Revealing All: From novice to amateur in the community printmaking workshop

What is involved in the transition from using a printmaking studio as a participant on a course, alongside other learners, to using the space on a drop-in basis, where there is no longer any instruction save the occasional steering hand of the print technician?

The open access community printmaking studio is considered as a site of amateur practice, where novices and experienced practitioners navigate communal space while undertaking their own work. In contrast with the home workshop, here, not only are facilities shared, with all the negotiations and considerations this might entail, but the successes and failures of individual work are also effectively performed in full view of other users. How might one move from novice to amateur status, and what are the risks involved?

This article draws on ethnographic research undertaken in community making spaces as well as in the home, in which an embedded, embodied approach has been employed to consider the experience of making alone and alongside others.