WassawPrint Studio

The studio

One artist, two machines and a lot of paper.

Wassaw is Celia Harlow, who grew up on Wilmington Island and came back after ten years printing posters for bands in Athens. The studio is a converted garage on Habersham Street with a four colour screen press, a risograph, a wall of drying racks and the flat files where every edition lives until it ships.

She draws outside, from a kayak or the end of a dock, and does the colour separations at the drafting table. Nothing is printed digitally. Every sheet you buy has been through her hands at least four times.

Two hands, one wearing a white stone ring and beaded bracelets, pulling a long wooden squeegee across a screen flooded with turquoise ink
A pull on the big screen, turquoise flooded across the mesh.

How a screen print is made

Each colour is its own screen and its own day of printing. A four colour print goes through the press four times, and every pass has to land on the one before it.

  1. Draw the separations

    Each ink gets its own drawing, in black, on clear drafting film. The pink, the teal, the navy and the sunflower are four separate drawings that only meet on the paper.

  2. Coat and expose the screen

    A polyester mesh is coated with light sensitive emulsion and dried in the dark. The film goes on top, the screen goes under the UV lamp, and wherever the drawing blocked the light the emulsion washes out.

  3. Mix the ink

    Water based inks, mixed by eye and checked against a swatch card kept for every edition, so a reprint of a colour matches the first run.

  4. Register the paper

    Tabs on the press bed hold every sheet in exactly the same spot. The first few pulls go onto newsprint until the image lands where it should.

  5. Pull the edition

    A flood stroke fills the mesh, then one firm pass with the squeegee pushes ink through the open stencil onto the sheet. The whole edition gets the same colour in one session, before the ink can dry in the screen.

  6. Dry, then the next colour

    Sheets go into the drying rack overnight. The screen is reclaimed and the next colour starts the following day. The slight shifts between layers are part of the print, and no two sheets are identical.

  7. Sign and number

    After a week of curing, each print is checked, signed and numbered in pencil, then filed flat until it ships. Sheets with a flaw are destroyed, never sold as seconds.

A wooden squeegee clamped into the arm of a screen printing press, resting on a used mesh screen
The squeegee arm on the press.
A hand pouring thick black ink from a white bottle into a small tray with a roller
Mixing a batch of navy.
A tall stack of paint spattered wooden screen frames on a workbench in a busy print workshop
Screens waiting to be reclaimed.

Paper and inks

Screen prints

Printed on 300gsm cotton rag in a warm white, heavy enough to take four layers of ink without cockling. Acid free and buffered, so it will not yellow behind glass.

Risographs

The Low Country Birds series and the zines are printed on the studio risograph, a stencil duplicator that lays down soy based ink one drum at a time. Risograph paper is a 270gsm smooth uncoated stock in natural white.

The four studio inks

  • Fluorescent pinkAlways printed last, so it sits on top
  • Lagoon tealTurns green over sunflower
  • Harbor navyLine work, moss and shadow
  • SunflowerUsually the first layer down

Fluorescent ink fades faster than ordinary ink in direct sun. Hang prints out of direct light, or choose the oak frame, which comes with UV filtering acrylic.

Shipping, flat or in tubes

Flat

8 x 10 and 11 x 14 prints, originals on paper, zines and postcards ship flat in a sleeve, sandwiched between two rigid boards. Ships in 2 to 4 working days.

In a tube

18 x 24 prints ship rolled in tissue inside a 3 inch tube with capped ends. Let a rolled print rest flat under a couple of books for a day before framing.

Framed and panels

Framed prints and panels ship boxed with corner guards, insured, in 5 to 8 working days. Framing is done by a framer two streets over, in white oak with an archival mat.

Pickup and returns

Pick up free from the studio on any open day. If a print arrives damaged, send a photo within 14 days and a replacement goes out from the same edition.

A neat stack of blank white printing paper resting on a linen cloth

Studio open days

The first Saturday of every month, 10 to 4. Flip through the flat files, see whatever is on the press, and take a print home without paying for shipping.

  • Saturday 3 October10 to 4
  • Saturday 7 November10 to 4
  • 5 and 6 DecemberHoliday print sale
  • Saturday 2 January10 to 4

Finding the studio

Habersham Street, Savannah, Georgia, in the Starland District. Street parking on both sides. The door is the blue garage with the drying racks visible through the window.

912-555-0164
studio@wassawprint.example

Outside open days, visits are by appointment.

The studio newsletter

The Low Tide Letter

Four times a year, the week before a new series goes on sale. New prints, open day dates and the occasional tide table. Subscribers get first pick of each edition for 48 hours.