Walkin' Blues part 13

 Last week I went up to the Studio and made a few minor changes to my first block in this Robert Johnson series.  Not a lot of changes, as I was fairly satisfied with how it turned out, but I did a few changes, a little more being cut.  Now it was time to print the thing, and get it off to Tom to decide what he wants to do.  

First proofings are always the most difficult.  I figure it's because the wood absorbs a certain amount of ink, while after that the block is somewhat sealed by the ink already on it.  In any case, today the printing went much faster than the last time.  The first rolling of ink looked better, and the whole thing was done in less than an hour.  Here are the results:

Changes are minor in this one, but I can see them.  Mostly in the faces, since that's where I made changes.  Just as important, the black areas are a little more dark, more saturated, nice and solid.  One unwanted black blotch is gone.  Borders are a bit better.   So for now I call this one done.  I haven't printed one with the text yet.  My thinking is that it will be done by Hatch Show, since Tom had said they would be involved and that text could be in any typeface I wanted.  At some point I have to decide how I will frame them, and if I do want to print that text that I cut.

One thing I had to consider when doing all these prints was the idea of race.  Robert Johnson was a black man living in Mississippi, and his records would have been aimed at a black public.  He probably never was involved with a white woman, as it was likely illegal back then, and probably would have got him lynched on the spot.  In a color piece, I would have had to make decisions about skin colors, and probably would have integrated the location.   Being a black and white piece, I didn't have to deal with that.  Of the three prints I did for this project, this is the one where it may have been a factor.  The song does not specify the race of the people in the song, so I decided not to specify either.  In my mind, there is no obvious race in any of these figures.  Viewers can decide what they see, but I don't think it's relevant to the image.  We are told that the central character is an attractive woman, but we aren't told what her skin color is, just that all the men notice her walking in, and in my experience, race is not a factor in such situations.  For Johnson it probably was, and this is his song, but the universal nature of it is what makes this project possible.  So I made a black and white print, all the figures defined by contour lines and often with shadows, and as I said, I'll leave it up to the viewers to interpret.  I prefer to do that- let the viewers make decisions, and feel more involved in the process.