Biography

TERESA COLE,Professor of printmaking at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, holds the Ellsworth Woodward Professorship in Art. She earned a BFA in fiber arts from the Maryland Institute, College of Art, and received much of her early printmaking education as a working member of Peacock Printmakers in Aberdeen, Scotland. She completed an MFA in printmaking from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Cole shows both nationally, as well as, internationally. Public collections include: The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; the Auckland Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand and the Frederick R. Weisman Collection, Los Angeles, CA. Her recent visiting artist engagements were at: Hard Ground Printmakers in Cape Town, South Africa; CHHAPP, Vardodara, Gujarat, India; Frans Masereel Graphics Center in Kasterlee, Belgium and Khoj Kolkata, West Bengal, India.

Themed Panel (Suggested)

The Connections between Skill and Place:
Working with Master Sari Printers in Kolkata, India
As printmakers we are often the go-to individuals for other artists.  We possess skills that enable reproduction and repetition but were do we go when we desire the skills of another field? In January of 2010, I traveled to Kolkata, India, for a residency with the artist run organization Khoj. During that time I had the honor of working with some master printers in the sari-printing workshop called Kanishka.

My talk will center on my experience in working with the printers, the project I created with their assistance and work by a few other artists that have collaborated at the workshop including Dr. Paula Sengupta of Rabindra Bariti University in Kolkata and others.

Beyond the utilization of these artisans’ skills this project stresses the importance and artistic influence of working in another culture. It strives to elucidate the visual draw for artists to new places as well as the connections and parallels that can be made once they are there.