Sandria Hu, UH-Clear Lake art professor, traveled to Mexico to instruct students on the techniques used in printmaking.

Hu was granted a Senior Scholar Fulbright Fellowship last year and has spent the past four months at the Facultad de Artes Plasticas at the University of Veracruz in Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico.

The U.S. Fulbright Scholarship Program sends scholars and professionals to various countries throughout the world to lecture or research in a wide range of professional and academic fields. Each year, thousands compete to become one of the 800 individuals awarded the prestigious grant.

Hu, who is involved with the university’s international exchange program that sends students and faculty to Mexico and Slovakia, spent three years researching her options for the program. Her research included examining the various facilities she could possibly work at and meeting the faculty members and students with whom she would collaborate. Once Hu decided on the Facultad de Artes Plasticas, she spent another two years writing her proposal for the Fulbright Fellowship, but the time spent has been well worth it in her opinion.

“I have had the most interesting learning experience in collaborating with the artists whose backgrounds vary in experience and ideas,” Hu said. “The most important aspect of this project is the international exchange of ideas and dialogue.”

With the fellowship, Hu has been teaching Xalapa students and faculty members chine colle printmaking, a special printing technique used for printing etchings, in which a thin piece of paper, such as Japanese rice paper, is adhered to a heavier piece of paper and printed simultaneously. Hu first encountered this technique while studying abroad in Paris as a graduate student at Stanford University. Hu also teaches a course on chine colle printing at UH-Clear Lake.

“I was shocked to learn when I got to the Facultad de Artes Plasticas that the students and teacher did not know what [chine colle] was,” Hu said. “That’s why I decided to teach it.”

Hu has been teaching this technique at the Facultad de Artes Plasticas with the help of Carlos Torralba, the printmaking professor at Xalapa. Torralba has been invited to be an artist in resident at UH-Clear Lake next spring and will teach a course in plexiglass plate technique in etching editions.

Throughout the project, Hu has been working with individual artists on their series of prints. The long process starts with discussion of the image that will later become the printing plate and then the actual creation of the plate. Next, the colors of the inks that will be placed on the plates and the chine colle papers must be decided upon before the actual printing can take place. The whole process can take up to two weeks for just one print, but it is a process that Hu has found to be very rewarding.

“This project has given me the opportunity to understand the artists’ image and personality on a much more meaningful level,” Hu said.

In addition to the language barriers that Hu has had to overcome, she has been presented with other trials, but she has found the project to be a valuable learning experience.

“The most interesting aspect of this chine colle print collaboration is the variety of plate products,” Hu said. “It has been a challenge to think about how I should execute and organize the printing process so that the chine colle printing would work for each different plate.”

The project will culminate with an exhibition of the prints produced by the students and faculty members at the Art Gallery of the Facultad June 12 through July 11. Next April, the prints will be brought to UH-Clear Lake for an exhibition, after which they will become part of the permanent art collection at the university.

The most difficult challenge Hu has had to face is choosing which of the students’ prints will go into the exhibition; there are a total of 42 students, and only half of them will have their artwork displayed.

“That is the hardest part, the part that kills me the most,” Hu said.

When Hu’s project ends in June, she will have spent a total of six months in Veracruz. She will return to UH-Clear Lake to resume teaching this fall.

“The joy of the whole experience is working with the professors and especially the students because they are so enthusiastic about the project,” Hu said. “They’re such a joy to work with.”

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