Tucson printmakers will host the inaugural Sonoran Valley Print Fair next Saturday on Fourth Avenue, a night market dedicated to traditional, handmade printmaking, from woodblock carving to letterpress and screen printing.

Presented by local art collective Sonoran Valley Printmakers, the event brings together creators from Tucson, Phoenix and surrounding areas to showcase their work, including linocut, stamp carving and jelly printing.

The collective was established by Ben Brockman, Debi Crawford and Joseph Marshall, who initially began printing together at The Drawing Studio in Tucson.

Crawford said the idea stuck with her after she attended a community print festival in Washington State.

"I said to everyone, 'We should do a print festival,' because I was looking around and thought it would be fun," she said.

After the first venue proposal did not work out, the idea briefly stalled. But after Brockman and Marshall's participation as vendors in the Made in Tucson market and a subsequent market-building workshop hosted by the Coalition Space, the group revisited the idea.

The co-founders self-funded the initiative, established the organizational identity and scheduled the market.

Organizers put out an open call for market participants, evaluating submissions to ensure a strict focus on traditional, handmade processes. Almost all applicants were accepted onto the inaugural vendor roster, Brockman said.

Visitors to the fair can expect a broad range of printmaking techniques and physical applications. In addition to relief, or linocut, printing and screen printing, featured methods include etching, copper plate mezzotint and jelly printing.

Work on display will range from fine art paper prints to handmade books, collages and hand-printed textiles.

Marshall, a woodblock printer who carves and prints by hand, pointed to the way relief printing captures regional natural themes, particularly Sonoran desert plant life and skyscapes. He said hand carving allows for exact control over color layering and composition, with each pull of a print revealing distinct physical marks.

"Because you're taking a drawing, reversing it on your block, and then it gets reversed again, you don't really know what it's going to look like until you pull that paper," Marshall said. "Depending on the wood itself, you can allow the actual grain to show through, and then you can see that each print isn't just a replica. It's its own unique moment, and you can see the actual hand quality of it."

Participating printmakers will demonstrate their processes live at their individual booths, including relief pressing and custom garment screen printing.

Attendees wanting to take home a live-printed Sonoran Valley Printmakers logo can bring their own garments or purchase items on-site for a suggested donation.

One of the fair's primary goals is to increase public understanding of printmaking while establishing dedicated retail spots for regional artists. Organizers said printmaking has historically occupied a unique position outside standard commercial gallery models, functioning as an accessible, reproducible medium.

"Printmaking has traditionally not been considered a fine art in the same way because it was, for a long time, considered part of the industrial graphic arts," Marshall said. "What I've always liked about printmaking is that it's very accessible for people to learn, and then you get to make multiples and send them out all over the place."

Marshall also noted the broader geographic network of printmaking in the Southwest, citing active communities in Nogales; El Paso; Silver City, New Mexico; and Southern California, where traditional Mexican-American and Chicano print artists have long anchored the medium.

The collective hopes to establish the Sonoran Valley Print Fair as an annual event, with plans to transition to an annual winter schedule in February.

Long-term goals include expanding toward a multi-day festival model similar to the Southwest Print Fiesta in Silver City, incorporating large-scale steamroller printing, visiting artists and structured community workshops in techniques like lithography and etching.

Beyond seasonal events, the group sees the fair as a step toward establishing permanent physical infrastructure for printmakers in Tucson.

"One of our goals is to have a working space as the collective, where we have a print studio that's available to members 24/7, and possibly a retail or gallery space," Crawford said.

The collective will gather feedback from vendors at the upcoming market to guide future expansion. Organizers plan to offer workshops at the Coalition Space and announce upcoming collective membership opportunities through their digital channels and social networks.

Isabel Vidrio is a University of Arizona alum and freelance journalist in Tucson. Contact her at  vidrioi@arizona.edu.

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