[Baren]: The mailing list / discussion forum for woodblock printmaking.

Baren Digest              Monday, 22 December 1997      Volume 01 : Number 022

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From: Gary Luedtke <GLuedtke@compuserve.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 10:54:31 -0500
Subject: [Baren 107] Season's Greetings! 

Up the chimney in smoke
went the day's work
for poor David was busy
with a tug and a jerk,
he loosened his grip
and put it down then,
his tool of the day
the pen, not  baren!

Crazed David ran
in excited mode
to his p.c. desk
not far in his abode,
and with dancing fingers
and gleeful eye
poked out his message
for you and I

Up on the rooftop
and off into space
as fast as electricity
could keep up the pace
Dave's message went off
to all parts of the world
where woken from slumber
the message unfurled
As we answered the voice
we all love to hear
"You have mail"  -
It's from Dave, and "A Happy New Year!"

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From: Patrick Robinson <psyberdude@compuserve.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 11:56:09 -0500
Subject: [Baren 108] Re: Season's Greetings! 

Aloha Dave:

Whoo-ssssh . . . you really ARE a multi-talented kind of guy. Great 
Christmas poem. I hope that you and yours' have a wonderous Christmas 
and the very happiest and most prosperous of New Years. 

Patrick

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From: Ray Esposito <brassring@brassring.org>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 13:25:10 -0500
Subject: [Baren 110] Season's Greeting's 

To everyone who contributed to this group and made it something very
speciai, I wish you and your family  the most wonderful and blessed holiday
season ever.

Ray Esposito

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From: Ray Esposito <brassring@brassring.org>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 13:12:34 -0500
Subject: [Baren 111] Re: Season's Greetings! 

At 06:36 PM 12/21/97 +0900, you wrote:
>The Night Before a Printmaker's Christmas


What a wonderful Christmas present.  I have no family so I hugged my tools.
:-)

Thanks for the card.  I can only dream of coming close to such talent
someday.  It is a wonderful goal to strive for.

Have a great holiday season.

Ray Esposito

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Subject: [Baren 109] 

--- no message received ---

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From: Gary Luedtke <GLuedtke@compuserve.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 16:12:53 -0500
Subject: [Baren 112] Re: Season's Greetings! 

To All the Baren Group,
    In your corners of the world, may your homes be bright and cheerful,
and the Holidays refresh your spirit.  Best Wishes for the New Year!

Sincerely,
Gary Luedtke 

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From: David Bull <davebull@asahi-net.email.ne.jp>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 11:21:36 +0900
Subject: [Baren 113] Re: Season's Greetings! 

> Up the chimney in smoke ...

Gary, thanks for this!  Most of the pleasure in doing that silly poem
yesterday afternoon was in imagining everybody's face as they read it
...  So to have _this_ come back in the morning's mail was a very nice
present!

But
> Up the chimney in smoke 
> went the day's work ...  ?

No way!  I was carving the kimono pattern for this year's final print -
just a series of criss-cross lines.  Nothing to keep me occupied ... 
But brains don't come with 'off' or 'pause' switches  (at least mine
didn't), so that 'poem' was the result.

And anyway, 'All work and no play ...'

***

Thanks everybody, for the greetings and messages.  I'm going to be
spending the next couple of weeks 'as usual', working on the prints,
newsletter, and exhibition, but I imagine that many of you are going to
be turning off your computers for a while to spend more time with your
family.  I wish you a happy holiday!

Dave Bull

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From: Bill Mixon <bmixon@nine.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 22:55:47 -0500
Subject: [Baren 114] Re:  Mind of a printer  

To Dave:

You wrote:
<
Yes, of course I have to admit that printmaking is not _only_ about
large editions.  But if the printmaker doesn't have the ability to make
_two_ prints the same, then he doesn't have the ability to make _one_
the same (if you see what I mean!).
>

This is very clear, and a succinct way to say it.

I have to agree!  The ability to get the results one is after,
predictably and consistently regardless of quantity, is one of the
benchmarks of "becoming a print(mak)er".  And I have to confess I'm not
there yet.  It usually takes me three or four tries to get what I
originally visualized.  I sometimes get prints I *like* on the first
try, but they contain some element of surprise.  Usually I have one or
two aspects under control, but I haven't pulled them together all at
once.  (It may not have helped, that I started my printmaking with
techniques --- monoprint and viscosity printing --- that are inherently
hard to control with precision.  One of the things attracting me to
woodblock is that, among printmaking techniques, it seems more
deliberate and deterministic than some...)

You also wrote:
<
All of us who have tried woodblock printmaking know that feeling of
flipping the paper up off the block after an impression and saying 'Wow,
look at that!  Look at what came out!'  We maybe didn't quite plan it
that way, but something beautiful resulted.  That may be an interesting
'game' to play, but it sure doesn't leave the impression that the
'artist' had much to do with the result.
>

This is a good point.  I personally feel that there IS room for chance
in art.  Certainly it's contentious how much the artist has to do with
that;  but must the artist always be 100% in control?  I view the artist
more as a "filter" than as a "creator".  To take a small example, you do
not *create* the woodgrain in your blocks;  you may select it, orient
it, design around it, suppress or accentuate it;  but essentially this
grain is a "found object", a given.

Stanley Hayter called it "automatic design":  taking an image produced
by random (or at least unconscious, admittedly not the same) processes,
then "interpreting" and modifying it to inject an element of conscious
control.  Have you ever gazed at a pattern of, say, flowers, and slipped
into a state where you could also see faces, animals, what-have-you, in
the pattern?  I once saw marvellous examples of this in a library book I
borrowed;  unfortunately I don't remember the artist (I think either
Picasso or Calder?) or the technique (probably lift-ground etching?).
The starting point was a set of random ink-blots.  The artist studied
these, then superimposed figures on this fantasy landscape.  The results
were dreamlike, mythic and quite startling.

For printing, though, I agree that more control is a desirable thing!
And I also must confess that I don't see as much margin for chance
effects in the seemingly very deliberate process of carving a woodblock.
 Relief etching, maybe, but not woodblock?  The method promotes its own
ethos.  Anyone know of examples to refute this?

Good gravy, how I ramble!  And the subject, I see, has drifted (typical
when I get my hands on it;-) from "mind of a printer" to "mind of an
artist".  Oh well, I think at one point you did ask how these issues
might look from that point of view?  Just my humble take on that
scene...

I liked the quote from Yoshida Hiroshi.  Myself, right now I take plenty
of provisions when I go sailing, 'cause I'm never quite sure when I'll
reach the far shore.  (But, on pleasure trips, sometimes I change my
destination mid-course.  Skipper's prerogative [!:^)

By the time I get as good as you are, I'll be an old man.  (I hope by
then I'll still be "mad about printmaking"!)

To Ray:

Yes, my ... uh, Koinu's ... discomfort was not with the prints in that
edition, just with the way they were represented to the buying public.
Had the simple letters "var" appeared in the edition numbering, all
qualms would have been put to rest.  Candidness about production values
is not just an ethical issue, but also part of the artist's (and
gallery's) burden of educating the public?

Actually, some of the variants were quite interesting, and the idea of
doing a series of deliberate variants from the same matrix is, I think,
a valid one.  Such a series would be more interesting *as a set* than as
individual prints.

To all again:

This talk about editions and numbering leads me off on another tangent
(collective groan heard;^).

Dave mentioned awhile back that he does not number his prints, and does
not produce them in fixed editions.  After my initial surprise, some
reflection and research, and it seems that his practice is consistent
with the way ukiyo-e were originally marketed?  One never reads of
edition sizes, in catalogs of ukiyo-e.  (I suppose prints produced as
book illustrations might have had some definable edition count, but
probably not those prints sold "by the sheet"?)  And in Takahashi
Seiichiro's book "Traditional Woodblock Prints of Japan"
(Weatherhill/Heibonsha, 1972) one reads that beni-e (an earlier, simpler
form) were printed at the rate of up to *two hundred per DAY*!  And that
"Fast-selling prints went through edition after edition until the blocks
wore out."

So, woodblock prints in Japan were indeed a "democratic" medium.  Dave
has told us that all along (the more you print, the more people can
enjoy them).  Was this principle universal?  Does anyone know of
documented cases of "limited editions" in the world of ukiyo-e?
(Historical interest, just curious.)

Actually, if I remember correctly, the idea of signed, numbered,
limited-edition prints was a 19th-century marketing ploy by Whistler and
his contemporaries?  It was given new impetus in the 20th century "print
boom", as hand printmakers tried to further differentiate their product
from mass-produced photomechanical reproductions.  Some of us now take
it so much for granted as "the way" that we react with surprise when
reminded there are alternatives.

How do people feel about limited vs. open editions, in the context of
*modern* printmaking?  (Keeping in mind that, as someone mentioned
earlier, prints now must compete with a supersaturation of imagery from
all directions.  And keeping in mind also that there are no ANSWERS
here, just opinions?)  This is another fundamental issue that's a
puzzler to us beginners...

Best wishes,
Bill

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From: Matthew.W.Brown@VALLEY.NET (Matthew W Brown)
Date: 22 Dec 97 02:51:04 EST
Subject: [Baren 115] States and edtns, paper, 

Baren:
Postings (from 12/15) have been fascinating reading this eve. Great Xmas poems,
thoughts, etc.! 

This posting is long: 

Contents:
- -to Ray on blocks, inks, papers, and presses
- -to Bill on states and editions
- -to Dave on Visual vs. Verbal, Control in Printmaking, Artist and Craftsman
- -to Baren, discussion between Dave and myself about glue (for the record)


TO RAY:	
	In response to your Baren 95 (which seems to be a question a bit about
priorities, what do I concern myself with first: paper, ink/pigments, blocks,
baren or press?) Looked at in order of 'the task at hand' you might consider:
	Blocks: If its wood, basswood to start is best. Poplar can be good, and
harder woods like cherry or birch are great but perhaps not at the start. Pine
is O.K. but will limit a lot of what you can do because it splits out easily.
E-mail me if you might be interested in buying basswood blocks from my "Ooloo
Press"
	Inks or pigments: If you go with inks, oil or water-based (which is
made to work on the same principles as oil-based), you'll have stronger results
sooner, and you could print on linoleum. This Baren seems to be mostly about
printing with water (rice paste, sumi ink, etc.). In the long run this is very
satisfying, I feel, but I've noticed it is hard to get good results at first
(depending on what you expect or are looking for.) If you're talking black,
you're talking the difference between a solid black printer's ink in can or
tube and sumi ink (in stick or bottle). They are worlds apart (chemically,
historically, practically, spiritually).
	Paper: I probably disagree with Dave somewhat about paper. I am a
full-time printmaker, supporting myself and family on what comes up from
beneath my baren, and I feel I still haven't found THE Paper. Since much of my
printmaking still feels exporatory and experimental the idea of printing on
great beautiful expensive paper is still quite inhibiting for me. While
teaching, it has been surprising to find how many papers in the department of
100% rag print quite well. I think I have used that Tableau stuff Dan
mentionned and think that would be a great path to follow. (Your reply, Dan, to
Ray, I found very interesting and helpful. Xerox machine is an amazing tool!)
In working with a baren it seems best if the stuff is around 80-120lb.,
(over100 gms/m in weight). Daniel Smith (address is in The Shop on my web-site)
can send you a paper sampler, as can Graphic Chemical (also listed).   
	Baren or press: I disagree with Dave here also. Those little
inexpensive bamboo 'student' barens are pretty worthless. You might as well use
a pizza roller, spoon, bottle cap...buying the plastic baren from Danl Smith
would be the first big investment ($40) I would recommend you make. I know
little of printing woodblocks with oil inks on presses. Personally I use a
platen press. Proofing presses (roller type, like the Vandercook) are said to
be the best for woodblocks. Water printing and presses don't mix; for one
reason, if the blocks warp, etc.  they won't print well.


TO BILL:
	The problem of what falls within an edition and what distinguished
separate editions of a print is as fascinating as any other printmaking issue.
Compared to working with a press I find printing the Japanese method very
conducive to making continual changes in both colors and blocks  (a wonderful
path towards the print that really works). It is easy to pull out the knife
anytime while printing, or adjust the colors, and doesn't involve nearly the
hassle involved when pulling a block from a press, wiping ink clean, etc.
Sometimes I've felt the emphasis on uniformity within an edition might be an
expectation encouraged from working with presses...once its set, turn it on and
just run it...(even back in the Days of Gutneberg and Durer).
	But this quote of Dave's from Oushi-san about the beauty of multiples,
and your description of the edition of many states that just didn't seem
honest, indicate there are other forces at work. 
	My own struggle has been: two sets of prints with significant
differences both in color and in blocks, are they two states within an edition
or are they two separate editions, two distinct "States"? Bill Maxwell in his
book "Printmaking" has a State within an edition, but the Museum of Fine Arts,
in their little publication about Printmaking, has the edition within a state
(They define any significant change in the plate or block as a separate state
and a new edition. Changes in color, inking, etc. are variants within an
edition). I have come to rely on this definition and am curious what others
feel about this issue. 
	To summarize, the question being:

"Is THE STATE within THE EDITION or is THE EDITION within THE STATE".

 (You might look up some dictionary definitions of the two words before
responding, because it seems there is a difference of opinion about this
question amongst the authorities out there in print land.)



TO DAVE: on 2  topics:
	Verbal vs. Visual in Our Time - this is a reply to your Baren 94, which
I am still digesting in my mind. 
	My friend Walter Wetherell, a professional writer (8 or so titles
listed at Amazon.com), complained to me recently: "We're living in such a
visual time, nobody reads anymore. It takes too much time." In his eyes, the
writer is handicapped in his effort to compete with the visual artist, who
works with image ideas that can be downloaded rapidly. So though I agree most
of the time we don't SEE works of art, I am amazed again and again by examples
of the power of the visual image. 
	From another angle, the ability to be on the wall without being SEEN,
sometimes isn't this the most wonderful thing? As though a picture (or print!)
has a whole inner life unseen by the Crowd, accessible only to a viewer in the
right place, or light, or frame of mind. It wouldn't be magic if Everyone could
just... read it. 

	On Control in Printmaking (Baren 104): Personally I differ with H.
Yoshida about "The Voyage of the Artist".  Rather than being absurd I think his
description very well describes what an artist does, following the wind and
tides this way and that and only determining his destination after he has
arrived there.
 Margaret Veerhoff, a third generation gallery owner and dealer of prints in
Wahington, D.C., once described to me her idea of the difference between the
scientist/craftsman and  the artist. The scientist and craftsman, she said, can
reproduce a thing they have done, and can do it again, the artist never can. A
work of art has a magic which is unique, the artist can never folow the same
route twice. 
	So if H. Yoshida had said:
>Such a craftsman may be likened to...<
I would agree with him. But isn't the generation of the image of the print the
role of the artist? And isn't this an unknown voyage (and as we pursue the ART
in each of our lives, who of us really knows our destination ahead of time?).
In the making of multiples in printmaking it must be the craftsman at work.
When Bill speaks of the printmaker he is refering to a craftsman, no?  The
ukiyo-e artist: we can know he didn't KNOW the final product ahead of time.
With two separate shops taking off on his idea, the carvers and then the
printers, how could he have really KNOWN the destination of his idea? 
(And in all of this, the craftsman and the artist may be one and the same
person playing two separate roles.)

TO BAREN: Dave and I have been having a discussion about the use of glue in
printing, and here are a few excerpts from a recent e-mail of his others may
find interesting:

from Matt to Dave:
> In talking papers (with Suezan Aikins) I (Matt) explained that I don't use glue 
> in printing. "Glue? " she asked? "What do you use GLUE for? What kind 
> of glue? Yoshida-san never had us using glue." Now when I juxtapose 
> this to what Keiji had said: "no Glue? Only paste? That won't work, 
> there's nothing to hold the pigment..." I feel pleased and excited we 
> are onto a pretty complicated story here!

Dave to Matt (with suggestion to post to Baren): 
"The plot thickens!   Or at least the 'enogu' thickens!"

I (Dave) spoke to Seki-san, and asked him "To glue or not to glue? "

I outlined for him what has been happening, that I was shown to use it,
and have been telling others to do the same, but that various other
people (some of them quite knowledgeable) are telling me that they print
without it.

He said that of course he uses it ...   But there were definitely 'three
dots' after his words.  When I asked him to elaborate, he said that
without it, the particles of pigment frequently came 'loose' in the
water - you could actually see them floating around sometimes.  With the
glue present, the stuff stays blended properly.

I prodded with various questions, but he didn't think it had anything to
do with longevity of the printed surface, or even much to do with the
actual appearance of the final print.  It was simply to assist the
production process.

He also mentioned that it was most useful on thick and deep colours, and
he didn't use it so much with thin and delicate shades.

He doesn't use gum arabic at all, but simply the old-fashioned sticks of
'nikawa', known here as 'sanzenbon'.  (This is just your basic gelatin
made from horse cartilage/skin/whatever ...)

As far as the yesterday/today aspect to this, he thought that it is
simply 'case by case': these days some people use it, some don't.  In
the old days, some people used it, some didn't.

So there you have it.  There really doesn't seem to be any 'right or
wrong' here.  We should each experiment with it, and then make our own
decisions ...

(end of Dave's note to Matt)

FROM MATT: So there you have it. The most verbose Baren posting yet. I must get
to bed.

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From: David Bull <davebull@asahi-net.email.ne.jp>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 21:52:17 +0900
Subject: [Baren 116] Re: Mind of a printer 

Bill wrote:
> I personally feel that there IS room for chance
> in art.  Certainly it's contentious how much the artist has to do with
> that;  but must the artist always be 100% in control?  

We've been toying with this idea for a week or so now, circling around
and around it, but now Bill has dived right into the centre and 'gone
for the jugular'.

> I view the artist more as a "filter" than as a "creator".  

Bill, excuse me but I can't disagree more. To fill that blank white
page, and to fill it with something of your own creation, is to be an
artist.  In the ideal situation _every_  line/stroke/colour/shape is
controlled absolutely by the creator.  That's what it means to be a
creator.  To allow 'chance' to take a part is to deny responsibility for
the finished product.  (This is all pretty funny coming from a guy who
maintains adamantly that 'I am not an artist' ...)  

Take that little print I just sent you as a 'new year' greeting ...  In
the preparation stage I had to put the lines of the design in place,
balance the objects in the 'frame', think about the colours, the
embossings ...  These were all decisions that had to be made, and how
well or how badly it was done rests 100% with my 'creative' abilities. 
Chance played no part at all.

With the preparation done, I now had in my mind a clear idea of exactly
what I wanted,  and the work of actually making the prints began.  Cut
the paper ... mix the pigment etc. etc.  Print the first copy of the
first colour ... second copy ... etc. etc.  

Once that process has started, _any_ variation is a mistake!  I prepared
198 sheets for that print (22 large sheets x 9 prints each), and every
copy - from number 1 up to 198 - came out the same.  And again, chance
plays no part at all.  If I were to find that when I turned over one of
the sheets at one point, and said 'Gee, look at that!  I put too much
blue pigment on the block, but that looks great!', then this would be an
admission that I screwed up the preparation!  

Are you laughing yet?

Of course I'm trying to grasp at some kind of ideal here.  For the kind
of woodblock printmaking that I do, the creative aspect comes during the
preparation phase.  Once the hands take over, it becomes a matter of
sticking as close as possible to that visualized ideal.  The control -
during both phases - must be absolute!  

In the kind of woodblock printmaking that I do ...   Matt, I'm sure, has
his hands covering his ears right about now - 'I can't listen to any
more of this!'

Dave Bull

P.S.   Bill, there is plenty more in your post that I very much want to
talk about (fixed editions, etc.)  May I 'save' that for a bit later ...?

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End of Baren Digest V1 #22
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