Drive-By Press
One van. Two passengers. One printing press. Lots of T-shirts. Fifty pounds of ink. These are the constant ingredients of Drive By Press. Just add the interest and disposable income of passing students and a formula for success is born.
Greg Nanney and his assistant, Steven Prochyra, made a stop in Milledgeville on Feb. 22-23, parking their van in front of the printmaking studio on Wayne Street in the mornings, and next to Blackbridge Hall in the afternoon. They demonstrated their printmaking techniques by selling T-shirts to passersby.
“By printing on T-shirts, we found it’s a way to get people interested in this process that’s 600 years old in a way that they don’t get intimidated. They feel the freedom to judge it.”
Nanney and his friend Joseph Velasquez founded Drive By Press in 2005 as part of Nanney’s graduate school thesis project. Since then, the duo has traveled around the country, mainly visiting colleges that do not have printmaking facilities. The two founders have split, with Nanney touring the East Coast and Velasquez touring the West Coast.
“It came from a conversation with our professors about why we make prints. It’s the power of the multiple, the ability to create more than one image,” Nanney said. “I can sell my artwork to a much wider range of people.”
The first tour covered 15 schools, but after that 47 more schools contacted them wanting them to come to their campus.
“We never thought it would go longer than six months, and now it’s gone on four years,” Nanney said.
Engaging people in their art is a large part of why they spend so much time traveling.
“We feed off the energy the students give us,” Nanney said. “Probably the hardest part about our job is when people don’t get it and they’re not curious. That’s really discouraging.”
Spending so much time on the road can be a busy lifestyle, but that does not stop them from making new blocks for their printing. The van’s driver is alternated between “whoever’s not tired,” Prochyra said.
“Everyone in the crew makes blocks. One person will be driving and the other will be cutting,” Nanney said. They have a small team of assistants that travel with them part-time; most have contacted the press directly to work with them, like Prochyra.
“This is my first tour. I saw these guys come through my school, and I stayed in touch with them, and they hired me,” Prochyra said.
The group tours in four-month blocks, and Nanney completes two tours a year. But this tour may be his last, at least for a while.
“I don’t think we’re going to go out this fall,” Nanney said. “I’ve got some other projects picking up in Newark, (N.J.). We’ve been doing this for four years. That’s a lot of time to devote to a single artistic project.”
Posted by Claire Kersey
on Mar 5 2010. Filed under Features.
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