Print Shop

 If nothing else, I do know something about printing.  It's why I was hired to print woodcuts for a show this past summer, and it's how I was declared an essential worker back during the Covid crisis.  Whatever else I know, I do know how to print blocks of wood on paper.  Which is how I found myself in the basement of the Jersey Shore Arts Center today.   We are scheduled to have a show open later this month, and the work for that show to be turned in the week after next.  I plan to use the same frames as last time, and the prints I plan to show are the same size as the previous prints shown, so the mats are already cut to right size.  I finished and cut the last block last week, and printed a good version of it earlier this week, so all that remained was pulling two new proofs of the two other prints planned for this show. 

Which is what brought me there today.  One thing about woodcuts is the printing ink (and I always use oil-based ink which stays open longer and dries a much darker black) takes several days to be fully dry, and it is definitely better for the prints to be completely dry before they are framed.  (I know some things about framing as well, but we'll get to that next week)  So today was the day to print those last two copies I wanted.  That means the proofs will be completely dry by late next week, so I can frame them and they will be ready to submit well before the 14th, which is the day they start accepting work for the show.  I completed the two other prints months ago and even had a successful proof of each if I needed it for the exhibition, but I wanted a better, cleaner proof of each.  Prepared the blocks yesterday while I was there.

This morning I started by preparing paper, which was just tearing a sheet of Rives Lightweight in half to make the two pieces of paper that I needed.  For these last Robert Johnson prints, of course I had blues music, in this case the home burned copy disc I made of Robert Cray's live show broadcast on the radio.  As it played I marveled that this disc still sounded pretty good considering that the show itself was taped back in 1990, which will be 34 years ago later this month.  The radio station that broadcast it has been off the air since last century, but the music is still good.  It was written about on this blog back in October of 2021, and probably many other times as well.

Each block has been printed before, so it went well and there were no surprises.  I got better proofs of each print, and I assume they will be dry in time to frame for the show.  Here's a photo to today's work:

So that step is done now.  Nothing more I can do until the ink dries, and I'll have to wait a few days for that to happen.  So I'll take the weekend off, and be working on something else early next week.