New Article from the Metropolitan about Alumni and current students taking over E.C's printmaking studio.

Alumni Amy Odorizzi is one of eight current and former Metro State art students who have taken over Good Thieves Press, the studio formerly run by Professor Eldon Cunningham. She began in the industrial design program, but switched majors after taking an entry level printing class with Cunningham. According to Odorizzi, with her changed major came a changed perspective of herself.

Along the studio’s single room’s northern wall is a row of mostly abstract print image — the studio’s current show on display. The show commemorates the life and work of Eldon “E.C.” Cunningham, a Metro State art teacher of 27 years, who committed suicide Oct. 1, 2010. Cunningham specialized in printmaking, a highly technical medium involving the use of a press to print handmade images onto a surface, sometimes made of metal or stone. He was the coordinator of Metro’s printmaking program.

Gillian Waggoner, another Metro State art alumna, also helps run Good Thieves Press. She met Cunningham early in her education and was mentored by him during her last year at school while looking into a master’s degree. She agreed with Odorizzi about Cunningham’s passion and spoke about the high standard to which he held his students.

“You’ll do 100 things that he’ll just kind of frown at,” Waggoner said, describing working in his class. “And you’re just working and working to get better and finally you get that moment where he just cracked a smile and you knew that you had done well … He really pushed you technically and you can see that in his work.”

Waggoner said she actually failed Cunningham’s printmaking class the first time around, but throughout her time at Metro continued to go to him for critiques on other projects.

About the show, Odorizzi said it was only natural for them to celebrate Cunningham’s life considering how instrumental he was in all of their artistic growth.

“We wouldn’t have existed without E.C.,” Odorizzi said of Good Thieves Press. “I couldn’t be more different in my art style from E.C.’s. But I am as good at printmaking as I am only because of him.”

The Good Thieves Press show will be open Nov. 11–14 at 2401 Stout St.

Read the rest of the article by Gabrielle Porter at The Metropolitan Online