RISD Printmaking Team Wins 10th Annual Iron Print Competition at MassArt

For the second year in a row, a team of RISD printmakers has won the Iron Print Competition hosted by MassArt and organized by master printmaker Carolyn Muskat. Now in its 10th year, the competition invites area college teams to MassArt’s state-of-the-art studio for a five-hour creative race to the finish.

RISD’s team was led again this year by Printmaking faculty member and RISD alum Maxime Jean Lefebvre MFA 19 PR, an interdisciplinary artist who works mainly in print and ceramics. The four-member team competed with printmakers from MassArt, Boston University and Tufts University, working together to create an edition of 10 prints that pushed the limits of creativity, skill and technique and showcased four printmaking techniques: intaglio, silkscreen, relief and lithography.

Grad student Mitchell Poon MFA 26 PR managed the lithography for the team, Brown|RISD dual degree student Ire Asojo BRDD 26 PR was in charge of silkscreening, grad student Tony Torres MFA 25 PR focused on relief printing and Brown|RISD dual degree student Daniella Pozo BRDD 26 PR on intaglio. Grad student Phia Spencer MFA 25 PR and senior Sebastian Bateman 25 PR served as alternates. “While each of the team members was assigned a specific technique, their roles were fluid and they stepped in to help each other throughout the day,” Lefebvre notes. 

Each year, competition organizers present competitors with a mystery bag of ingredients (revealed only after the competition gets underway), which must be incorporated into the image in some way. This year’s ingredients included 12 ping-pong balls, a metal bowl, a key chain and a functional light switch. “Our team worked to use these ingredients in the design of our print,” says Pozo. “We traced their outlines for the woodcut portion, used them to make rubbings in silkscreen and litho and spray-painted them for the intaglio etching.” 

When the buzzer sounds at the end of the day, three judges evaluate the prints based on creativity, consistency, cleanliness and how the mystery ingredients were used. This year’s judges were MassArt alum Kate Goyette, wildlife photographer and Tufts alum Ralph Robinson and visual artist Virginie Faivre, who traveled all the way from Belgium to participate.

“It was an incredible and extremely rewarding experience to compete alongside my friends and connect with passionate printmakers from other institutions,” says Poon. “Our communication was definitely a strength, and Maxime’s guidance as our coach was irreplaceable,” Spencer adds.

The RISD community is invited to celebrate with the team on March 12 at 6:30 pm in the Tap Room.

Simone Solondz / photos by Phia Spencer MFA 25 PR
March 12, 2025