Our Vision
With a collaborative spirit guiding how we work, we strive to continue printmaking’s legacy as:
a time-honored craft;
an innovative contemporary art form;
a process known for its democratic and aesthetic sensibilities;
a practice that benefits from and builds community, and
a rich tool for personal expression.
Our Approach
We love printmaking as both a craft and an innovative contemporary art form. We see printmaking as a range of tools and processes that invites infinite experimentation while also allowing great precision and technical mastery. If your project involves ink and a matrix, we’re thrilled to be part of it!
Our approach is guided by the Montessori understanding of a prepared environment: a carefully designed space that encourages self-led exploration and discovery. At Campfire, there are no multi-week classes. Instead, we simply offer Print Sessions, available in a few varieties, to ensure that anyone, from those new to printmaking to advanced printers, are able to bring their project to fruition.
We bring our decades of experience, as artists and educators, to each print session, ensuring that everyone can work at their own pace and with as much or as little direction as needed. Through curating Artist Workshops, we offer bespoke opportunities to not just learn a process, but to see how that process applies to a contemporary art practice.
Our Story
We met in 2008 through a shared interest in printmaking, and became fast friends and frequent collaborators through our work at Spudnik Press Cooperative. Together, we spearheaded creative projects like Ten x Ten, which prompted visual artists and musicians to share a creative process and co-taught through Marwen. In 2013, we spent a month in Viljoenskroon, South Africa leading animation workshops. Experiences like these informed other aspects of their work:
Angee developed a penchant for interdisciplinary and collaborative printing which led to working side-by-side with local and nationally-recognized artists. This eventually led to her current role printing and publishing prints though Process/Process.
Colin deepened his practice as a Montessori teacher, using his background as a printmaker as a springboard for integrating the arts, humanities, and sciences into interdisciplinary projects with the adolescents in his classroom.
We realized that through all these roles and experiences, we have a lot to offer others who are interested in printmaking for its potential as an expressive medium, a conceptual framework, a creative outlet, a traditional craft, a mode of production, or a tool for social engagement. By opening a studio capable of large-scale and high-quality printing, and offering “all-in” support for the projects that come through our doors, we can add to Chicago’s vibrant printmaking ecosystem.
Over the years, in addition to the printshop, the campfire became a place of significance for us, as a place to recuperate, reflect, dream, and make big plans. So when we decided it was time to launch a print studio together, we took great inspiration from the humble campfire.
Who We Are
Colin Palombi is a Montessori educator and artist with a practice in printmaking, video, and animation.
His interest in printmaking originated in high school when playing in various bands and having the desire to produce show posters. He was deeply inspired by the work of other Chicago-based musicians and artists like Jay Ryan, and for many years produced screenprints in various DIY home studios. Upon entering The School of the Art Institute in 2000, he pivoted to the film department and soon began hosting an experimental film screening series–The Ice Capades–at the now defunct Ice Factory arts collective. The Ice Factory served as a creative hub for music, film, and poetry—all of which needed a steady stream of posters.
In 2008 Colin started printing at Spudnik Press where he expanded his print knowledge. He soon became a teaching artist at Spudnik and began organizing field trips for his Montessori adolescent students to print at the studio as well.
Colin recently became an Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) Auxiliary Teacher Trainer and serves on the board for the Association of Illinois Montessori Schools (AIMS). Whether he’s working in a Montessori or print studio context, Colin loves to collaborate and build creative spaces with adolescents and adults alike.
Angee Lennard is a printmaker, educator, and arts leader with a penchant for collaboration.
Inspired by printmaking's capacity to foster community, Angee founded Spudnik Press Cooperative in 2007. This nonprofit community-based printmaking studio began as an experimental volunteer-run studio. Under her leadership, it grew into a dynamic open access print studio with artist residencies, community education, exhibitions, invitational publishing, and ever-evolving collaborative projects and public programs.
After fifteen years with the organization, Angee shifted her focus to collaborative and cross-disciplinary projects. This led to the 2024 launch of Process/Process with longtime friend and collaborator, Jessica Cochran. This editions program meets and builds the market for prints by contemporary artists by inviting artists to make new artworks that adapt the material, aesthetic, and critical possibilities of printmaking. As partner and printer, Angee has developed adventurous projects with artists including Candida Alvarez, Alex Chitty, Alex Bradley Cohen, Magalie Guérin, and others, with select works placed in institutional collections such as the National Museum of Mexican Art, Smart Museum of Art, and University of Michigan.
Her deep involvement in the arts, spanning organizational leadership, operations, studio management, and print production has led her to a variety of local, regional, and national speaking engagements and consultancy roles with colleges, universities, non-profits, and museums. She has been a lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Arts Administration and Policy and the Printmedia departments, and has served as a Marwen Foundation Teaching Fellow, a grant review panelist for the Illinois Arts Council, and Treasurer for the Chicago Printers Guild (CPG). She holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Contact us
2415 W. 19th Street, 2C
Chicago, Illinois 60608
(773) 716-3788
hello@campfireprintingpress.com