What's Old is New Again

Today was the intake day for the next show at the Boatworks, the headquarters of the Belmar Arts Council.  In recent years the tradition has been what they call a Salon style show.  Open show for all members, but part of the deal is that artists spend a few minutes of the reception presenting their piece to the assembled crowd.  That event will be next Saturday, January 21st, from 5 to 7 pm, with the Salon event beginning promptly at 5:30.  Admission is free and all are welcome.

However, it's entirely possible that not everyone reading this blog can easily get to Belmar, so here's a preview of my contribution and the story behind it.

Sometimes these shows will have a theme, but not this year.  In fact, it's titled "Themeless".  The only rule was that the piece couldn't be something we've shown before.  That can be a challenge, as I've shown literally hundreds of pieces in their space and there isn't much I haven't shown before.  I will finish a new woodcut to submit to the annual Juried show in the spring, but for now I just decided to go with something from my past.

Long before my first woodcut, my print experiences were mostly intaglio, commonly referred to as etching.  Acid is used to create changes in the surface of a smooth metal plate (we used zinc, but copper is still an option in some places), a textured surface.  A thick oil based ink (not exactly the same as relief ink, but not too different) is applied to the surface of the plate and worked into all etched portions of the plate.  Then the artist wipes as much ink as possible from the surface.  Some ink will remain in the scratches, grooves, and pits created by the acid.  Put a damp piece of paper on top, run through the high pressure of a roller press, and the paper will pull that ink from the plate and put it on the paper, creating an image, like with woodcut a mirror of the original source.  It was the only form of printmaking taught at my school back then (though our visiting print professor my first semester showed us monotype as well and required one, a process I still do with my drawing students), so for a long time etching was printmaking to me.  I enjoyed it, but painting allowed me to work at a larger scale, and after a year where I did both, I decided to concentrate on painting.  Never gave up etching completely, doing some later at Montclair and Southern Illinois, including assisting some visiting artists, but then printmaking had become woodcut and that had become my artistic focus.  Still is.

But that was still years away in 1988 when I created this piece.  My art muse in those days was a fellow student named Pam, who I could convince to make time once per semester to pose for something- such as a sculpture, a painting, or a drawing to be turned into an etching. For artistic purposes, I called her Mecedes, borrowing the name from a comic book character she had some things in common with.  I had done my first Mercedes print the semester before, a black and white print mixing line etch and aquatint, posed in a dorm room, but set in the hallway of an academic building.  Tried something different this time.  Almost 30 years later I don't remember how we came up with the pose, but she had a black scarf, stretched from hand to hand of her outstretched arms, wrapping around her back, as she sat on the floor of her dorm room.  There was some line etching used in the process, but most of the mark making in this came from aquatint.  Barely visible along the bottom edge are rough block printed letters reading MERCEDES WITH BLACK SCARF.  More unusual is that it is double printed- the plate first wiped with red ink and printed, then wiped again with black ink and printed on the same piece of paper.  I don't recall the narrative having any specific relation to the model, just a friend helping me knock out another piece for a class.

In my Montclair years I participated a few times in a municipal art show.  The first time I went in as  a painter, one of hundreds.  The following year I went in as a printmaker, framing up some of my old etchings (including this one) and recent experiments with woodcut, and won the prize in my category.  An important lesson to be learned there.

Back here in 2017, I need some art to show and the framed version of this piece was in good shape.  Also had an unframed copy that I could photograph easily for the show entry (and this post).  So far people in the 21st century seem to like it.  Got a very good response from those at the crit this week, and again today when I dropped it off at the intake.  I'll try to take note of any interesting and specific comments when I report on the Salon next week.