By Janet Sellers
News flash: Our local Art Hop season begins in May, now 5-8 p.m. on fourth Fridays. Wander around downtown Monument for an evening of fun, art, food, and meeting up with old—and new—friends.
Today’s creative artwork and hand-painted unique apparel are here as expensive yet greatly expressive, artist-designed clothing, shoes, handbags, luggage and more—even body ink. The novel ideas and values of scarcity are coming back from the mass-produced, highly available pieces that were in demand in yesteryear. And yet:
Mass-made art was an innovation
When they started, most printing process outcomes allowed for a cheaper alternative to hand work. All were available largely to the wealthy, as most new technologies are in any age.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York City explains on its website that lithography was invented around 1796 in Germany by an otherwise unknown Bavarian playwright, Alois Senefelder, who accidentally discovered that he could duplicate his scripts by writing them in greasy crayon on slabs of easily available local limestone and then printing them with rolled-on ink. This was an easier, cheaper method compared to the earlier pen works, engravings, or etchings. Multiples via printing processes only much later became of value as art but were first related to mass, mechanical reproduction and not valued as highly as the scarcity of original handmade works.
Replication and production throughout the centuries used various flat printing methods including silk-screening, a fabric stenciling process from the Song dynasty in China that emerged around 960 A.D., then used in 1600s Japan for textiles. Japanese stencils used human hairs, with stiff brushes to apply paint. Later, silk was chosen for the stencil fabric, thus the term “silkscreen.” The Western use, in England, of this process was first patented in 1907. These processes and their artifacts hold value now because of their age and the fact that they lasted this long. They are scarce and respected artifacts of our history and our human past.
Mass production of posters in the 1960s utilized screen printing to “get the word out” in posters, signs, political protest signs, and more. The U.S. garment industry took off starting with screen printing of bowling shirts and T-shirts. Colorful printed art was right behind, thanks to Michael Vasilantone, who invented the rotary multicolored screen printing press.
I truly believe that our copy machines and other mechanical means to share our ideas and creative intent are as valuable and powerful in their time—our time—as the historic processes. We’re not going to cart around an art material that requires a forklift to use it (lithographic stone slab). We do not need to use such old methods to be aesthetically valid. We do need people to be aware of art methods embodying value regardless of how it is made. Multi-million-dollar global art fairs prove this culturally and financially every year. Even blank space is part of the art experience.
We are in the newest screen age, the electronic version, and in-hand, touchable works on paper, wood, fiber, and other surfaces are now the rarities compared to the plethora of things available on an electronic screen.
Our current art wave also embraces and craves the human touch in meaningful things. Paintings are in demand, as are sculptures and other artworks as a means for creative expression for artists to make and people to have in their lives. Reproductions are still popular, with value added via the artist that hand-signs each artwork.
Let’s meet at the Art Hop and catch up!
Janet Sellers is an artist, writer, and speaker who loves to share the beauty and fun of creative thinking in art, nature, and life. Contact her at janetsellers@ocn.me.
Other Art Matters columns
- Art Matters – Is our education keeping up with visual literacy? (2/4/2026)
- Art Matters – How Gen Z influences our cultural and financial future (12/31/2025)
- Art Matters – Art curation: We all do it, even with holiday trees and gift wrapping (12/4/2025)
- Art Matters – Art shapes our world—and shifts our gaze (10/30/2025)
- Art Matters – October is Arts Month: Artober with Monumental Impact (10/1/2025)
- Art Matters – What is art good for? (9/3/2025)
- Art Matters – We Can’t Unchop a Tree (7/31/2025)
- Art Matters – The many benefits of outdoor art and arts events (7/3/2025)
- Art Matters – On being a sketchy person in the art and cultural sector (6/7/2025)
- Art Matters – May Art Hop and art on the street (5/3/2025)