The other day my mother asked me a question- what am I? She then clarified that as what did I call myself? Still not sure what she was getting at. She clarified things further- did I consider myself an artist or a printmaker? That was easier- I know the answer to that question. This all came about because her book group had read a book that used famous 19th century artists as characters, and there was some kind of discussion among the people in the club.
The answer is I consider myself an artist. I tried to explain this as printmaking is my medium, the process I use to make my work, but the ideas come from me, and that is where the art is. Sometimes there are things that inspire me to make the work, but in the end, I decide all the visuals, draw things from life or from memory, and my knowledge of woodcut should result in some kind of success. And this is what I have done for a lot of years. My Fourth of July series is the last thing I made that was mostly based on things and experiences in my life, and therefore most of the images came directly from things I saw and experienced, and I tried to match those things as best as I could. Once in a while I had to show an idea that was inspired by things I had seen or experienced, but mostly that series is pretty literal.
However, after that almost every woodcut has been my interpretation of something else. Everyman, my saint series that followed that, took stories from Butler's Lives of the Saints, and spun them in ways that made sense to me. The book is just text, and I had no desire to copy from already existing artworks, so my prints are a drawing of what was written about, as I saw it. Some are very literal (as drawn by a man from the 20th century), and some adapt an idea to a more modern reference. For example,
St Bonaventure, according to the book, was ordered to Rome to be named a bishop or cardinal, while a group from the Vatican was heading toward him, and would meet him on the way and give him his proper clothing and his title. Along the way he spent time at a convent, where he paid his way doing chores, such as washing dishes. While washing dishes, he spotted the delegation heading toward him, and yelled for them to hang the robes on a tree branch, as his hands were dirty from the dish washing and he wasn't done yet. In this case it is fairly literal, as we see a window and the tree branch outside, and in the foreground a sink and dishes. Time wise, it doesn't quite match anything. The dishes are terra cotta, a simple clay, still around, but not used for eating dishes these days. The sink is 20th century, as we see from the design and faucet and handles, though one from before my time. Probably none of this is from St Bonaventure's time, but it still tells the story.
The St Frances of Rome print comes from a quote in the book, where she says something like sometimes a woman should leave God at the altar, and find him in her housework. That attitude probably started to disappear as feminism rose, but I was able to interpret it through something I had access to and related to an early part of my life, back when most women were still spending more time on housework than office work or careers. We actually had this old cast iron upright vacuum at my apartment house, so I just went to the work room where it was stored and drew it on the block. However, this kind of vacuum cleaner was still common in my youth (you couldn't kill these things), so it related to the time when women spent much of their time doing housework. The colors of the wall and floor are based on the house I grew up in.
My interpretation of St Pamphilus came from a mention that he would get up very early to say the earliest Mass he could, then cook meals for the poor in the area, and serve the food to them. What this made me think of was what was going on as I made it, and in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, people who were dispossessed by the storm and its damage, often went to get free food offered at churches, often served out of steam trays on tables. I had a neighbor who would to to three separate parishes every day to get a free breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I did not attend any of these, so I just drew and cut my interpretation of what such a chow line might be like, based on my own experiences. I had no reason to believe that St Pamphilus served eggs, pancakes, and sausages out of steam trays, but it seemed to tell the story, and I could relate to it.
Another major series was
Ecclesiastes, which took lines directly from the biblical book (probably written in the third century BC), and showed them as they might be illustrated in the 21st century AD, with the idea that the wisdom it contained could relate to modern times just as much as when it was first written. The quote I chose here was something like "man cannot straighten what God has made crooked." My 21st century version shows someone taking modern pharmaceuticals, all tranquilizers and mood elevators (images and colors coming from a pill book), in a quest to solve their mental/emotional problems. In some ways this fit with the original book, which is often about the uselessness of seeking happiness in the world, whether it be the old one or our current one. So not at all literal, but still accurate to the original intent of the author, as I interpreted it.
This image from The Floating World, (my boardwalk series) is based on a combination of memories and observation, plus what my ideas of a boardwalk might be like at night. I've shown this one a bunch of times, an often have people tell me they have been to this place. However, the stores, the food places, the games, the rides, all is completely made up. It only exists in my brain. That's art in action.
A few years ago I accepted an invitation to contribute an artwork to a lyric video being constructed by a former student. She sent me a line from a song she had written and recorded a few years earlier, and left everything else up to me, except that I had to include the words in my image. I found the song itself online, learned it was about a woman (song in the first person) who fell off a boat, was now marooned on an island, with only bottles of whiskey and beer, which she was drinking so she could send out notes in the bottles, seeking rescue. So my hand colored woodcut was empty bourbon bottles on a beach (sand and shells), and a scrap of paper with the desired words. All I had was a line from a song, and from there I came up with an idea, executed it in my preferred medium, and sent her the digital photo, all in about two weeks. It made the video, so I guess it was fine.
It did give me the confidence to do this current Robert Johnson project, which once again asked me to interpret someone else's lyrics, as a black and white woodcut. I wasn't given any specific line, but just told to find something I wanted to interpret, and make a black and white woodcut based on the lyrics. I made three, sent jpegs to my contact, who said he liked what he saw, but is saving the rest until he knows more. In the above example, the lyrics were, "she break in on a dollar, 'most anywhere she goes." No one is even sure what it means, but the most common meaning I saw on the internet was that such a woman quickly makes friends with all the men in whatever room she is in. Okay. So I created an interior, have a well built woman striding through, who is being watched carefully by all the men, and making the women all very unhappy. Not a real place, and all the figures are made up out of my head, but I think it does the job.
Working in woodcut, most printmakers lack respect for my medium. It is the oldest form of printmaking out there, and nothing in it has changed much in 500 years. The process is that simple. So what it comes down to, is what you do with it. That is where the drawing skills, handling of cutting tools, and ideas come in. The art part of the process. Printmakers tend to be very concerned with rules, and making perfect margins, more than the image itself. When I have to make an edition for a group folio, I follow all those rules, but these are things wanted by galleries and publishers. Artist don't really care about that stuff. And people who do, don't get invited to the cool parties.
Several years ago I read a review written by a printmaker of a panel discussion, where she complained that one of the speakers, a print curator from a major museum, was all in favor of prints as art, things that held the wall, as he said, and had no interest in the preciousness of perfect margins and the things she cared about. She had no interest in being judged like a painter would be, but only for things like perfect margins. A few months later I attended a local panel discussion and this same print curator was part of that panel. After it was over, I spoke to him, told him about the article. "Oh those people" he responded, which was his way of saying he had no desire to hang out with crazy printmakers.
Me, I welcome completion. I have no problem being in shows along with painters, photographers, sculptors, etc, because I know I can at least match them in the art part of the piece, and can probably beat them. I have the awards to prove that at least some jurors agreed. I have ideas and make art about them. I'm an artist.
