Winslow Loves You! '25

Winslow Loves You! '25 (he/they) graduated from Maine College of Art & Design with a BFA in Printmaking in May 2025. Winslow joined MECA&D as a Pre-College student in 2019 and returned to pursue his degree, eventually working as a teaching assistant for subsequent Pre-College courses. Winslow describes themselves as a “community-based printmaker,” something that becomes immediately apparent in the ways they prioritize skill and resource sharing amongst their communities.

You have a long history with Maine College of Art & Design, starting as a Pre-College student. Could you tell me about your experience in the Pre-College program?

I was sixteen when I first came to MEC&D. That was a very exciting time. I'm from Virginia, and it was the farthest I'd ever traveled and the longest I'd been away from home. It was exciting to live on campus at MECA&D for a month and be part of a program that really challenged me and gave me a lot of responsibility.

I majored in painting and minored in printmaking; it was my experience in the Pre-College program that made me realize I wanted to be a printmaker. So when I began the BFA program, it was printmaking, printmaking, printmaking.

What sort of responsibility did Pre-College give you?

The Pre-College program does a really good job of simulating a month of college by having you show up every day, work in a studio, six days a week, and finish your assignments. It was definitely hard work, but hard work that I really enjoyed.

Living in the dorms with a roommate for the first time and being so far away from home gave us adult expectations and responsibilities that I felt really good about.

How has your experience as a Pre-College student informed the way that you approach your work as a teaching assistant?

One of the biggest takeaways is understanding where students are coming from. It can be pretty scary to be uprooted and moved to a new place for a month. Meeting so many new people, making friends, and taking college classes. There can be a lot of things that come up, so I'm glad I can let these students know that I was in that same place. They usually get really excited when they know that I was a Pre-College student in 2019. They see me and think to themselves that I can do this, then come here, I can teach and have these opportunities, and my work can look like this.

What would you say to students starting Pre-College now?

Embrace the experience and feel everything that's going on. Feel the excitement and the anxiety and the stress, because it's all of those heightened emotions that are the reasons we push ourselves to do big things. The reason we go to college is to experience these new things. I would really encourage them to hold onto all of those really big feelings.

Can you tell me a little bit about your thesis, Something That is Nothing That Anyone Could Ever Remember?

With my practice, I explore a lot of different forms of printmaking, but for my thesis, I've been mostly exploring etching, which is intaglio.

Through this process, I've been shaving copper plates into the shapes of sheep livers to reference the ancient Mesopotamian method of divination through the entrails of sacrificed animals. I'm using that as a way to say that the first instance of looking inside for answers is what my work is doing. My practice involves looking inside and then bringing out the inner qualities. My work serves as a tool for introspection, allowing me to better understand my inner workings. There's a desire to have a private escape for myself and to exist in the public.

I'm focusing on experimental techniques in the etching process, like soft grounds, spit bites, sugar lifts, and layering. These are experimental plates with transparent inks, allowing me to create bodies of texture that work like layers of veils that you can look at and see each different thing that's happening.

I'm referencing textures that each exist in a memory for me. To be able to explore these memories within myself that I'm still processing, and I'm still trying to make sense of. And then hoping that these are abstract enough that the audience puts themselves into it and starts to assign different objects with the textures, and assign different memories to the objects.

I'm also doing this to warp what a traditional print might look like. I'm really interested in places where I can use experimental print techniques to transcend the print into something that's a little bit more confusing. Most of my work is mono prints and monotype now. I really like when people ask, “then why is that a print?”

Why is it a print?

I'm so in love with the techniques, and I really enjoy how much time is involved in printmaking. I feel like I could sit down and make a painting or an illustration, and get it out immediately. But there's something more rich and rewarding about spending up to weeks with a single image, having to really contemplate it, and wrestling with the image to make it work. Especially when I'm using printmaking as an introspective tool, and I'm ruminating on these past experiences. Extending the time I spend with the image just really intensifies that.

Where does the ruminating happen? Are you living in an idea, a memory, or a thought the whole time you are working on it?

My work is akin to delusional thinking, which I’ve been referring to as whimsical thinking. That's part of using the sheep livers, and the divination is this whimsical strangeness I can add into my print. Because living with trauma and living with traumatic memories, there's a need to escape that world. So when dealing with these delusions, the act of printing and taking something from outside is kind of accepting that it happened. And then the extended amount of time with the print is spent on drawing the image, transferring the image, and then working with the copper or the monograph. Every step, I have to think about this because I'm face-to-face with the image, which represents the memory again.

You’ve described yourself as a “community-based printmaker”. What does community mean to you?

I use the term community because of my interest in working with other artists in printmaking. Through the printmaking department, I had the opportunity to work with master printmakers, and I truly fell in love with the printmaking practice of working in a print shop alongside an artist.

Perhaps because of how inherently community-oriented printmaking is. Printmaking is so expensive, the machines and the studio space. None of us can really afford to print by ourselves. So we all have to exist in these printmaking communities and share resources and share knowledge. To me, the printmaking community is about sharing resources, knowledge, and what you have with those who don't have it.

What are the ways that you've had access to community here at Maine College of Art & Design?

Being in the studio, respecting the machines, the tools that are here, and respecting each other. Seeing each other when we struggle in the studio and being able to share the knowledge that we have. As a senior now, I get to see younger printmakers in the studio who haven't taken the classes I have, and I get to step in and help them when they need it.

Especially because I do work study. It’s a role of mine for people to feel comfortable coming to me to ask questions and get advice in the print shop.

What is your favorite place in the Porteous Building?

I love the dark room in the printmaking studio because when there is no one else in there, it's a quiet, dark room that I can sit in.

What’s your favorite object in your studio?

I've a wall in my studio where I've hung up all the notes, drawings, and photos from people I love. That entire wall is my favorite object because whenever I get stressed out, I can look at it, and it's a reminder of the people I have in my life.

Other than phone, keys, wallet, what do you never leave the house without?

My pet rock, Henry. One of my best friends made him for me for my birthday. I’m completely obsessed with him, and he goes everywhere with me.

Check out Winslow’s thesis work, Something That is Nothing That Anyone Could Ever Remember, from the 2025 BFA thesis show Confluence, for which they also served on the curatorial committee. Since graduating, Winslow has taken up another position as a teaching assistant for Pre-College and plans to return to his hometown of Charlottesville, VA, for a year-long residency at the McGuffey Art Center.