The Mill’s printmaking program began over two decades ago through lectures and workshops held in the homes and studios of a group of artists who would eventually become the Mill’s founders and earliest advisors. As their efforts gained a following, a shared space at the Kona Imin Center in Holualoa was rented and led to the purchase of a larger, more permanent space in a historic coffee mill building, the Mill’s current home since 2002.

Printmaking is inherently collaborative with a communal focus around the printing press. It can be an exacting process with little margin for error in multi-plate prints that demand perfect alignment (registration) as the same sheet of paper is run through the press multiple times to add layers of color. The same press can capture the immediacy of a brush stroke added to a monoprint plate moments before printing. No matter how precise or carefree the artist’s style and method of approach, there is for all concerned a shared element of surprise and delight in seeing how the print has turned out, being a mirror image of the original matrix. For all of its technical precision, the results can be magical.