Can you give us a little background about yourself?
I studied printmaking here from 1990-1994. After that I continued my work while serving the school as the Admissions director until 2000 when I shipped out to Lincoln, Nebraska to do my graduate work. When I graduated my husband, my dog and I moved back to CT and I began teaching adjunct at the Hartford Art School! Can you say full circle! AMAZING. In 2004 we had a little girl and named her Nona. I took a year off from teaching and came back in the fall of 2005. I have been teaching different courses within the print department, foundations, and drawing since then. It is my complete pleasure and a total gift to be doing so. Really.
What are you currently working on?
I am currently working on finishing my studio! I bought a shed, and had to insulate, sheet rock and electrify it! Lots of work, but I should be in there officially by months' end. I have been working on some new prints and drawings based on the way light breaks through the canopy of leaves. So far, the work has been fairly modest in size, I am hoping to make something gigantic, so you can really feel the space of a walk under trees.
Tell us a little about the printmaking department?
I LOVE THE PRINTMAKING DEPARTMENT!
It is where I was raised as a young artist. Jim Lee, John Willis and Fred Wessel were my professors, so it is amazing to now get to call them my colleagues. Scot Maccluggage is SO talented and smart and brings so much to the department. He is always there for the students and faculty, he knows what we need before we do!
The atmosphere in the department is an incredible community. Because of the nature of printmaking, the special equipment involved in most of it, there is a necessity of working in a space with other artists. What develops is spontaneous exchange of ideas, continuous support and constant critique. So the students develop a real sense of community.
When I was a student, I thought it was just HAS, but learned as I traveled that it is part of the Printmaking Community. It is one of the things that I really love about the medium. There is so much to learn, so much information, and the more you work, the more you learn. The more you are in the print shop, you become a sponge. The students and I benefit from each other in this way.
Every time there is a visiting artist that comes as part of the Print Workshop, our information pool expands, and each time the facultyand students attend a conference, same thing. I could go on and on. It is a great place to be an artist, and to grow.
Jenni Freidman makes prints and drawings as well as limited edition books under the name of Stone Dragon Press. Born in 1972 and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, she now calls West Hartford her home. Her work has been shown in exhibitions across the United States and abroad. Jenni teaches at the Hartford Art School and at Trinity College and is on the Board of Directors for Paper New England.
