Silkscreening at Camp

Guest Post by Jennifer Lootens

How I learned to silkscreen was in the very same room that the silk-screening program is today, with the basics easily at reach, and it is no surprise to me that the craft of screen-printing is popping up in many places that I see.

I really give thanks to Gretchen Guard, who was running the silk-screening program when I was just a young teenager at camp. I enjoyed watching her put simple designs together to create a logo or lasting image that stays with you for a long time. She would invite me to help when she was silk-screening the invitations for the barbeque one year, another time, to make banners for the harvest festival. When the opportunity was there, I’d ask questions, she took it upon herself to teach me the process of using knife-cut lacquer base film to make the stencil, stretching the screen material onto the wood frame…”just like stretching canvas…” she would say to me…and then allowed me to keep the whole frame that I had built with her help. It wasn’t until much later that I learned that she studied art at Stanford; she is a wonderful person and artist.

It was no surprise that I went towards the arts, and when I was a student at the San Francisco Art Institute, I majored in Photography with a minor in Printmaking. In college, the professors were great at teaching all the methods for building silkscreens, during this period of my life; I was a camp counselor at camp. Building screens, expanding images that Gretchen had started; and adding ideas that would come from those around me.

In spite of knowing how to do all sorts of fancy tricks with screen-printing, it is the basic and simplest form that has endured through the years of the silk-screen room at camp. The craft of cutting one’s own stencil/design allows one to use a screen for more than one design, and be used until it’s time to rebuild with a fresh screen. This method allows a camper to create their “one of a kind” masterpiece. Some ideas that campers have done were so popular, that a permanent screen would be requested!

When I do new images, I like to look for things at camp that are part of the daily living, or simply iconic in nature. It’s a great thing to be wearing a shirt, or having a pillowcase with something printed on it from a place where you have a hand in helping make it. My pleasure is in seeing the look on a camper’s face when the colors of paint have been chosen, squeegee pressed and pulled across the screen, and the moment of lifting the screen to see the final result.

This spring will be time to rebuild many screens, cutting stencils for the favorites that need repair, and some new ideas as well…I always look forward to this process, for the work is rewarding.  I am currently working on a new design that I hope some of you will get to see at the 85th Anniversary weekend! Feel free to send an idea to me, I love knowing of what camp means to you and how it might be translated into an image…

Jennifer Cowan Lootens
Camper, Counselor, Resource Staff Alum