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Bob Hartzell is a printmaker and light sculptor, who is active in community arts and education. He grew up in a series of small Missouri towns as he followed his education administrator father from school to school. After a few failed attempts at a degree from NMSU (now Truman State University), he moved to Chicago were he completed his BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. During his twenty year unofficial fellowship in the art and music scene in Chicago he worked at Steve Walter’s Screwball Press and as lighting director at the famous rock club, Lounge Ax.After starting graduate school at Columbia College Chicago’s Center for Book and Paper Arts, he was lured to the University of Missouri to study fibers with Jo Stealey and the opportunity to teach and restart the silkscreen program at Mizzou. While completing the work for his MFA, he was active in the local community – volunteering for numerous local organizations including the True/False Film Festival, Access Arts, Columbia Art League, and the Blue Bird Music and Art Festival.Having moved to St. Louis a few years ago, Bob has been active in the local arts community both through teaching and volunteering. He is a graduate of the Regional Arts Council’s Community Arts Training program. In 2011, working with Washington University in conjunction with the Southern Graphic Council’s International Conference in St. Louis, he organized the Lights Along the Cherokee project that helped build a series of twenty seven light towers that marked a variety of venues on the night of the SGC visit to Cherokee Street. In early 2012, he worked with the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts to create and complete a large scale lantern project in conjunction with their Staging Reflections of the Buddha project.  Hewas a resident artist at the South Broadway Art Project in south city St. Louis in 2012, and is the owner and chief everything officer of his print-shop alter-ego, Augratin Press.
You can see my recent work on Augratin Press's facebook page