Samantha Rippner: Where and with whom did you study printmaking?
Vija Celmins: I was exposed to two teachers during my art school studies who were dedicated printmakers: Garo Antreasian at John Herron Art Institute [Indianapolis], who was a lithographer and who went on to work with June Wayne at Tamarind [Lithography Workshop, Los Angeles] in the early sixties. And John Paul Jones at UCLA, where I did graduate work in the mid-sixties. Both men were very encouraging and supportive even though my interest was mainly painting and drawing. The technical side of printmaking took too long and I was in a hurry to try to form my own ideas. The etching shop at UCLA was a friendly place to hang out though, and since I was such a drawer I enjoyed working on the plates with a needle
SR: Did you make other prints in the 1960s?
VC: I made fewer than ten prints during those years and they’re floating around. I don't think I ever made editions of any of those works, maybe small editions, four or five artist’s proofs. I dropped the prints all together after a while.
SR: Your later prints aren’t merely translations of your drawings but work that really come out of an embracing, or a working though, specific print processes.
VC: The first prints I made with Jones are really just drawings on plates. In 1970 Tamarind invited me to do a lithograph, I think because they had seen a severe but somewhat successful show of ocean drawings that I had had the year before at Rico Mizuno Gallery [Los Angeles]. So I went in and did a big, direct crayon drawing on stone [Untitled,1970; fig. 3]. We tinted it graphite color so it would look more like a drawing. It was not until later, in 1980, at Gemini [G.E.L., Los Angeles] that I became interested in exploring different ways of making prints.
Excerpts from The Prints of Vija Celmins by Samantha Rippner, Vija Celmins interviewed by Samantha Rippner, pgs. 12-13