Montgomery Journal 10-02-2004
By ANNA BAILEY Journal staff writer

It is obvious that the artwork is not from the same artist. Some prints display tranquil scenes in nature, others dizzying abstracts, and quite a few depict struggles unique to blacks. But the reason the artwork is on display at the Harmony Hall Regional Center in Fort Washington is one artist: Lou Stovall.

Stovall, a member of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, is a master printer of the graphic art of silkscreen who has his own printmaking facility in Washington called Workshop Inc. Silk-screen prints from Stovall's workshop are on display at the center through March 27 in honor of Black History Month.

Stovall, a black man, admits that when he began silk-screening in the late 1960s and early 1970s, his race and politics were the main inspiration for his art. Workshop Inc., which Stovall opened in 1968, concentrated largely on making community posters supporting civil rights, protesting Vietnam and promoting different jazz bands. Now, Stovall said, "My themes have to do with beauty."

Stovall's silk-screens that he designed himself depict scenes in nature: flora and fauna, songbirds and bubbling streams.

Only a handful of the pieces in the gallery are solely Stovall's creations, though.

The others involved immense collaboration between the original artist of the design and Stovall, who used silk-screening to recreate the piece.

Silk-Screening is a method of art that involves direct impression of ink through stretched silk, allowing colors to be layered on top of one another without being changed by a paint brush.

"It is color in its purest form," Stovall said.

Stovall credits the emergence of silk-screening over the last several decades as an American art form as the reason so many now have artwork hanging in their homes, when it was unheard of while he was growing up in the '40s and '50s.

"By making prints it means that a lot of people who couldn't afford original artwork, can afford original prints," he said. "We have come to a full understanding of what makes for a better life."

Artists with whom Stovall has collaborated with include Jacob Lawrence, who's work touches on black history; Sam Gilliam, an abstract artist; and Elizabeth Catlett, whose "Madonna II" depicts a touching scene of a black Madonna holding a black baby.

Stovall also collaborated with artist Gwen Knight to make a silk-screen of her piece "Woman in a White Dress," which required innovative thinking to create the dress' lace-like effect.

Stovall's work has been widely displayed throughout the D.C. area, including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Washington Gallery of Art, Howard University (his alma mater) and the University of Maryland, and he has created artwork at the request of former first lady Nancy Reagan and former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry.