Much literature on printmaking attributes the medium’s distinct potency to its historical function as the main vehicle for information dissemination, while a few scholars have hinted at print media’s metaphorical connection to birth and life. This article argues that printmaking’s power is more complex: it is far greater than its functionality, and concerns not only life, but death. In other words, it asserts that printmaking is a medium that bridges life and death. Through artistic case studies of my own work and that of Lisa Bulawsky, it demonstrates that (1) printmaking harbors the concept of life as a ‘limited good,’ as evidenced by the practice of recycling matrices; (2) the process of printmaking is both linear and cyclical, such is our experience of time, which informs how we reconcile our mortality; (3) the printmaking matrix can be a site of collaboration between the living and the dead; (4) printmaking’s mark and multiplicity not only safeguard and propagate the memories of the dead, but also remind the living of their own mortality.