The Yozo Hamaguchi Scholarship Award and Visiting Artist Program fosters excellence in the study and practice of Printmedia at California College of the Arts. 

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Hamaguchi program, and the opening of our brand new Double Ground print studios, CCA Printmedia is pleased to present a special program featuring a series of exceptional visiting artists. Artist and culture bearer of Korean hanji Aimee Lee presents a lecture and a studio intensive on building traditional tools for the creation of handmade paper. Distinguished CCA Alumni and master printer Courtney Sennish (MFA, 2015) presents a talk on Moonlight Press, her work as a collaborative printer, and a masterclass in advanced techniques for intaglio. Our Printmedia Studio Opening Party welcomes 30 years of CCA Print alumni back to CCA and the Bay Area print, paper and book Community to celebrate the reopening of our brand new double ground spaces. The event will feature the release of Zoe Spikerman’s limited edition book Ladybug Stomachs, and live letterpress printing demos in our fantastic new Letterpress lab. The program will culminate in the announcement of our scholarship winning students and our annual Hamaguchi visiting artist Lecture with celebrated print collaborative Dignidad Rebelde, Jesus Barraza (MFA/MA, 2016) and Melanie Cervantes. As artists-in-residence Barraza and Cervantes will produce a print honouring artist-activist movements in the Bay Area. We welcome the CCA Community to explore our new studios, reconnect with Print alumni, and discover works by our talented students for Hamaguchi Printmedia Week 2025. 

Hamaguchi Printmedia Week is curated by Anthea Black, Associate Professor, Printmedia and Graduate Fine Arts.

Aimee Lee, Hamaguchi Print Week Lecture, Wednesday March 12, 2025 6 - 8 pm

Co-presented with San Francisco Center for the Book and The CODEX Foundation. 

Novack Hub for Creative Citizens

2nd Floor, N203, Double Ground, California College of the Arts, 145 Hooper Street, San Francisco

Aimee Lee, tools-making & techniques for Korean hanji, Thursday March 13, 2025, 12-6 pm

In this papermaking studio intensive, Aimee Lee will guide the creation of essential tools and processes for Korean hanji making. 

*Registration required for studio intensive. register here

Printmedia Papermaking Studios, D164, Double Ground, California College of the Arts, 145 Hooper Street, San Francisco

Printmedia Studio Opening and Alumni Party, Friday March 14, 2025, 4 - 7 pm

Co-presented with CCA’s Painting & Drawing and Photography Programs. 

Printmedia Studios, D148 and D 164, California College of the Arts, Simpson Family Makers Building, Double Ground, 145 Hooper Street, San Francisco. Please RSVP here. 

Courtney Sennish masterclass & Moonlight Press shop talk, Monday, March 17, 2025, 12 - 6 pm 

This studio intensive with Courtney Sennish draws from her expertise as Master Printer at Crown Point Press, co-owner of Moonlight press, and contemporary artist. We’ll explore techniques for advanced copper etching and explosively vibrant hand-mixed inks. 

Talk at Noon, all are welcome!

*Registration required for studio intensive. register here

Printmedia Etching Studios, D148, Double Ground, California College of the Arts, 145 Hooper Street, San Francisco

Dignidad Rebelde: Jesus Barraza and Melanie Cervantes, Hamaguchi Visiting Artist Lecture with celebrated California print collaborative, Tuesday, March 18, 2025, 7 - 9 pm 

*the Hamaguchi Lecture begins with the announcement of Hamaguchi scholarship winners for 2025.

Nave Presentation Space, Main Building

California College of the Arts, 145 Hooper Street, San Francisco

Dignidad Rebelde screenprint edition, Wednesday, March 19, 2025, noon to 6 pm Dignidad Rebelde will be artists-in-residence through Hamaguchi Print Week. We invite students and the CCA community to participate in the creation of a limited edition screenprint honouring artist-activist movements in the Bay Area. 

*Registration required for studio intensive. register here

Printmedia screenprinting Studios, D164, Double Ground, California College of the Arts, 145 Hooper Street, San Francisco

Space in our artist-intensives is limited. All members of the CCA community are welcome to register here and participate. Please check @ccaprintmedia for more information, or contact Hamaguchi Curator Anthea Black at ablack@cca.edu 

About the Printmedia Program at California College of the Arts

Printmedia is a hub for contemporary art, craft, and design, situated front-and-centre in CCA’s new Double Ground makerspaces. Through Print we are committed to the creative, social, and political role of the artist in society, and our alumni can be found exhibiting their works in top galleries & museums, and working as professional printers, art publishers, teachers, illustrators, as image-makers for activist movements and more. Core faculty include Print lead and Hamaguchi Curator Anthea Black, Michael Wertz, Emily McVarish, Luz Marina Ruiz, and Julia Goodman; with guest faculty from Sculpture, Individualized, Photography, Graphic Design, and Painting & Drawing programs. 

About the Yozo Hamaguchi Printmedia Scholarship Awards

The purpose of the Hamaguchi Scholarship Awards are to foster excellence and dedication in the study and practice of Printmedia. The undergraduate award is open to all majors whose work is dedicated to the practice of printmaking and print media. Award recipients receive a scholarship of $5,000, framing of their works, and participate in an annual curated exhibition at CCA’s PLAySPACE Gallery. Our Hamaguchi Graduate Scholar awards and our CCA x KALA emerging artist residency program extend support for exceptional students engaged in contemporary printmaking at all stages of their practice. 

About Yozo Hamaguchi 

In 1995 Yozo Hamaguchi and his wife, Minami Keiko generously endowed a fund at CCA (then CCAC) for the purpose of granting annual awards to outstanding students in Printmedia. Each an artist of international reputation, the Hamaguchis were born in Japan and lived in France for most of the years since the 1930s, arriving in San Francisco in 1982. After Mr. Hamaguchi retired in 1993, he gave his exquisite American-French Tool etching press to the Printmedia Program. Mr. Hamaguchi was a renowned master of color mezzotint printing, a form of intaglio printing that has been practiced by few since its invention in 1609. A few years after retiring the Hamaguchis returned to Japan, where Mr. Hamaguchi died December 25, 2000, at the age of 91.

Artist Biographies

Aimee Lee is an artist and culture bearer who makes paper, writes, and advocates for Korean papermaking practices (BA, Oberlin College; MFA, Columbia College Chicago). Her initial Fulbright research helped her build the first hanji studio in North America and write her award-winning book, Hanji Unfurled. She exhibits and is collected internationally, and her work is held in Library collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Rijksmuseum, Harvard University, Yale University and many others. She travels the world to teach and serves her regional community as an Ohio Arts Council Heritage Fellow, and teaching at Oberlin College. In 2022, North American Hand Papermakers designated her as their youngest to date Papermaking Champion in recognition of her tireless commitment to documenting and evolving Korean papermaking traditions, and in 2024 was named an inaugural Midwest Culture Bearer Awardee. Funders include the US Fulbright Program, Korea Fulbright Foundation, John Anson Kittredge Fund, American Folklore Society, Arts Midwest, Assembly for the Arts, Center for Craft, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, CERF+, and SPACES. Her second Fulbright award as a senior scholar focused on further research of Korean papermaking tools, and continued her training since 2009 with various national and provincial Intangible Cultural Property Holders. She also trains the next generation of papermakers in the Korean tradition from the Korean diaspora and beyond to develop and evolve the American branch of hanji.

Courtney Sennish is a printmaker and sculptor based in the Bay Area. She is inspired by architecture and the built environment. She received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and MFA from California College of the Arts, and studied paper making at Awagami Factory in Japan. She has exhibited at Johansson Projects, Monterey Museum of Arts, and is represented by Nick Ryan Gallery. As a Master Printer, Sennish specializes in copper plate etching and photogravure. Since gaining the title of master printer at Crown Point Press, she has led projects with artists Ed Ruscha, John Chiara, Gay Outlaw, Odili Donald Odita, Patricia Treib, Alyson Shotz, Matt Mullican and Darren Almond. In 2023, she co-founded Moonlight Press with Nichol Markowitz. Located in Oakland, California, Moonlight Press offers a variety of publishing, project-based, and contract printmaking services specializing in copper plate etching, photogravure, woodblock, archival collage, and traditional Japanese scroll mounting techniques. With more than 25 years of combined professional experience, co-founders Sennish and Markowitz blend their unique skill sets to push the boundaries of contemporary printmaking through a dedication to craftsmanship and technique, uniting contemporary ideas and experimental applications. www.courtneysennish.com and www.moonlightpress.co

Dignidad Rebelde is a graphic arts collaboration between San Leandro-based artists Jesus Barraza and Melanie Cervantes. They follow principles of Xicanisma and Zapatismo to create work that amplifies people’s stories, grounded in Third World and indigenous movements that build people’s power to transform the conditions of fragmentation, displacement and loss of culture that result from histories of colonialism and genocide. Dignidad Rebelde’s work is for museums, collectors’ exhibitions, community and cultural centers, individual homes, political rallies and more, and they are committed to collaboration among artists as members of the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, and the Consejo Gráfico.

Jesus Barraza is an interdisciplinary artist with a MFA in Social Practice and a Masters in Visual Critical Studies from California College of the Arts (2015), where he was the recipient of the Barclay Simpson Award, and Murphy and Cadogan Contemporary Art Award. He holds a BA in Raza Studies from San Francisco State University. Barraza has worked closely with numerous community organizations to create prints that visualize struggles for immigration rights, housing, education, and international solidarity. He has exhibited at Galeria de la Raza (San Francisco); Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (Santa Fe); El Paso Museum of Art (El Paso); de Young Museum (San Francisco); Mexican Fine Arts Center (Chicago); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco); and internationally at the House of Love & Dissent (Rome), Parco Museum (Tokyo), Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juarez (Mexico) and El Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore (Bolivia). He was a 2005 artist-in-residence with Juan R. Fuentes at San Francisco’s prestigious de Young Museum, and is a recipient of the “Art is a Hammer” award in 2005 from the Center for the Study of Political Graphics and the “Exemplary Leadership Award” from the SFSU College of Ethnic Studies College in 2010. He teaches in the Ethnic Studies department at UC Berkeley.

Melanie Cervantes (Xicanx) makes her home in the San Francisco Bay Area where she creates visual art that is inspired by the people around her and her communities’ desire for radical social transformation. Her intention is to create a visual lexicon of resistance to multiple oppressions that will inspire curiosity, raise consciousness and  inspire solidarities among communities of struggle. Cervantes has exhibited extensively nationally including at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco); National Museum of Mexican Art (Chicago); and Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY) and internationally at the Musée d’Aquitaine (Bordeaux, France), Galerija Alkatraz (Ljubljana, Slovenia) and Museo Franz Mayer (Mexico City, Mexico). Her work is in the permanent collections of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, the Latin American Collection of the Green Library at Stanford, the Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College and the Library of Congress and the as well as various other public and private collections throughout the U.S. Cervantes is the inaugural recipient of the two-year Art In Resistance Fellowship (2019-2020), as well as being recognized as Dignidad Rebelde with The Piri Thomas & Suzie Dodd Cultural Activist Award from Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (2016), Community Award, National Association of Chicana/Chicano Studies (2015), the NALAC Fund for the Arts (2012) and the Exemplary Leadership award from San Francisco State University (2010). She holds a BA in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.