Screen Printing - December 2019/January 2020 - 19

AARON BROUGHTON 
Print Master | DIY Printing| diyprintingshop.com | Cincinnati | Age: 26
HOW HAS HAVING A FINE ART BACKGROUND IMPACTED YOUR WORK IN THE
SCREEN PRINTING INDUSTRY?
It's hard to put a pin in exactly how
a fine art background has helped me
with my career as a screen printer. To
be fair, DIY Printing is composed of
amazing artists of all sorts of backgrounds from sculpture, illustration,
abstract painting, graphic design, and
music composition, but I do think
I'm the only one with a bachelor's in
printmaking. I can say it's taken me
out of apparel printing and allowed me
to expand the paper printing side of
DIY. My boss saw my experimentation
with the CMYK process printing in my
own work and allowed me to try it for
a few clients to re-create water color
illustrations and oil paintings. 
YOUR NOMINATION FORM MENTIONS
YOU COMPLETE DEMONSTRATIONS OF
SCREEN PRINTING TECHNIQUES FOR
LOCAL ART ORGANIZATIONS INCLUDING
THE CINCINNATI ART MUSEUM AND THE
ART ACADEMY, PARTICIPATE IN OPEN
STUDIO NIGHTS TEACHING LOCAL ARTISTS
SCREEN PRINTING TECHNIQUES, TEACH
CLASSES IN SCREEN PRINTING, AND WORK
WITH SPECIAL NEEDS ARTISTS TO TEACH
SCREEN PRINTING AND TO DEVELOP THEIR
SKILLS AS ARTISTS. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT
YOUR INVOLVEMENT IN THESE EVENTS
AND WHAT THEY MEAN TO YOU?
Live printing demos are one of my favorite parts of screen printing. Because I
need so little to actually make a poster, it
makes the process accessible for on-site
printing. The live demos are like magic
to people who haven't really seen the
process before, and they allow them to
get their hands dirty at local art events.
Most recently I did a poster demo at Paul
Brown Stadium for the Smelt Fry, a large
paper convention hosted by Millcraft
Paper Company every year. All these

people who work with Millcraft in some
capacity, usually digital printing, got to
have the experience of actually pulling
a poster with a little assistance from
myself. Teaching screen printing goes
back all the way to high school for me
when I tried teaching my friends in my
parents' basement how to print, which
eventually led to me teaching my own
class at my alma mater, the Art Academy
of Cincinnati, after hours for the Community Education department. This is an
eight-week, 101-type class where mostly
designers want a hands-on experience
of screen printing or students want to
brush up on their skills. Now I've carried
that skill to DIY Printing where we teach
a 101 class every other month, run open
studios on Monday and Wednesday
nights, and teach local special needs
groups like Starfire and Collective
Visions. It's one of the more rewarding
parts of my job to be able to pass on this
skill set. There's a special needs artist
named Stephen who comes in once a
month with his connector to work on
mostly monotype prints to flesh out his
portfolio. He hopes to become self-sustained through his artwork. Stephen is a
brilliant and funny guy who is attracted
to numbers. Not surprisingly, his work
mostly involves numbers, all of it in a
hand painted monotype process that is
done with water-based dyes printed with
extender base. 
WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER YOUR
GREATEST PROFESSIONAL
ACCOMPLISHMENT TO DATE?
My greatest professional achievements
are some of the collaborations my job
has allowed me, as well as getting to
show my own work. Within the past
three years at DIY I've worked with
artists such as Kevin Kelly, Dalek, Buff
Monster, Julia Oldham, Andrew Au,
Jonpaul Smith, Aaron Kent, C.F. Payne,

Jenny Ustick, and Matt Kish, to name
a few. They are all wonderful artists to
work with who had something to teach
me through their words and their work.
They all come from different media,
whether that's painting, graffiti, sculpture, illustration, or political activism,
but all of them enjoy the accessibility
of screen printing. I was lucky enough
to be offered a solo show at Miami
University where I will be showing my
own CMYK collage of work. 
DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020

19
http://www.diyprintingshop.com
Screen Printing - December 2019/January 2020

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