Welcome

Welcome to The Saratoga Print & Paper Foundation. We are a group of people from around the globe who value, appreciate and celebrate the role of print, as a process, and paper, as a material. Throughout our cultural history, in our daily lives, and looking towards our futures...both Print and Paper have been invaluable tools of the arts and are art themselves.

The Foundation has been created to draw attention to Print & Paper, two of the most significant, influential and –today – ignored, underappreciated and trashed elements in our modern culture.

The concept underlying Print is that of creating multiples.  These multiples might be text or symbols in the form of news or editorial, formulas or recipes, directions, treaties, contracts or agreements, history, novels, poetry, plays, operas, dance steps or music.  They might be images in the form of photography or film, textile or wallpaper patterns; china, crystal or silver patterns, plans for furniture design or building design and construction.  They also might be illustrations or descriptions of text, or they might be art - art in its purest forms. But in all of these, there is art and there is method, process and technique. 

Paper is more easily understood as a man made material frequently crossing back and forth into the realm of textiles.  Paper is with us from birth until death in such quantities and multiple forms that we are frequently oblivious to it and can’t seem to throw it away fast enough.  On the other hand, it is often what we treasure most as individuals, as couples and families, as members of religious or philosophical bodies and as citizens of nations.

Between Print & Paper, nearly all that we know is recorded and preserved.

In our modern 20th and 21st century culture, there are probably no more wasted or abused materials than print and paper.  Daily, we discard both by the hundreds of tons, literally and figuratively.  But in our great haste to clear our desks, drawers and cupboards, we must be careful to preserve those bits and pieces of value and the processes used to achieve that value.

In drawing attention to Print and Paper, the Foundation seeks to educate first and foremost.  As a part of that process, its’ goal is to collect and exhibit a range of instructional art works, design industry portfolios, and to document original pieces with drawings or plans.  Further, it will preserve and, when necessary, restore its collections, and endeavor to inspire, provoke and challenge new work, advancing the boundaries and knowledge of both Print and Paper.   

The Saratoga Print & Paper Foundation (SPPF) is a Not For Profit Foundation filed in the State of Washington.