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

Baren Digest             Saturday, 12 December 1998     Volume 05 : Number 372

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('Off-topic' post deleted ...)

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From: "Jeanne N. Chase" <studiojnc@prodigy.net>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 14:22:44 -0500
Subject: [Baren 2289] Re: editioning still, evidently 

Dear Roger

I promise not to mention anything about editions ever again!!!!
Anyway, I appreciate your succinct reply to my question. 
I think Dave has the right idea, just do the prints!!!!!

Jeanne

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('Off-topic' posts deleted ...)

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From: Jean Eger <jeaneger@LanMinds.Com>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 14:10:10 -0800
Subject: [Baren 2292] Re: Baren Digest V5 #369 

Sorry Roger, that was Richard who wrote that editioning prints again on
different paper was illegal.  (In which country?) I can't seem to get
anything right these days.
Jean

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('Off-topic' post deleted ...)

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From: Jean Eger <jeaneger@LanMinds.Com>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 14:51:25 -0800
Subject: [Baren 2294] Re: Baren Digest V5 #371 

Jeanne wrote (I hope it was Jeanne!)
>Dear "Fred"
>I posted my question regarding prints before I had read your letter. I guess
>then that I could change the color of a print if I would continue the
>numbering. For example ; if I did 50 prints, then 25 could be in green and
>25 could be in blue.  Is that correct?

I think you are supposed to put E.V. on an edition like that (it means
"edition varies" in French.)

Henceforth I will refer to "Fred" wrote...just to be safe.

Some great masters  have prints pulled from their plates after they are
dead.  Well, would you turn up your nose at a Durer print because someone
pulled it after he was dead, from the original plate?  No, those prints are
acquired and they are just catalogued as what they are.

Fred, it's great to hear some solutions about how artists CAN make money.
I think there is some law in California that says artists are supposed to
receive royalties on art work which is resold for more than $2,000.

It doesn't do much good to say you wrote about this subject already in
Baren last year because I don't have the search equipment to find it.  I'm
lucky if I can look back over five Barens to find something someone wrote,
like the numbers on the sharpening stones that Graham talked about.  I'd
like to have a search engine that would search the files for the word
"sharpening," something like that.

I realize that I am taking up too much airwave space with my amateur
ramblings.  Anyway, it's almost the end of the semester and now the
academics will have enough time to get back on board and say something
erudite.

Jean Eger

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From: David Bull <davebull@woodblock.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 20:03:44 +0900
Subject: [Baren 2295] Re: the last one ... 

Gary wrote:
 
> Dave
> Is there anything in particular about this print which caused you to save it
> for last, as I notice you do not follow the numerical sequence of the series?

Not really, other than that it _is_ the last one in the set.  I started
with the real #1, and am finishing with the real #100, but the 'insides'
were indeed mixed up.

Years ago, I wrote a newsletter story explaining why ...

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~xs3d-bull/hyaku-nin-issho/1990/winter/2.html#anchor_10x10

But there _is_ another reason actually, one that will become evident
when you see the print ... the final curtain ...

***

Jeanne wrote:
> I promise not to mention anything about editions ever again!!!!
..
> I think Dave has the right idea, just do the prints!!!!!

Hear,  hear!

Dave

P.S.  (Or should that be  'Here,  here!'?  I never could figure that one out ...)

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From: Julio.Rodriguez@walgreens.com
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 18:13:17 -0600
Subject: [Baren 2296] re: more scraps 

I love this group.......specially the new guy "FRED".

I recently read a book about Picasso and some of his outdoor sculptural
work. Toward the end of his life many institutions would approach Pablo for
ideas and/or  his blessing on different projects with the hope of
benefitting from his expertise/reputation/name. If Picasso liked the work
and gave it it's okay it was from then on classified as a "Picasso".  One
particular institution in the US spent many years ( and $$$) trying to win
his approval for a particular cement sculpture to reside outside their
building's entrance. Because the famous architect/designer/engineer in
question had worked with Picasso many times on earlier projects and because
the work in question was based on Pablo's original work, it finally won
approval as a "Picasso".  I think the book mentioned the fact that approval
was given at his deathbed after he was shown some preliminary drawings. All
he ever saw was a preliminary drawing ! He never had input on the
construction,  he never visited the site, he never saw the finished work!
Yet it is classified as a  "Picasso"!  What a strange world we live in.

Sorry as the above has nothing to do with prints, but only a side note to
the current discussion.

Ps. I think I read somewhere that Durer never actually printed his own
work. He had expert printers do the actual printing.
Does it matter (artistic value) then when the prints are created ? Before
or after his death ? Does the artist final approval (assuming he okay the
use of the original blocks) add that much more to the value ? Is an
original  print taken from an original Durer block (like those reprinted in
the 1960's by a Chicago collector)  worth less because it was not signed by
Durer ?
(actually Durer usually carved his initials in the block itself). Some
experts claim that the prints created in the 1960's from the original
blocks far exceeded in quality the originals pulled back in Durer's time.
What do you think ??????  Is a Durer printed in 1960 from original plates
still a "Durer" ?


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From: Sheryl Coppenger <sheryl@SEAS.GWU.EDU>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 19:20:38 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Baren 2297] Re: Down with taxes, up with prints! 

> You wrote that changing papers but continuing the editioning is mildly
> OK is also my opinion. If a printmaker wanted to print an edition of
> 200 on 200 different sheets of paper (not impossible in Japan, given
> the enormous variety of papers available), I would have no particular
> problem with that if he numbered the set accordingly, from 1/200 to
> 200/200.

This is my preference as well -- same image, same ink, different paper
should be one edition.  However, some of my teachers have indicated
otherwise, one edition is one image, one ink, one paper.  I don't know
who's right.  My "fly a kite" print was done in two editions from
the same lino block.  The first was done in black ink and one kind of origami
paper chine colle' on a beige paper.  The second was done in blue ink
and a different origami paper chine colle' on cream print paper.  Once
you move past the easy case of same image/different paper things get a
little more difficult.  BTW, the second edition was for a print exchange
for the class in which I produced the print, money was not a factor.
 
> You mentioned "full disclosure".  I thot that in The States every
> editioned print (and maybe uneditioned one, too, for that matter) had
> to be accompanied with a paper stating all the details of the print's
> production, date, the people involved in its production (designer,
> printer, carver, etc.) and provenance to date.  Am I wrong here?

I belong to a co-op where I sell my prints, and I have never heard of
such a requirement.  Perhaps there's such a law in someplace like 
California, which I think passed a law about the artist getting a
share of profits from secondary-market sales of artwork.  The co-op
does have a rule that each print sold must be pulled by the artist.
Turning a stone or plates over to a master printer would not be
permitted (although it is hard to prove and I know of at least one
instance where I learned after the fact that one got by).

> You wrote next that you are "offended by artists who take an original
> oil or print or whatever and have reprints made to sell as a limited
> edition."

So people don't deserve art unless they can afford originals?  Sorry,
I'm a little more democratic than that.  My biggest complaint with
the limited editions is that the people who sell them pretend there's
a big difference between the "limited edition" print and a poster.
IMO, that's the scam not the act of reproducing the image itself.

> Yes, not only the public but also we printmakers need educatin', as
> Elizabeth urged (Baren 2269).  But the bottom line is what you referred
> to indirectly, just plain honesty in dealing with others.  When we get
> to that state of human development, then not only this vexing
> editioning problem will go away, but a whole raft of other ills will
> disappear.

Oh, I don't know.  I think that people of good will can still disagree.
 
> In my opinion and others', too, I am sure, printing on different papers
> is OK if the editioning is consistent, as I said above.  As for
> uneditioned prints, print on anything at hand.  Changing pigments,
> however, is another matter.  If you change colors, then issue the
> prints as a new project, as a new edition, than you will be in trouble,
> surely ethically if not legally.  

Well, what if you change one block and colors?  Where does it end?  I'm
not trying to be contentious here, I just really think that things are
not that cut-and-dried.  I'm used to working in litho, and in that
area it's fairly accepted practice to modify the stone and do another
edition.  You just number them state II, state III, etc.  I can't believe
it's evil to do something similar in woodblock, as someone else said
that would really chill our creativity.  Maybe we just haven't
discovered the right way of labelling it yet.

Sheryl Coppenger    

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From: Sheryl Coppenger <sheryl@SEAS.GWU.EDU>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 19:34:13 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Baren 2298] Re: more scraps 

> ...He never had input on the
> construction,  he never visited the site, he never saw the finished work!
> Yet it is classified as a  "Picasso"!  What a strange world we live in.

Yes, and IIRC Picasso also did some marginal things on his prints.  He
would change a litho stone and number it like a new edition instead of
by states for instance.

> Ps. I think I read somewhere that Durer never actually printed his own
> work. He had expert printers do the actual printing.

That's very common nowadays as well.  Red Grooms and other modern print
makers don't print their own work.  At most they draw on the stone or
plate.  Then they work with a "collaborative printer" who prints the
edition.  

> Does it matter (artistic value) then when the prints are created ? Before
> or after his death ? Does the artist final approval (assuming he okay the
> use of the original blocks) add that much more to the value ? Is an
> original  print taken from an original Durer block (like those reprinted in
> the 1960's by a Chicago collector)  worth less because it was not signed by
> Durer ?

Worth less to collectors, probably.  But let's not confuse the marketplace
with artistic value.  Art is as much process as product, and Durer did
the original process that made the image possible whether he carved or
printed it then or now.

> What do you think ??????  Is a Durer printed in 1960 from original plates
> still a "Durer" ?

Unless they cut up the plates and put them back together differently,
rainbow roll and otherwise trash the intent then I would say from the
artistic point of view yes it's still a Durer.  From the point of view
of the market, though, it may not quite be the case.

All IMO of course.

Sheryl Coppenger   

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From: Sheryl Coppenger <sheryl@SEAS.GWU.EDU>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 19:58:21 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Baren 2299] Re: Record Keeping 

Thanks to everyone on their feedback on recordkeeping.
 
> Self-employed people like myself are well-known here as being the worst
> kind of tax evaders, and I want to make very sure that I keep things
> clean and straight.

That's the reason for the "hobby challenge" in the US as well.  The IRS 
doesn't like it if you seem to be in business just so you can count off the
money you spend on pleasureable activities.

> Yes, it's sometimes a bit troublesome, but everytime I start to grumble
> to myself about it, I remind myself that this is a very small price to
> pay for the personal freedom I enjoy - getting up in the morning
> (_every_ morning!) and not having to go out to a job.  

I hope to get there some day.  Next semester I'm taking a "Small Business
Management" course.  I have the feeling that art isn't one of the small
businesses they had in mind, but I hope it will be interesting anyway.

Sheryl Coppenger    

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From: jimandkatemundie@juno.com (James G Mundie)
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 20:32:02 -0500
Subject: [Baren 2300] editioning, again 

Hey there, folks...

I see that the problem of editioning has once again reared its seemingly
unwelcome head.

Some of you have been proposing that it is alright to change colors, etc.
in the midst of a limited edition.  That flies in the face of reason. 
The whole concept of a numbered edition rests on the idea that the
printmaker is stating that X number of as nearly as possible _identical_
prints have been produced.  If you change a color half way through the
intended run, you have changed the print.  Is every subsequent print part
of a new edition?  Not quite...  what you now have is a new "state".  As
long as the printmaker indicates this (the absolutely correct notion of
full disclosure), they are completely within their rights to print as
many of the new state as they choose.

This all gets rather complicated, but there are well established
conventions for labelling. [Didn't we discuss this somewhere back in
volume 3 or 4 of the digest?] One also has the option of the "varied
edition" (in which each print really is something more akin to a
monoprint).

Find all this business of numbers too restrictive?  Then don't limit your
edition.  But if one does number and limit the edition, one must play by
the rules.

An unrepentant editionist,
James Mundie, Philadelphia USA

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End of Baren Digest V5 #372
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