brightly lit, air-conditioned space on the backside of a wellness clinic on Aldrich Avenue (enter C&C through the alley), has been through many iterations. It used to be a garage, then a gym, then a photography studio. Rogers and So put in new floors. Rogers spent a whopping $11,000 out of pocket for a ventilation system. They searched for the right plumbers and electricians. The whole process took about 7 to 8 months.
There won't be a gallery, like at Highpoint. McGrath is only on part time, dealing with marketing and events, helping behind the scenes.
The studio came together quickly. It's ironic given how slow the lithography process is.
The first artist
Buffalohead, who has known Rogers for over 10 years, is the first artist to work with him in the new space.
On a hot September afternoon, Buffalohead looked through a Pantone color fan deck, searching for what might work best. The print in progress had a fox holding a broken wand with a spider at the top of it and a rabbit holding a stick with a nest full of eggs atop it. It speaks to feelings that Buffalohead, a member of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma, is having about getting older.
"I always feel that women become discounted when they become a certain age, and they're viewed a different way," she said. "I've been doing a lot of work with these spiders, which represent grandmother in Native culture.
"This one was about this conflict of being young and old. The rabbit is holding the nest and the eggs, a symbol of youth and fertility, and the fox is holding the grandmother spider, so it's sort of about facing that reality."
Buffalohead looked on at another iteration of the blue tone, carefully examining it.
"This is the way printing is," she said. "You don't always know what you're going to get."
C&C Editions' Public Open House
When: Sun. 5-7 p.m.
Where: C&C Editions, 3041 Aldrich Av. S., Suite 101, Mpls. (Enter through the alley.)
Info: candceditions.com
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