Steamrolled: The Most Pressing Art Ever – Gigantic Prints From Stonemetal Press
Jan. 25 – March 17, 2010

StoneMetal Press is a non-profit community print studio located in San Antonio, Texas. The founders of the Press envisioned a studio/atelier where artists from all disciplines could produce their own prints utilizing both traditional and non-traditional techniques, interact with other artists and exhibit their work. Similar facilities are found in other major art centers such as Kala Institute in Berkeley, California, Hand Graphics in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative in Chicago, Illinois.

In 2006 StoneMetal Press organized its first public “giant print” event utilizing a steamroller to produce oversized woodcuts by six regional artists. The event proved so popular that it’s been repeated every year since that time. “Building Up Steam” is held outdoors in a public parking lot and has become one the most anticipated, acclaimed and successful art events held in Texas and the Southwest.

An actual steamroller is used to make large-scale woodcut prints at the finale of each year’s Printmaking Month. Four by eight foot sheets of plywood, carved by the invited artists, are inked up and “steamroll” printed on massive sheets of Legion Paper Lenox 110 in the parking lot of San Antonio’s Blue Star Art Complex. The finished prints are auctioned to benefit arts and education programs organized in cooperation with the Economic Revitalization Zones and the San Antonio Museum of Art. Fifteen of these extraordinary works of art will be on view at the Singer Gallery during “Steamrolled: The Most Pressing Art Ever!”