Pictured: Rose Pink 4020 John Deere Tractor by Cassia Kite. Image courtesy of Cassia Kite.

The Sarasota artists collective SARTQ will be out in force this Saturday for the 9th annual SARTQ Print Party. Hosted this year at Mandeville Beer Garden, 10 artists from the collective will be on-hand throughout the day, meeting with the community and offering 15 new silkscreen designs ready to be printed on whatever comes their way.

A yearly occurrence, the Print Party provides the opportunity for SARTQ artists to meet their local supporters and for collectors and enthusiasts to get a glimpse into what these local creators are currently working on. It’s also a chance for the curious or uninitiated to get a look inside the screen-printing process as it happens in front of them.

Each participating artist creates new images for the event, and these images are then turned into silkscreens, which the artists use to print their designs on everything from T-shirts to pillow cases and posters and even doggy clothes—whatever the customer brings that can lay flat in the machine and absorb the ink. At $5 a print, attendees are encouraged to get creative with their choices and experiment a little bit. Shirts and skirts may be the norm, but past years have seen everything from underclothes to placemats.

“It’ll be a good time,” says SARTQ artist Cassia Kite, who has provided her own print for Saturday’s party in the form of an illustrated tractor. Not any old tractor, this is a 4020 John Deere, she says, the “go-to tractor” from her days on the Nebraska farm growing up. It’s the tractor they used for just about everything, from feeding the cattle to hauling hay bales—and even pulling the local high school kids’ cars out of ditches. “Tractors don’t always have to be for boys,” says Kite, though she couldn’t resist choosing the Rose Pink ink for that “farmgirl twist.”

Options abound for those looking to sport some local color, including a special Mandeville silkscreen for those wanting to rep their favorite beer garden. From the whimsical illustrations of Zach Gilliland and Javier Rodriguez to the abstract stylings of Laine Nixon and Elena De La Ville or the realism of Tim Jaeger and Jenny Medved, the diversity of the collective is on full display.

The 9th annual SARTQ Print Party is this Saturday, April 29, at Mandeville Beer Garden from 11am–7pm. Each print is $5.

Pictured: Rose Pink 4020 John Deere Tractor by Cassia Kite. Image courtesy of Cassia Kite.