Ken Pate
Ken Pate
snailsleappress.com
www.instagram/snailsleappress
Ken will be participating in the 2026 POST tour.
After 6 years of science and liberal arts education at Oregon State University it was time for me to get serious about declaring a major and thinking about a career. My roommate, Chris Gum, was in the same boat and we tossed that ball around often. In the end we both decided to take a ceramics class and neither of us looked back. We were both able to make art, mainly pottery, our livelihoods.
My pottery studio was always at my residence where I made all my clay and glazes and fired my kilns, some of them with wood. I sold my pots at fairs and festivals mostly, though I had several galleries and shops that carried my work as well. In the early days it was a meager living, but eventually it all paid off.
Around the year 2000 I made a big switch. For all the 25 years that I was making pots I kept working on other skills, mainly drawing and watercolors, always thinking I might like to be a printmaker/etcher someday. So, in 2000, I stopped making pots and went back to school at the University of Oregon in Eugene majoring in printmaking. For about a year and a half I studied printmaking with Peggy Prentice, and drawing with Ron Graff, as well as other media with other professors. I loved it there and feel grateful for all the knowledge and support I received. Eventually after a few years of practice and study I grew confident enough to sell my pottery equipment and buy an etching press.
Printmaking, particularly etching, has gone through major changes over the last few decades. I originally learned a traditional method of etching using copper plates and nitric acid to “etch” my imagery into the copper plate. I would then ink and wipe the plate and print the image onto dampened paper with an etching press. But a new non-toxic method for creating “intaglio” plates using polymer plates was growing rapidly and eventually I learned and heartily embraced this change. This change, along with the advent of “water soluble” oil-based inks, has made printmaking a safe and welcoming media, and has opened new avenues of creativity and design in the world of printmaking.
My pottery studio was always at my residence where I made all my clay and glazes and fired my kilns, some of them with wood. I sold my pots at fairs and festivals mostly, though I had several galleries and shops that carried my work as well. In the early days it was a meager living, but eventually it all paid off.
Around the year 2000 I made a big switch. For all the 25 years that I was making pots I kept working on other skills, mainly drawing and watercolors, always thinking I might like to be a printmaker/etcher someday. So, in 2000, I stopped making pots and went back to school at the University of Oregon in Eugene majoring in printmaking. For about a year and a half I studied printmaking with Peggy Prentice, and drawing with Ron Graff, as well as other media with other professors. I loved it there and feel grateful for all the knowledge and support I received. Eventually after a few years of practice and study I grew confident enough to sell my pottery equipment and buy an etching press.
Printmaking, particularly etching, has gone through major changes over the last few decades. I originally learned a traditional method of etching using copper plates and nitric acid to “etch” my imagery into the copper plate. I would then ink and wipe the plate and print the image onto dampened paper with an etching press. But a new non-toxic method for creating “intaglio” plates using polymer plates was growing rapidly and eventually I learned and heartily embraced this change. This change, along with the advent of “water soluble” oil-based inks, has made printmaking a safe and welcoming media, and has opened new avenues of creativity and design in the world of printmaking.
