Jackie Feldman, Britany Salsbury, and Erin Benay Awarded the APS Collaboration Grant for 2025

The Association of Print Scholars is pleased to award its eighth annual Collaboration Grant to Jackie Feldman of Zygote Press, Britany Salsbury of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Erin Benay of Case Western Reserve University for their project, “Pressing Matters: A Zygote Press Program for Cleveland Teens.” The grant, in the amount of $1000, supported the technical and organizational expenses of an 8-week session for young people from under-resourced communities to study printmaking, in conjunction with the historic exhibition Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Pressing Matters asked “How can engaging with the history and practice of printmaking shape and develop a young person’s sense of self and community?” Combining Visual Arts with History, Art History, Literary Arts, and Social Science this program used the lens of prints to encourage students to develop and share ideas that relate to themselves and the world around them. Through a carefully designed curriculum, Pressing Matters focused on process, collaboration, and the facilitation of dialogue. Aligning with the CMA exhibition, this year’s program had a tight focus on the linocut technique and its connection to Karamu House in the 20th century. The program built on Zygote’s commitment to collaboration, open access, and community engagement through a unique curriculum informed by the history of print as a tool of self-expression, identity formation, and advocacy. The historical context of printmaking displayed in tandem with present-day issues, such as the ubiquity of technology, environmental issues, and social justice, gave students more depth of knowledge as they consider their shared human experience.

For their time and expertise, APS would like to sincerely thank this year’s jurors: Carey Gibbons (Assistant Professor of Art History, University of North Texas), Hope Saska (Acting Director, Chief Curator and Director of Academic Engagement, University of Colorado Art Museum), and Asiel Sepúlveda (Assistant Professor of Art History and Visual Culture, Babson College).

Zygote Press is an established open-door printmaking studio, gallery, archive, and education center in Cleveland, Ohio, that supports both artists and our community through residency programs, educational opportunities, studio access, and artistic development in a collaborative environment welcoming to all. Established in 1996 to give artists affordable access to the resources and tools needed for printmaking, it remains the largest printmaking studio in Ohio. Zygote offers facilities and equipment for intaglio and relief printing, silk screen, letterpress, lithography, Risography, and digital media, as well as professional support and a collaborative arts community. As an education center, Zygote offers residencies, workshops and demonstrations, individual instruction, exhibitions, artist talks, seminars, and community programs. Zygote reaches over 8,000 participants annually in free public exhibitions, artist talks, and demonstrations, and maintains a Working Archive collection of 2,000+ prints by affiliated artists.

Jackie Feldman joined the Zygote team in February 2021 as Executive Director. In that role, she launched a new fellowship for artists of Color, engaged the organization in new programmatic partnerships, and shifted the demographic make-up of Zygote to reflect the city of Cleveland. Jackie has over 30 years of experience working in nonprofit management and education. She graduated from Cleveland State University with an MA in English Literature, with a focus on reading across cultures. Her Master’s Thesis explored social fatalism as a trope in classical to contemporary Russian literature. Her work in nonprofit management centered on creating cross-cultural social and practical systems to deliver supportive services and immersive experiences to newly arrived refugees. In this role, she designed the first intensive English as a Second Language program in Ohio that became a model for future community-based immersive language programs. During her years with Cuyahoga Community College, relying on her fluency in the Russian language, Jackie established a cultural exchange program between refugees from Eastern Bloc countries and students of Color that culminated in an annual two-day experiential study of the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. In the years before she joined Zygote Press, Jackie worked with Council Gardens, a HUD Housing Project, as Director of Development and Community Relations. During her 14-year tenure there, she instituted anti-racist policies, designed community-based programs, and initiated cultural programming such as the Heights Culinary Heritage Contest, and “Writing in the Gardens,” a collection of multicultural personal narratives written by Cleveland Heights residents. In addition to her dedication to education and expanding the reach of nonprofits, Jackie is a fiction writer and supporter of literary arts. Having come to the United States from Ukraine as a child, Jackie often touches on themes of immigration and estrangement in her writing. Her short fiction appears in Pithead Chapel Literary Journal, Coffin Bell Journal, and Novel Noctule Magazine. She continues to write fiction and creative nonfiction, and uplift all facets of the arts in her daily life.

Britany Salsbury is a curator of prints and drawings at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where she specializes in modern and contemporary works on paper. Britany holds a BA in art history and English from Case Western Reserve University, a MA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a MPhil and PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Prior to returning to Cleveland in 2018, she held curatorial and research positions at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the RISD Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Morgan Library & Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago, and she founded and served as co-president of the Association of Print Scholars. Britany loves learning from printmakers and everything related to Cleveland.

Erin Benay, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Art History and Distinguished Scholar in the Public Humanities at Case Western Reserve University. She publishes on global early modern art, most recently Italy by Way of India: Translating Art and Devotion in the Early Modern World (2021), and on the broader history of prints from 1600 to the present. Together with Britany Salsbury she is the co-curator of Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community (Cleveland Museum of Art, 2025).

APS is a non-profit organization founded in 2014 for that brings together a diverse community of curators, collectors, academics, students, artists, conservators, critics, and art dealers. APS aims to encourage innovative and interdisciplinary print scholarship and to facilitate dialogue among its members. Over 600 people internationally have joined APS since it was founded in 2014.

Please contact grants@printscholars.org with any questions regarding this announcement. APS is currently accepting submissions for the 2025 Collaboration Prize (deadline: January 31, 2026). To learn more about the APS Collaboration Grant, click here.