James Cook University arts cuts are a gift for printmakers

So what do you do with a print room replete with a lithographic press, stones, tables and associated equipment when a printmaking course closes? You make sure that press and equipment goes where it belongs. That was the thinking when Townsville’s Umbrella Studio director Vicki Salisbury heard in 2011 that James Cook University’s School of Creative Arts would cease its printmaking courses and close the print room at its Western Campus in 2012. The idea was to house the presses in a professionally managed space that was accessible to the community, students, teachers and any number of arts professionals. That would mean Umbrella Studio, the only place in Townsville accessible to the public with its space downstairs that already had an etching press in place.