Ivan Forde
Printmaking Alumni Interview – Neiman Center 25th Anniversary Catalogue
LNCPS: Printmaking at the Neiman Center is community driven. What was your experience of community at the Neiman Center and did it have an impact on your experience as a student in the MFA program at Columbia?
Ivan Forde: The three other printmakers in the program were among my closest friends in the program. That’s what drew me to the printmaking program at Columbia at first because it’s a very prominent community aspect and I think printmaking adds to that tremendously. Working together on prints for artists, the Neiman Center trips we went on like the one to Jasper Johns studio, and the print exchange were all very enjoyable.
LNCPS: Do you have a favorite project that you worked on as a Fellow? What made it memorable?
Ivan Forde: I think Arlene’s prints were memorable because it was so much precision involved in the printing with many little puzzle like pieces inked with different pigments put together through the press. It was different and difficult and rewarding.
LNCPS: Did working at the Neiman Center influence your artistic practice?
Ivan Forde: Not directly but the unique energy and community provided a safe space to explore and try things out. There was no hierarchy in how one worked. I saw that it freed a lot of people up.
LNCPS: What was your experience working collaboratively with a master printer, invited artists and your peers to edition artists’ projects?
Ivan Forde: We really got to know each other, on a metaphysical level almost working together. It’s not often you get to spend so much time with another artist working together in an academic setting and I really enjoyed it. Everyone benefited because it was another site to have conversations and learn outside the studio and meeting with professional artists on their terms not ours.
LNCPS: Was there something that you learned at the Neiman Center that has stayed with you even after graduation?
Ivan Forde: Many things of course! Tomas’s unique energy as an artist I think left an impression on all of us. And more importantly that women printmakers rule and to me possess the potential energy taking us forward.
