October 19, 2015, The new Haven Independent, by David Sepulveda- The wind gusted. The temperature dropped. Snowflakes even fell. None of that diminished the smiles and cheers of printmakers and onlooker as a steamroller proceeded down a closed-off street and giant woodblock prints were peeled away from layers of padding to reveal freshly rolled relief images in all their black-and-white glory. The action took place this weekend on Central Avenue between Fountain Street and Whalley Avenue at City Wide Open Studios XL’s Steam Roller relief printing event. The event, part of Artspace’s City Wide Open Studios’ Transported Weekend, was co-presented by Westville Village Renaissance Alliance and DaSilva Gallery and featured the work of over a dozen printmakers, students, and fine artists, many of whom referenced CWOS’s theme of dwelling in their work. Event sponsors enlisted the help of public works steamroller operators, who “printed” images by carefully driving over the sizable woodblocks and paper in the middle of the street, on a closed portion of Central Avenue. Saturday’s steamroller operator Robert Roberts, who usually operates a street sweeper, said he was amazed by the effort people put into the artworks and was glad to be part of the process. Also impressed was the event’s facilitator and visual artist, Roxanne Faber Savage, a veteran of steamroller printmaking who lauded the work presented by participants. “The whole event and the work of the artists was top quality,” she said. Savage said she liked the different approaches to image-making, including the use by a few artists of computerized numerical control, a system that facilitated the cutting process of some or all of the woodblocks. Local carpenter and furniture maker Willie Hoffman worked with three veteran printmakers to program code for the system...

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