Cape Fear Press

BPBP 2010 was a huge success! Special thanks to everyone who made this steamroller printmaking event possible and especially to Julia Morrisroe, our visiting artist this year! We pulled 43 big prints that day and all before 4pm! I'll be posting a video soon.

Big Print Block Party 2009 and 2010 Photos

Cape Fear Press is a privately owned photo etching printmaking studio located in Southeast North Carolina. The owner of CFP is an artist dedicated to non toxic, less toxic and technical innovations in the field of fine art photo etching. Cape Fear Press formulated the Puretch Photopolymer etching process, a high resolution photopolymer etch resist for traditionally etched metal plate intaglio printmaking, PCB photo circuit boards and jewelry. Cape Fear Press was established in 2001 and has been supplying Puretch Photopolymer to artists since then. Puretch is the ideal resist for combining digital imagery with traditional plate working and etching techniques all within the same plate.

Photo etching workshops available!
Combine your photos, collages or drawings into lasting and archival original prints using Puretch and traditional etching techniques! Print multiples as an edition to sell or share. You will etch and print a 9"x12" plate. Contact us if you are interested.

NON TOXIC CLEANING TIPS
Plates & Tools:
Use B-100 Biodiesel for cleaning up oil based inks and asphaltum off plates, tools or ink slabs. The residue will have to be rinsed or wiped up with soap and water or degreaser. B-100 is 100% vegetable biodiesel and is non-toxic and non evaporating leaving no fumes. We don't recommend it for hand cleaning as it strips the natural oils from your skin which can lead to drying and irritation.
CAUTION: Biodiesel is not recommended for cleaning natural rubber rollers because it will cause the rubber to break down.

Hand Cleaners:
Coconut oil or Lard make great natural hand cleaners for removing oil based ink. Follow up with your favorite hand soap to remove the greasiness. I prefer the cheap processed coconut oil (with the green lid) for hand cleaning.

Environmentally friendly plate degreasing:
TSP is available as Phosphate Free, please look for this on the label. TSP is not non-toxic, read labels and wear gloves if it is in contact with your hands. I now use a nylon paint brush dipped in a TSP/water solution to degrease plates which keeps my bare hands out of it.

For searchability, Puretch photopolymer is also commonly misspelled as Purtech, Pure-Etch or Puretech. The name originates from the purist who prefers to etch the plate.

Puretch Photopolymer is also sold through two European distributors:

All customers in Europe (except Italy) should contact Polymetaal for purchasing Puretch locally.

Italian customers may purchase Puretch through IL FOLIO.

Cape Fear Press will ship anywhere in the world if you prefer to order directly.

We are seeking international distributors outside of Europe, please contact us if you are interested and already selling products for printmaking.

Search text in other languages:
Espanol: la película del polímero de la foto resiste para el cobre y los metales de la aguafuerte

Deutsch: Fotoplastikfilm widerstehen für Radierungskupfer und -metalle

Italiano: la pellicola del polimero della foto resiste a per il rame ed i metalli acquaforte

Nederlands: de film van het fotopolymeer verzet tegenzich voor etskoper en metalen

Francais: le film de polymère de photo résistent pour le cuivre et les métaux gravure à l'eau-forte

Russian: пленка полимера фото сопротивляет для меди и металлов вытравливания

写真ポリマーフィルムはエッチングの銅および金属のために抵抗する

照片聚合物影片為蝕刻銅和金屬抵抗

Puretch Photopolymer ."

The name Cape Fear is what the region here is referred to and the river that empties into the Atlantic on the point of a Cape that is named the same.

From Chronicles of the Cape Fear River 1660-1916 by James Sprunt
"Looking then to the Cape for the idea and reason of its name, we find that it is the southern most point of Smith's Island - a naked, bleak, elbow of sand, jutting far out into the ocean. Immediately in its front are the Frying Pan Shoals, pushing out still farther, twenty miles, to sea. Together they stand for warning and for woe; and together they catch the long majestic roll of the Atlantic as it sweeps through a thousand miles of grandeur and power from the arctic towards the Gulf. It is the playground of billows and tempests, the kingdom of silence and awe, disturbed by no sound save the seagull's shriek and the breakers' roar. Its whole aspect is suggestive, not of repose and beauty, but of desolation and terror. Imagination can not adorn it. Romance can not hallow it. Local pride can not soften it. There it stands today, bleak, and threatening, and pitiless, as it stood three hundred years ago, when Greenville and White came nigh unto death upon its sands. And there it will stand, bleak, and threatening, and pitiless, until the earth and the sea shall give up their dead. And, as its nature, so its name, is now, always has been, and always will be, the Cape of Fear."