3. Tugboat Printshop!

P&V Collaberation
P&V Collaberation
Paul Roden
Valerie Lueth
P&V Collaberation

Tugboat Printshop:

Tugboat Printshop strives to provide quality, traditionally hand-made prints at affordable prices directly to the public. Our prints are completely original images drawn by hand, carved out of woodblocks by hand (with hand tools), and printed onto paper by hand on our in-house etching press.

Quality is extremely important to us. All of our prints are printed with top-shelf, oil based inks onto fine, archival cotton papers. If cared for properly, our prints will last many lifetimes! Though it is inevitable that there will be some variation in woodblock printing between prints, we curate only the best copies printed into our editions. Our prints are always handled carefully by expert hands. When you purchase prints from our shop, you can be sure that you will be getting the best that we have to offer.

Much of the artwork currently available on our site is collaborative, though we each have our separate pursuits in image-making as well. Through collaboration, we feel that we have been able to simplify and streamline our message—taking the best of our abilities and applying them dually to the conception, orchestration, and manufacturing of quality images in print. It is our hope that our prints provide pleasure—but also inspire new ways of thinking about the world that we live in.

Through our pursuits, we hope to keep printmaking alive in the public’s mind, reaching new audiences through travel, online interactivity, and direct conversation. Printmaking is one of the most accessible of the fine arts, as it produces multiples, and it is our hope that by completely devoting our careers to its continued revival we can stir up new found interest for traditionally printed works on paper and further cultivate interest in owning original art & greater public support for the arts.

Tugboat are:

Paul Roden was born & raised a true Nashville boy. Though he whistles a sweet dixie tune, he was drawn to the
visual arts (not music) and got his BFA from Washington University, St. Louis in 2001 and, later, his MFA in
Printmaking from the University of South Dakota, Vermillion in '04. Paul packs a whopper of a story into all of his images, prefering large scale woodblock prints as his medium of choice. Paul additionally excels at art-handling and framing, always equipped with a will and a way to tackle most any project.

Valerie Lueth is a South Dakota gal! Born in Des Moines, IA and raised in rural Humboldt + Hartford, SD, Valerie's favorite activities were drawing pictures and building prairie forts. Still the top two on her list! Valerie received her BFA in Printmaking from the University of South Dakota, Vermillion in 2004. She worked for Pulluin Software designing worlds, characters, and interfaces for educational video games until 2007 and then took the dive full-time at Tugboat with her husband, Paul. Valerie's artwork also has a narrative slant, her intricate drawings jammed with environs carefully built through the layering of dense linework.

See more work by Tugboat HERE