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

Baren Digest              Tuesday, 13 January 1998      Volume 02 : Number 034

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From: Dan Wasserman <dwasser@slam.org>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 09:51:27 -0800
Subject: [Baren 138] Galleries and prints...

Dear all:

     Something I miss from my teanage years in Alska is how *fine art*
was marketed up there.  The galleries rarely had one person shows but
instead opporated like conventional retailers with a multitude of pieces
by thier *stable* on display all year with further inventory on racks in
the back.
     Buyers could come in and see a wide range of paintings, sculpture
and prints at anytime of the year with half the gallery turned over to a
single artist maybe twice a year.  Dealers would take on new artists by
hanging a piece or two with no worry of investing their whole sale space
for a month to them.
     This was during the oil boom years and I was actualy aquainted with
a dozen artists working full time in the studio and living in a suburban
house with two kids two dogs and two cars... gave me an entirely
unrealistic expectation about the life of an *unknown* provincial
artist.

     Something I need to look into but maybe you one of you knows about
is the National Print Week promoted by the Work Progress/Projects
Administration or Treasury Department to get middle class and
*prolitarian* folk to but original prints.  This is said tyo be the
origin of *fine art* silkscreening.  My grand parents on both sides were
among the autodidactict immigrant working class who bought into such
things with the notion of both assimilating and bettering themselves. 

--Dan--

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From: Graham Scholes <gscholes@islandnet.com>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 23:58:17 -0800
Subject: [Baren 139] Re: 'At the Gallery'

Hi David.

For a guy with a exhibition coming up in three days this 12 pager blows me
away.  I have had about 70 exhibitions and I am never so composed three
days prior, to be able to write anything as this.

I would like to answer you and hope that it will show you the other side of
the coin.

First thought that comes to my mind is that of demographics.  What has this
got to do with numbered prints?  Well when you live in a city with a
population of 11,500,000  ...32,300,000 greater Tokyo (bigger than the
whole of Canada) then it has a bearing on the numbers you can sell.
Victoria 350,00 and Vancouver 1,000,000 at most is sure a small market by
comparison.

The other factor to consider is the imagery.  The ancient and traditional
imagery of the Japanese print is universal and world wide sales are
possible.  There is a store front in Toronto that sells only the
traditional imagery of Japanese prints.  Most I believe are the old stuff.

Lighthouses as a very limited market and not something that is cherished by
people as a decorative thing to put on their walls.  I have done mailings
to hundreds of people that have purchased my watercolours over the years in
all parts of Canada. I have sold about 1/2 dozen pieces to those that live
elsewhere other than the Westcoast. I have advertised for one year (6
issues) in a Canadian Art magazine 4 colour 1/4 page at a cost of 6000.00
...sold one print.

You may argue that the price is restricting the sales.  My average price is
258.53
I have seen others that a much higher ... for example 800.00 and 2500.00 by
Canadian artist which I own.  No I did not pay the retail price of today.

Numbered limited edition prints came into being with hand pulled prints of
the nature that the plates only lasted a short time frame.  One that comes
to mind is the drypoint print.  The copper plate only lasted for about 150
impressions before the plate would breakdown.  It also would produce poorer
quality of print towards the end of the plate life and thus the number was
used to signify the quality of print.   The same can be said of woodblock
plates.  I understand that the printers use to wear out the plates and
simply cut a new one and continue with the printing.

	>    The 'quick and easy' answer is that traditionally,
	>Japanese prints never had numbers.  If you think back to
	>the Edo-era in which they originated, prints were a simple
	>article of commerce.  They were not 'art', and the very
	>idea that they could be considered as 'investments' would
	>have seemed absolutely ridiculous.  I simply follow the
	>tradition.

You just answered the question  ..Japanese tradition... The numbering of
prints is a European custom adopted in the Americas.

	>    It is dishonest.  It is an attempt to maintain an
	>artificially high price for a commodity by restricting the
	>supply available.  When people in other fields try tricks
	>like this, they are castigated by society, and perhaps
	>even find themselves in trouble with the law.  How on
	>earth is it that the world of prints has allowed itself to
	>be caught up in this ridiculous practice?  A practice that
	>ultimately, over a century of incremental subversion,
	>completely destroyed the world of printmaking.

	>    Yes, destroyed.  Just look around and count how many
	>people are able to make their living as printmakers ...
	>count the number of people who own even one woodblock
	>print ...  You know the answers.

 This is not the fault of the REAL printers.  Hand pulled printmaking has
been confused with the Commercial decorative stuff that is mass produced
and yes there should have been outlawed by us, the real print artists.  Oh
no, we sat back and watched the Bateman's and Doolittles of the world screw
up the Art market.
They sold there stuff as collectables and are still doing it.
I have heard Batmen state when confronted that  "you are just jealous that
you not making inroads with your art"


	>But print buyers _demand_ those numbers at the bottom of
	>a print.  They help give the print a tangible value.

	>    What kind of value would a printmaker want his prints
	>to have?  Should he really care what financial value they
	>have?  Should he want people to collect his prints as
	>investments?  If so, then he should be selling stock
	>certificates, not prints.

I think Harry Trueman said.   "Buy land they ain' making it anymore."
So the limited edition print has the same happening.  Are antique bad
because there are so few of them available?

	>I make prints because I like
	>using my skills to make beautiful objects out of beautiful
	>materials - cherry wood, fluffy paper, and soft pigments. etc etc.

Wait until the day you design your own print.  You will have another factor
come into play.   I don't want this design to go on and on and on.  It must
be maintained and not be a commercial see everywhere image.  Now some
artist don't have this concept.  The do an original and flog it on tshirt,
hats, cpoffe mugs or where ever they can get their name out there and make
a buck.

	>But that means the printmaker has to make many more copies
	>of each print.  He turns into a labourer - not an artist.

	>    Now you're talking!  That's what printmaking is all
	>about!  To be a printmaker means to enjoy the process of
	>making prints!  One ... two ... three ... four ...   Look
	>at them all - they're beautiful!  And I'm making them with
	>my own hands!

You then will take on that wonderful excitment and satisfaction of creator.
That day will come I'm sure as you will get bored copying.

	>    I don't _want_ galleries to carry my prints.  What
	>have most galleries come to signify these days: 'fine
	>art' and 'elitism' and snobbishness ...

Different strokes for different folks. I'm with you on this I have never
been satisfied with Galleries.  However someday I'm sure that it will come
to be that a gallery carries my work.  Its called energy level.

	>(As the man said ... with the Asian economies looking
	>pretty shaky these days ...   If I were to believe
	>what I read in my newspaper every morning, I'd be out
	>looking for a teaching job right now!  It's going to
	>be a _very_ interesting week coming up ...!)

I hope it is better than my last show Dave.  It was to poorest in 20 years.
The economy here in BC is the worst in Canada and every body is running
scared.  Even worse that Newfoundland  ....  can you imagine that.

Thanks Glen Clark.


Graham

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End of Baren Digest V2 #34

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