French Paper Co., a sixth-generation company founded in Niles in 1871, is a common denominator in “New Print,” an exhibition in the Southwestern Michigan College Art Gallery until March 30.

Co-curated with SMC alumnus Tim Tinker, whose “ghostly portraits” are charcoal silkscreen prints, “New Print’s” contributors include Issue Press and Not Design, both of Grand Rapids, Tinker’s and chef Alain Helfrich’s Sedition is Romantic print collective of Sister Lakes and South Bend, and French Paper’s longtime partner, Charles S. Anderson Design of Minneapolis.

CSA Design was founded in 1989 with French Paper as its sole client.

They marked the 25th anniversary of their partnership in 2011 while French Paper celebrated its 140th anniversary.

French Paper, one of the last small, independent American mills, has had as customers Tiffany, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Christian Dior, General Motors, Coca-Cola and Eli Lilly and was featured in “Mad Men” on AMC.

CSA Design’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Fortune, Rolling Stone, Time, Esquire, Forbes, Entertainment Weekly, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, GQ and the Los Angeles Times.

“This exhibition offers an overview of contemporary publishing initiatives in our region, exploring new small press and print-based works,” according to SMC Visual and Performing Arts Chairman Marc Dombrosky. “The exhibition includes prints, posters, zines, books and related emphemera. My excitement about this show knows no bounds. This has been on my wish list since I started here. I knew about French Paper before coming to Michigan.”

“Charles Anderson has been our design agency for 32 years,” said Brian French, the sixth generation in the family-owned business. “The first piece they did for French Paper is in the Library of Congress Permanent Collection for changing graphic design history. We don’t make shiny coated paper, it’s all very tactile. Last year we made more than 350 colors, including 55 shades of black. We’re the oldest family-owned company in Michigan.

“You’re allowing paper to be part of the design and to change the design itself rather than being background you cover up and it goes away. We love to see our paper used this way. These prints are incredible.”

Seeing portraits arrayed around the gallery Tinker found “breathtaking.”

“Our studio is an abandoned lake house that’s so small you don’t get a chance to step away or see how different colors of French Paper affect the print. Ideas are flowing now more than ever. Putting different paper stocks with images is like free-style jazz. Brian sent us a variety of papers in a wrapped stack, all mixed up. It was awesome, like Christmas!”

The founder and creative director of Not Design, Christopher Fox, is an assistant professor of graphic design at Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University.

Issue Press uses Risograph digital duplicators to bridge photocopiers and offset printing.

Like a mimeograph, Risographs transfer an image from a digital file to a thin stencil called a “master.”

The master is wrapped around a single color drum filled with liquid ink pushed through the master and on to the paper while the drum rotates at high speed.

“It’s the most delicate paper I’ve ever touched,” Dombrosky said. “This was done for an exhibition in Antwerp (Belgium). I like connecting Antwerp to Dowagiac.”

Issue Press’s “Poster Show” collects 17 Risograph prints created for an exhibition in Antwerp in the summer of 2015.

Three books Issue Press printed will become part of SMC’s library collection: “Cabin-Time: Archipelago; Close Encounters,” by Hannah K. Lee, and “Ever Your Friend,” by Anna Campbell.

Issue Press closed March 8 to 23 to “explore Riso print culture in Brazil.”

The art gallery is located in room 108 of the Dale A. Lyons Building on SMC’s Dowagiac campus. Hours are from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays and noon to 3 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Southwestern Michigan College is a public, residential and commuter, community college, founded in 1964. The college averages in the top 10 percent nationally for student academic success based upon the National Community College Benchmark Project. Southwestern Michigan College strives to be the college of first choice, to provide the programs and services to meet the needs of students, and to serve our community. The college is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the American Association of Community Colleges.