Printmaking Workshop
with HELEN SCHMIDT
Thursday & Friday, May 7-8, 10 am – 5 pm
STUDIO 7
Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts
181 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT
Layered Prints: Collagraphs, Found Objects and Chine Collé
Join Mitchell•Giddings Fine Arts at our new Studio 7 for this alternative, multi media printmaking workshop. Create vibrant prints using collagraph plates, found objects and specialty papers. We will make collagraph plates our first day by gluing different textures onto mat board. We will then ink up found objects such as scrap metal, bark and fabric and print them onto colorful rice papers.
On the second day we will ink up our collagraph plates and add our colored rice papers using a technique called Chine Collé. This workshop is open to all levels of printing experience, all that is required is a willingness to experiment and have fun!
Helen Schmidt, Raft, 2025, collagraph and chine collé, 20″ x 30″
Layered Prints: Collagraphs, Found Objects and Chine Collé
Dates: Thursday & Friday, May 7-8, 10-5, with a lunch break
Location: Studio 7, 181 Main Street, Brattleboro, Vermont, downstairs from Mitchell•Giddings Fine Arts
Cost: $300, includes supplies
Contact: Call the gallery for more information and to reserve your space, 802.251.8290
If Mitchell•Giddings Fine Arts cancels a workshop, participants will receive a full refund. Decisions to cancel a workshop will be made no later than one week before the workshop date.
Students may cancel up to one week before the workshop date for full refund minus $30 administration fee. If a participant cancels less that one week before the workshop date, there will be no refund.
Helen Schmidt, Tenth Gate, 2025, collagraph and chine collé
Helen Schmidt
Helen Schmidt is a printmaker, sculptor and painter who combines intaglio, artisan papers and oil paint to create richly textured unique prints. Helen is interested in the possibility art has to effect personal and social transformation. It is her belief that learning to access one’s creative potential and then express it helps to bring about change in oneself and in the world. In her work as a teacher she assists her students in that exploration. She began teaching art to at risk teenaged girls when she co-founded Expresso, and later taught art to women on furlough in the Tapestry Program at the Brattleboro Retreat. She taught classes at Art in the Neighborhood, a program that provides free classes to economically disadvantaged and culturally diverse youth in Brattleboro. She taught at The River Gallery School in Brattleboro for 24 years, and in addition to teaching adult studio classes, she served as the director of their Children and Teens Program. She taught printmaking at the Community College of Vermont, and currently teaches printmaking and painting at The Putney School. Helen studied at The Lacoste School for the Arts in Lacoste, France and in Boston at The Museum School. She received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and M.F.A. from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has exhibited her artwork throughout the North East, and has artwork in private collections in the United States and Europe.
“One of the things I love about printmaking is the mystery that happens when I pull a print off the press. What is revealed can be slightly different from what I had planned, and this provides a new way of looking at the print. It elevates my work and humbles me at the same time. Tapping into the unknown helps to inform the way I see and hear the world. Creating art in this way is akin to doing a spiritual practice; it teaches me to hear and respond to mysteries just outside my conscious awareness, and when I pay attention both my artwork and attention are expanded.”
Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts curates a diverse collection of innovative works that stimulate the seasoned collector and aesthetic explorer.