Hi, I’m Diana Kohne, a painter and printmaker in Pasadena, California. My printmaking focuses on infrastructure and has been exhibited nationally in shows like the International Survey of Printmaking at the Firehouse Gallery in Baton Rouge and “Tracing Lines” at the Ohio State University Urban Arts Space, where I also had the pleasure of teaching my printmaking workshop. I’ve had print tables in art and craft shows from Anaheim to Venice Beach. I’ve been using the Pocket Press setup for a decade now to press all of my prints. I like it so much I never did get a floor or tabletop printing press. In October 2015 it occurred to me to make my press design available to fellow printmakers. This is a site to showcase my printmaking and sell my handheld presses to fellow print makers. Each press is handmade by me. I’m shown here with my paintings. You can learn more about them and me at dianakohne.com.
About the Press
While I’ve been using a Pocket Press since 2010, it didn’t occur to me to make my press for print makers until 2015. Since then, my Pocket Press has appeared in magazines, changed names, designs, colors and materials, and it has been shipped all around the world. In all this time, I’ve had no returns. When a customer has had an issue, I have been able to help to resolve it every single time through email, video or photos. The Pocket Press works a little differently than the presses at the print lab. Instead of using a large roller and setting the pressure, the Pocket Press uses a small roller and the print maker adjusts the pressure by exerting more or less personal force on the rollers. These small rollers concentrate the strength and weight of the user, enabling 1.5 inch rollers to print much wider prints. This is unlike most presses, which are limited by the width of their rollers. For example, a converted pasta maker or 3D printed etching press can only press a print of maybe 4 inches in width. Of course I still want one too! But for larger projects, the Pocket Press is the most versatile and lightweight option for printing without a press because it prints in overlapping rows. It can print both intaglio, relief and monoprints. I’ve used it to print acid etched plates, hand etched plates, monotypes, linocuts, woodcuts, collagraphs, vintage and polymer letterpress plates and more.