Deborah R. Grayson never expected to find her way back to printmaking.
“I was actually a painter until the pandemic. Then I couldn’t get into my studio. All I had were tools and wood at my house,” she explained. “I haven’t picked up a paintbrush since.”
Grayson is one of six artists showing work with the Black Women of Print collective at the annual behemoth fair organized by the International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA — say that five times fast), running through this Sunday. At once overwhelming and exhilarating, the March 27 preview hummed as visitors packed into the historic Park Avenue Armory for a trip through the gallerina looking-glass of prints from around the world. The free wine was plentiful, the outfits put mine to shame, and I had a million questions, such as: How many of us are actually here to buy something? With so many sculptures and textiles on view, what counts as a print? Is IFPDA pronounced “If-Pita,” or maybe “If-Pi-Duh”? The jury’s still out on that last one.
At first, it was a challenge not to internalize the electric anxiety humming through the air as ostensibly seasoned collectors surveyed the offerings, often priced in the tens of thousands. I overheard one unimpressed buyer nursing an aforementioned free wine tell an artist, “That’s all you brought? Oh.”
But even amid the glitzy fair that immediately struck me as, simply put, a lot, I kept returning to something Grayson said: “Printmakers are the most generous artists.” Most of them necessarily create in community, she explained, fostering a collaborative spirit and a thoughtfulness you feel in your bones.
I was puzzling over a series of lithographs with chine collé at Tamarind Institute’s booth when Gallery Director Marissa Fassano approached me, offering to share more about the artist’s process. She said that Oregon-based artist Ellen Lesperance drew inspiration for her intricate, colorful prints from black-and-white photographs of the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp protests, the 1980s and ’90s anti-militarism movement in the United Kingdom.
One print includes a knitted nipple safety-pinned to a pair of pants, referencing the death of late anti-nuclear activist Karen Silkwood, who gives the piece its name. A knitted scarf worn by a Peace Camp demonstrator with her arm around a fellow protester gave rise to “XOXOX (All Night)” (2023), a delicate web of blues. Lesperance gives color to that act of envelopment and affection, resurrecting an ethos of solidarity embedded in the intimacy of the textiles that clothe us.
“It felt like we really needed to say all of the things that we’re being told not to say right now,” Fassano said of the booth, alluding to the Trump administration’s draconian crackdowns on student protesters and art institutions. “So this is really about activism and connection.”
Across the fair at Josh Pazda Hiram Butler’s massive booth, a trio of gleaming prints winked through the harsh lighting. The swirling patterns of celestial space dust, straight out of a Webb Space Telescope photo drop, were created from iridescent crumbs of CD film. The gallery’s Meg Estopinal called them “cosmic compositions,” explaining that artist Tara Donovan peeled the external layer off used CDs and scattered the debris over paper before running the works through a hydraulic press.
“Her practice is very much process-oriented,” Estopinal said, citing Donovan’s fascination with readymade materials like plastic straws, rubber bands, and even stainless-steel tomato cages, which form a sculpture on view at the gallery’s home base in Houston.
Another gem appeared at the booth of San Francisco’s Crown Point Press, where I spotted entrancing prints by the exquisite painter and my perennial art crush, Rupy C. Tut. I also spent time catching my breath in the haven of Mickalene Thomas’s l’espace entre les deux (2025), the fair’s commissioned centerpiece consisting of two warmly lit domestic nooks of entirely collaged, paper-pulped, and printed backdrops and sculptures.
That commingling of the familiar and the wonderfully new was one of the guiding principles of the Lower East Side Print Shop’s booth, too. “As a nonprofit, it’s very important for us to support and bring lesser-known artists to our audience,” said Program Director Kyung Eun You.
We caught the shop’s master printer Jamie Miller making the rounds, and he seemed genuinely delighted to see so many of the pieces he printed on display. Miller said that he worked with artist Jean Shin — whom he’s known for years and we both agreed is extremely cool — on bringing her “Pressed Jeans” collagraph to life. I told him it was my first time at the frenzied opening night.
His advice to get the most out of the fair? “Come back tomorrow!”
