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

Baren Digest              Monday, 14 December 1998      Volume 05 : Number 375

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

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From: Jean Eger <jeaneger@LanMinds.Com>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 19:22:31 -0800
Subject: [Baren 2317] Re: Baren Digest V5 #374 

Well, Graham, I cannot resist responding to your charges of GREEDY! GREEDY!

Suppose I make a student print and edition of 10 prints.  Then I find out
people like it and want to buy it (for $75).  Do you think it is greedy to
re-edition it in an edition of, say, 25 or 50 on another paper?  I mark it
2nd edition.  Have a heart!  Do you really think that is greedy?

Who's going to want to be a printmaker if they have to wear a
straightjacket and eat thin air?  As was explained to me, an edition is
IDENTICAL.

Jean

(Thanks for the kind words, Jeanne.  I am revamping my home page and you
can see a preview at http://users.lanminds.com/~jeaneger/homepage6.html)

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

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From: Graham Scholes <gscholes@islandnet.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 20:43:16 -0800
Subject: [Baren 2319] Re: Baren Digest V5 #374 

Jean wrote....
>Well, Graham, I cannot resist responding to your charges of GREEDY! GREEDY!

I did not say GREEDY! GREEDY!
My expression is bottom line greed......

AND wrote....
>Suppose I make a student print and edition of 10 prints.  Then I find out
>people like it and want to buy it (for $75).  Do you think it is greedy to
>re-edition it in an edition of, say, 25 or 50 on another paper?  I mark it
>2nd edition.  Have a heart!  Do you really think that is greedy?

This smacks at the rationale of many publishers and printers of
reproductions They went from 350 edition (20 years ago) to 900 to 1200 to
2500 to 3500 and eventually up to 60 and 70 THOUSAND editions and called
them time limited editions all based on the statement...... "people like it
and want to buy it."

What I said stands..... Create a new image.... you can only get better at
the creative process. Do not confuse the creative desire with monetary
desire. You can have both but be careful which drives which.

There is always going to be someone out there that want more and there will
always be someone out there that wants that fabulous image on coffee cups
and baseball caps.  It is your choice .... it is your choice.

Why not CYA it and set the number for an edition at say 25 or 50 to start.
If it takes off, good, you are ready to accommodate. If it dies then don't
print the edition.   I only print 10 to 15 prints at a time out of my light
series of 75 prints.  When they are sold, I go and print some more.  No
waste and not hastles. And you know what.....every time I print 10 more the
price goes up 10%. Ooooooh isn't that a neat way to conduct and control
your work and marketing.

Try it you will like it.

Graham

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From: Matthew.W.Brown@VALLEY.NET (Matthew W Brown)
Date: 14 Dec 98 07:10:52 EST
Subject: [Baren 2320] Editioning 

On that frustratingly persistent topic, editioning:

Richard, you wrote:
>Changing pigments, however, is another matter.  If you change colors, then
>issue the prints as a new project, as a new edition, then you will be in
>trouble, surely ethically if not legally.  I hope more Barenettes will chime in
>with their opinions on this. 

Sheryl wrote:
>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.

and James wrote (in post 2300) about keeping an edition entirely consistent and
identical: same paper, same blocks/plates, same colors.

 But James, are you printing mostly black and white? There may be some issues
that have not come up for you . . such as when printing the seventeenth color
on a stack of 70 prints it suddenly occurs that adding a bit more indigo might
add more richness to the sky, and you the printmaker and unknown print enjoyers
will be so much happier for it if you just . . . follow the notion and reach
for the pigment (not worrying about editions, and states and the like). It just
doesn't seem to work to have a few color changes constitute a new edition.This
stifles the edition printing and adds confusion to the marketing of the prints
when people wonder how a few subtle color changes constitutes a new edition.

	I think Sheryl is onto something with her notion about litho practice.
The MFA Boston has a definition of states and editions that I subscribe to:
changes in  the paper and colors occur within an edition. Changes to the blocks
or plates (significant changes that is) constitute a new state, as Sheryl
described. 

Matt

Perhaps it would be helpful to have a page on the Pedia where each of us has
our own particular approach to this matter spelled out, as a reference. This
might make future Baren discussions on this matter more efficient.

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End of Baren Digest V5 #375
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