SGC International

MISSON

The mission of this organization shall be to advance the professional standing of persons engaged in making original prints and drawings and to stimulate public appreciation and interest in the arts of printmaking, drawing, and other graphic media through the exchange of professional information among artists and others involved these arts; through the organization, display and circulation of exhibitions of prints and drawings by members and other artists to be shown in educational institutions and institutions which further the arts, for the purposes of study, research, enjoyment, and the advancement of these arts; through awards given to these deserving special recognition in these arts; and through publications to inform members and others of activities and other information deemed appropriate to the aforesaid purposes.

Originally formed as Southern Graphics Council, a regional organization for educators of print in the U.S. South, we have grown over the years into the nation’s largest organization of printmakers. We now have representatives internationally, and in 2010 changed our name to SGC International to reflect this broader scope. While the SGC International mission focuses on printmaking, we welcome everyone interested in advancing the dialogue of art, its education, and its processes.

CONSTITUTION AND BYLAWS

Ethics Policies

Anti-Harassment Policy

SGCI reaffirms and emphasizes its commitment to provide a professional environment that is fair and responsible; that supports, nurtures, and rewards educational and professional growth on the basis of relevant factors such as ability and performance; and that is free of discriminatory, inappropriate, and disrespectful conduct or communication. Sexual harassment threatens this; inhibits the individual’s ability to function effectively; and violates acceptable standards of interrelationships. For these reasons, SGCI will not tolerate sexual harassment and will make every effort to eliminate it if it appears.

SGC INTERNATIONAL 2022-25 EXECUTIVE BOARD

CLAIRE WHITE

President

Board Member

I am a printmaker and book artist living in Indiana. I served as Secretary for the 2020-2022 board and became President the support staggered terms. I will be Board President from 2022-2023. 

I am interested in the relationship between art, climate change and environmental policy. 

SUSAN CZECHOWSKI

Treasurer

Board Member

Artist Susan Czechowski, fell in love with screen printing thirty years ago when she was lucky enough to work on several pieces for Roy Lichtenstein. Since then, she has taught thousands of students silkscreen and printmaking techniques as a professor at Western Illinois University. Outside the classroom, Susan leads art students on annual trips to her native New York City as well as summer sessions to different cities across Europe. In addition to her role as educator, Susan has exhibited her own work in numerous gallery and museum settings across the United States and Europe. She has been awarded residencies and exhibitions at Grafische Werkplaats in the Netherlands, and Prairie Center of The Arts, Peoria, IL. She holds a B.A. in Art and Art History from Washington College and an M.F.A. from Syracuse University—and feels the same excitement each and every time she pulls a squeegee across a fresh sheet of paper.

Website: susanczechowski.com
Email: sczechowski@sgcinternational.org

CLAUDIA WILBURN

Treasurer

Board Member

Claudia Wilburn is a mixed-media artist currently living in Northeastern Georgia and teaching as an Associate Professor at Brenau University where she is the Department Chair for Art and Design and Director of the enter for the Arts and Design. She received her Masters of Fine Art from the University of South Carolina and her BFA from Clemson University. She grew up in the Lowcountry of South Carolina and has lived throughout the South. Her work draws on the connections, paths, family and community present in the Southeastern American experience. Her academic research has been presented internationally and her work has been exhibited all over the US.

Selected Exhibitions and Presentations: Wilburn presented her body of work titled Navigate by Reckoning in a solo exhibition at the Batesville Area Arts Council, Batesville, AR in October 2019 and at the Quinlan Visual Arts Center, Gainesville GA, January 2021.

In May 2020, Wilburn was awarded with the Master’s in Teaching Award by Featherbone Communiversity & Brenau University. In May, 2018 she was awarded the Ann Austin Johnson Outstanding Faculty Award at Brenau University in Gainesville, GA. This award is selected by a committee of previous awardees based on recommendation by students and faculty; awardees demonstrate and foster outstanding teaching, enhancing teaching as a profession, and supporting other faculty in the pursuit of excellence.

TYANNA BUIE

Board Member

A Chicago, IL and Milwaukee, WI native, Tyanna Buie is a visual artist who received her BA from Western Illinois University, and her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Buie has attended Artists-In-Residency programs, such as the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans, LA, the Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, NY and the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT, as well as maintaining a connection to the community by hosting printmaking workshops and demonstrations, while participating in Healthy Neighborhood Initiatives through the production of public art created for underserved neighborhoods and communities in Milwaukee, and Madison, WI.

Buie has been a visiting artist lecturer in Tennessee, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Alabama, Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri, Rhode Island, and Arizona, while continuing to exhibit her works in numerous juried, group and solo exhibitions throughout the country. Her extensive exhibition record includes: The Contemporary Invitational Print and Drawing exhibition at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, The Haggerty Museum of Art, The Racine Art Museum, The Red Bull House of Art, N’NAMDI Center for Contemporary Art, the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, The Milwaukee Art Museum, The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, the Wriston Art Center, the Museum of Wisconsin Art, and the Alice Wilds.

Buie received an emerging artist Mary L. Nohl Fellowship in 2012, the Love of Humanity Award from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation and the prestigious Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptors Grant in 2015, the 2019 Kresge Artist Fellowship in the Visual Arts, the 2019/2020 Grant Wood Fellowship in Printmaking at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA, and the 2020 Fellowship.art award, a top accelerator award/program funded through gener8tor.

Buie’s work has been acquired by major institutions and private collections nationally and her work has been reviewed on Hyperallergic.com and featured on Essay’d.com. Currently, Buie is an Assistant Professor/Section Chair of Printmaking at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, MI.

Website: https://tyannajbuie.com/home.html
Instagram: @tyanna_buie
Email: tbuie@sgcinternational.org

KAMLA KAKARIA

Secretary

Board Member

I am a first-generation American of East Indian descent and spent my formative years between the US and New Delhi. I attended college part-time for many years as a single working mother and received a BFA in painting and an MFA in printmaking. I work in printmaking and encaustic, as well as installation work. I am the Board President of Seattle Print Arts and I run the 2D department at Pratt Fine Arts Center. Being an American growing up in an Indian household I attempt to understand my place in between through making.

DENISE BOOKWALTER

Affiliates Coordinator

Board Member

Denise Bookwalter is an artist and educator. She is founder and director of Small Craft Advisory Press, a collaborative book arts press that pushes the tradition of the artist book. She is Professor in the Department of Art at Florida State University where she is Area Head of Printmaking. Her book works are collected in the US, Netherlands and South Africa. She lives in Tallahassee, Florida with her husband and twin daughters.

Website: denisebookwalter.com
Instagram: @denisebookwalter
Email: dbookwalter@sgcinternational.org

ARRON FOSTER

Board Member

Arron Foster received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Printmaking and Art Education from East Carolina University in Greenville, NC and his Master of Fine Arts degree in Printmaking and Book Arts from the University of Georgia, Athens Georgia. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally and has held academic appointments at the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, and Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

MICHAEL SMOOT

Vice President

Board Member

Mike Smoot currently lives in Southern Vermont and is a Professor of the Practice in Print and Paper at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. He completed Tamarind Institute’s Professional Printer Training Program in 2007 and has worked at a number of professional fine art print studios including Atelier Towson, The Experimental Print Institute, Tamarind Institute, and Landfall Press. He has taught or given lectures and demonstrations on printmaking at Towson University, Goucher College, East Carolina University, Southeast Missouri State University, Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, Georgia State University, Valdosta State University, UMass Amherst, Bennington College, Keene State College, and Smith College. In addition, he has worked with a number of art related community organizations. He believes printmaking’s potentials for sustained collaborative effort, the negotiation of difference, and collective creative action make it a worthwhile pursuit.

VALERIE DIBBLE

Archives Coordinator

Board Member

Valerie A. (Wright) Dibble is a practicing artist, university professor, wife, homemaker and mother of three. She earned her BFA from Arizona State University in 1982 in printmaking and photo processes. She earned her MFA from the University of Florida1991 in printmaking and electronic media.

Valerie is currently a Professor of Art and the Coordinator of the Printmaking concentration at Kennesaw State Univeristy. She has been awarded the Distinguished Teacher, Distinguished Scholar and Distinguished Service awards. She has also received a Governor’s Teaching fellowship and numerous grants. She actively serves by holding positions on local, national and international Boards for various art organizations.

Website: www.valeriedibble.com
Email: vdibble@sgcinternational.org

GRETCHEN SCHERMERHORN

Board Member

Website: gretchenschermerhorn.com
Instagram: @gretchenschermerhorn
Email: gschermerhorn@sgcinternational.org

JOSEPH VELASQUEZ

Vice President

Board Member

Joseph Velasquez was born in Amarillo, Texas, and raised in the San Fernando Valley of California. After his military service, he earned his BFA from the University of Mary- Hardin Baylor, Belton, Texas. Then he earned both an MA and MFA in Printmaking at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and. He is the co-creator of a mobile printmaking studio, Drive-By Press, that has traveled over 200,000 miles across the country and has been to 145 Universities where he has lectured and demonstrated printmaking practices.

Joseph’s work evolves around popular culture graphic iconography, community outreach, education, and activism. He is a National Endowment for the Arts recipient: Funded through The John Michael Kohler Arts Center for a Community Arts Project and residency and an Assistant Professor of Art at Florida Atlantic University. He teaches Bookmaking, Screenprinting, Relief, and Intaglio.

Velasquez has exhibited at numerous national and international venues, notably "Air-Land Seed" on the occasion of the Venice Biennale 54th and 55th International Art Exhibition, Venice, Italy; South African Museum, Cape Town, South Africa; The Print Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Doujiao Museum of Art, Songhuang Art Village, Beijing China, State Lines: A Survey of American Printmakers, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK. Exhibition of prints from American artists Velasquez met on his mobile printmaking tour.

Website: josephvelasquez.com
Instagram:@dbpjoseph
Email: jvelasquez@sgcinternational.org

DR. FAISAL ABDU’ALLAH

Immediate Past-President

Non-voting Advisor

The art of Abdu’Allah and his contemporaries in the early 1980s can be evaluated in a manner that fills an important void within available scholarship on the subject of contemporary art in relation to Afro-British culture. What began as an artistic gesture in the 1980s more fully materialised in the early twenty-first century as a complete conceptual approach that questioned issues of race and identity in relation to issues of cultural diversity and multiculturalism. Abdu’Allah’s work broke away from the British artistic establishment and the rules of institutional representation, particularly insofar as he began selecting his subjects from émigré utopia, Afro-British social consciousness, Muslim identity, and working-class life. He also integrated other views of London, portraying it as a city of dislocated communities that were powerless in the existing world of art.