Nex Mexico's Tamarind Institute

Tamarind Institute, based at the University of New Mexico, is a center for fine art lithography that trains master printers, engages in teaching and research, and houses a professional collaborative studio for artists. Tamarind is recognized internationally for its contributions to the growth of contemporary printmaking around the world.

What is a lithograph? Basically, it is a print made by using a press to transfer an image that was created initially on stone or metal plate to paper. Aloys Senefelder, who invented lithography in 1798, preferred to call it "chemical printing", since the process depends on the chemical interaction of grease, nitric acid, gum arabic, and water, rather than the stone from which the name lithography is derived. Although the term can refer to commercially reproduced images, such as those on posters or in magazines, at Tamarind a lithograph is an image made by an artist who works closely with an artisan printer.

Industry cluster and science and technolohy experts talk a lot today about "core competencies" that exist in thr world of academe that can be built upon commercially. The Tamarind Institute is a perfect illustration of that.

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