In conjunction with the April "Pots and Prints - Exploring Series and Progression" show at Columbia Art Gallery, a free Printmaking Workshop is offered for children, ages 6 and up.

9AM – 11:30AM, Saturday, April 7 at the Columbia Center for the Arts, 215 Cascade Ave, Hood River. Limit 10 children, with their parents invited to participate.

All participants will be given the opportunity to complete three or more prints based on three different printmaking techniques: collograph, encaustigraph, and burin-pressure.

No prior art or printmaking experience is needed. Materials employed are environmentally friendly, involve water-based paints and inks, and are donated free by the instructor.

Wear old clothes. Instructor is Ted James, whose printmaking works appear in the show. Reservations: contact the Columbia Center for the Arts at 387-8877 ext. 114.

I have been an artist for nearly sixty (60) years. I began during the 1940’s and 1950’s by studying with the abstract expressionist Marianne Olin while she was studying with Hans Hofmann in New York.

My work is represented in collections in approximately 28 states; a 30 year retrospective of just my works done in California occurred in 2002, and my works have been seen in a number of gallery shows and museums.

I became quite involved with printmaking during the approximately 15 years that I was an artist and board member at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA, an internationally highly esteemed artistic printmaking workshop.

My work also celebrates and promotes the ideas that art and life are inseparable, that compassion and companionship on a one-on-one basis are the fundamental building blocks for a peaceful tolerant world, and that a sense of humor is invaluable to enhancing identity, esteem, and the perception of success.

I took my undergraduate degree at Yale in philosophy, with a year long focus on the relationship between beauty and ethics. I did graduate level work in metaphysics and epistemology at Yale.

My curiosity concerning the drive to succeed, the ethical functioning of organizations, realistic goal setting, and evaluation of change caused me to pursue business from an analytical point of view. I received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and spent many years in investment banking and consulting, including sitting on nine boards, while simultaneously pursuing my art.

These experiences show up in my art as visual commentaries on the need for a sense of compassion and humor in dealing with others in situations of stress. My art extols communication and companionship, and uses visual elements to subvert creatively conventions in an honest way.

I read extensively in art history, aesthetics, and art criticism, and write on the works and lives of artists. I have written on aspects of the history of women in art, the multicultural aspects of American art history, and several monographs on works of living American artists. I curated a show for a fellow artist at a Bay Area museum in 2006.