45 Years of Fine Art Printmaking at City College of San Francisco

45 Years of Fine Art Printmaking at City College of San Francisco’s Fort Mason Campus

City College of San Francisco (CCSF) is an urban community college with affordable, high-quality instruction and evening and weekend classes, which allow a wide range of local people to take classes. From 1975 through 2020, CCSF held popular art classes at their campus located in Fort Mason, a historic U.S Army facility on the shore of San Francisco Bay. The campus was made possible in part by the efforts of Congressman Phillip Burton who also contributed to the creation of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) of which Fort Mason is a part. On February 1, 1975, a special use permit and lease was signed between the GGNRA and the San Francisco Community College District giving CCSF space for public instruction in the arts at Fort Mason Center.

The prints on display are excellent examples of students using traditional printmaking techniques to realize their creative visions. They are also a testament to the dedicated and inspiring CCSF printmaking instructors who taught various techniques at the Fort Mason campus during this forty-five-year period—including Anna Asebedo, Rachel Bruya-Walker, Tron Bykle, Bronwyn Dexter, Amy Diaz-Infante, Robin Kaneshiro, Emmanuel Montoya, Eleanor Rappe, Anthony Ryan, Matthew Sugarman, Anita Toney, Frances Valesco, Xavier Viramontes, and Max White. 

City College of San Francisco’s Art Department continues to promote creative and critical thought through a wide range of disciplines including fine art printmaking. The art curriculum is offered to the community via online, hybrid, and in-person art classes at the Ocean and Mission Campuses in San Francisco.

CCSF’s Fort Mason campus offered instruction in a variety of artistic disciplines, including ceramics, painting, sculpture, and printmaking. Fine art printmaking techniques taught at the Fort Mason campus included:

• Monotype: ink is applied directly to a flat acrylic or metal plate to create one-of-a-kind print

• Relief: the surface of a linoleum or wood plate is carved; ink is then rolled onto the high places left uncarved

• Drypoint: lines are scratched into a metal plate using a sharp tool called a scribe; ink is pushed into the plate’s recesses, wiped from its surface, and then the plate is printed

• Etching: A metal plate is covered in a ground, which the artist then scratches away to expose the bare metal; the plate is exposed to a corrosive agent, such as nitric acid, which “bites” into the metal to create grooves that hold the ink

• Aquatint: a fine rosin dust is sprinkled on a zinc plate, which is then heated and adhered to the plate; the plate is then exposed to a corrosive agent, which “bites” away the metal around the melted dust particles to create subtle tonal effects

• Mezzotint: a textured and inked plate is burnished with metal tools to create the light areas of the design

This exhibition was co-curated by current CCSF Art Department instructor Anthony Ryan and retired instructors Anna Asebedo and Robin Kaneshiro.

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[image left]
Winter Lotus
Sarah Abigail Young
color relief on paper
Courtesy of City College of San Francisco
L2024.0801.006

[image center]
Orange
artist unknown
drypoint with monoprint on paper
Courtesy of City College of San Francisco
L2024.0801.024

[image right]
Harriet Street
Peter Baczek
etching with aquatint on paper
Courtesy of City College of San Francisco
L2024.0801.017