Print Club offers handmade artwork in annual holiday sale
Students in the UTK print club hope to earn some money by selling their own artwork.
On the second floor of the Arts and Architecture Building’s atrium, there are posters, shirts, cards and canvas bags designed and printed by students covering the tables. The artwork was on display and for purchase as part of the UTK Print Club’s annual holiday sale.
The sale took place on Nov. 5 and Nov. 6 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The prints are being billed as gifts for friends and family for the upcoming winter holidays.
Prints are pieces of artwork that are transferred from a template onto canvas, paper or fabric with ink. One template can normally generate many duplicate pieces of art. The artwork offered by the club comes in a wide variety of materials, but mostly on paper.
Images of animals, scenes, people and abstract designs are some of what was available for sale on Tuesday and Wednesday. Three club members were at the makeshift store to check out and inform people of what the sale goes toward.
Prices for the pieces for sale ranged from $3 to $20 and the majority of the money went to the makers of the artwork.
Juniper Teffeteller, vice president of the UTK Print Club, is one of the organizers of the holiday sale. Teffeteller along with about ten other students got the opportunity to submit their work for sale in this event.
“There is usually at least one [sale] per semester,” Teffeteller said. “We’ll have a holiday sale and then in the spring we will have Valentine’s Day sale for cards.”
The sale is in part to raise money for an upcoming trip for printmaking students, but most of the money goes directly to those who created the artwork.
“A small about of [the profits] go to the club, but most of it goes to the students. And what does go to the club goes towards the Southern Graphics Conference International, which is a big printmaking conference,” Teffeteller said. “It’s in Puerto Rico this year, so everything that goes towards Print Club will help fund students that one to go to that conference.”
The UTK Print Club provides an opportunity for students interested in printmaking to meet and create artwork for sales like this as well as for showings. In addition, they host printshop open houses to demonstrate the printmaking process and even sponsor visiting artists.
In 2010, the club raised money another way by selling prints of UT coaches’ plays. These “celebrity prints” included prints of hand-drawn plays by coaches Derek Dooley, Bruce Pearl and Pat Summitt.
Edited by Maddie Torres and Grace Goodacre
Featured photo by Jack Vaughn
Class of '23, Journalism and Political Science major
