When Sean “Starwars” Stewart was a teenager, he didn’t think he would be a full-time woodcut printmaker. All he could think about was Star Wars, Mountain Dew and skateboarding.
“I knew I wasn’t all that good at skating,” Stewart said. “It just was everything to me. And I couldn’t imagine what I might possibly want to do every day for the rest of my life.”
But when the Laurel-based artist visited the Columbus Arts Council for an artist talk on Jan. 26, he described his commitment to woodcutting that has carried him through a 35-year-long career as a printmaker.
“I love it,” Stewart said. “I’m committed to it. It’s a lifetime commitment to making woodcuts.”
Stewart said he started drawing as a part of the creative culture of skateboarding. But his fixation with printmaking began while attending community college, when he took a printmaking class. From his first carving, he said, it was the best thing on earth.
“There’s nothing I wanted to do ever again for the rest of my life,” Stewart said.
At first, Stewart said, he was just drawing from skater culture, but eventually, he started being inspired by German Expressionists, pop culture references, vintage advertisements and packaging and more. His art style still includes similar line qualities to the skateboard graphics he grew up with, but many of his pieces are filled with bright colors.
While he was at Louisiana State University for graduate school, Stewart started incorporating more racial elements into his work.
Inspired by the work of Philip Guston, Stewart started making satirical prints making fun of members of the Ku Klux Klan. One of his best known prints is “Frankenberry vs. the Klan,” a print depicting a Frankenstein-esque creature riding a bike in a crowd of hooded Ku Klux Klan members.
After the print was displayed at a printmaking conference, Stewart got a call from Tom Huck, one of his heroes in printmaking, who said he loved the piece. Huck invited Stewart to be a part of the Outlaw Printmakers, an international collective of printmakers that also includes Bill Fick, the Hancock Brothers, Dennis McNett and Cannonball Press.
The group, Stewart said, opened doors that he never dreamed of before, as he was able to show his work and teach printmaking at universities across the country where he might not have been able to otherwise. His work has appeared on book covers, album covers, magazines, films, commercials and television programs, according to his artist biography.
Stewart attributed a great deal of his success to his constant work. Currently, he is working on what he called his most challenging project ever, a woodcut a week “for life.”
Today, Stewart records videos of his wood carving and printmaking process, sharing the videos with thousands of followers on both TikTok and Instagram. He also solicits ideas for prints from the comments, though, he said sometimes he’ll still carve an R2-D2 instead of a suggestion.
Though Stewart’s work was only on display at the Columbus Arts Council through the month of January, his work is still available online at seanstarwars.com.
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