[Baren]: The mailing list / discussion forum for woodblock printmaking. Baren Digest Wednesday, 21 April 1999 Volume 07 : Number 535 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Wanda Robertson Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 09:06:32 -0700 Subject: [Baren 4094] Tools&Inspiration David wrote: > Do I know anybody who would be interested? _Do_ I? Sure, we're probably *all* interested. I've written to find out about them, also. Inspiration: I have a question for you Bareners and Barenesses, how do you decide on an image? Do they just pop into your head? Do they come to you a little at a time? Do you draw or computer crawl until something strikes a note? I'm interested in just how that creative spark turns into a flame. And Dave, I know that you choose yours from work that was done centuries ago, but how do you settle upon an image? There are certainly plenty to choose from! Wanda ------------------------------ From: Sunnffunn@aol.com Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 12:32:38 EDT Subject: [Baren 4095] Re: Tools&Inspiration images so many ways past work with a design that is good and can be transfered into print yeah!!!!! a simple black and white drawing that has a strong impact suitable for the printmaking process or just a flower and some eggshells lying about that inspire a fun collage to turn into a collagraph print playing with things the idea was simply spring to build the flowers from scrap findings and go with it fun fun fun some ideas cement from drawings or are there from the past some come as we sit and let our surroundings come into us and we sense a material or an object would be good in our craft other????? how do we create designs for prints? or for any art sometimes just playing with our medium then things fall together pow! ------------------------------ From: Graham Scholes Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 12:21:52 -0700 Subject: [Baren 4096] Re: Tools&Inspiration wanda wrote.... >I have a question for you Bareners and Barenesses, how do you decide on >an image? This may be old fashion what with the material that is available at libraries and on the web ....yuk.... but everything I have done since day one has been..... 'life experiences'. Sometimes it takes years to ferment in the brain before emerging. Point in fact. The Concert Series ... 10 years of attending the Victoria Pops concerts and I finally got all the piece fitting together. Graham ------------------------------ From: Aqua4tis@aol.com Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 15:55:19 EDT Subject: [Baren 4097] Re: page update dear michael your work is amazing and beautiful how did you achieve the soft fuzzy edges? wonderful stuff!!! georga ------------------------------ From: "Bea Gold" Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 13:16:02 -0700 Subject: [Baren 4098] sparks for work Nice question - so many reasons - I paint people usually - so it's someone I see who interests me - a position someone is in - a grandchild doing something fun or endearing - an interesting group - response to a person who asked for a painting of their family - I'm working on a woodcut self portrait now - then I get into who is the person and feel connected with them throughout paint or print - I love doing people (and my dogs) Bea Gold ------------------------------ From: amoss@mindspring.com (John Amoss) Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 16:21:37 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Baren 4099] surimono #2 Dave- Wow! Your Sukenobo surimono #2 print is wonderful! The embossing is especially spectacular! Did you use a baren or the "meat printing" technique? - -John ------------------------------ From: Michael Schneider Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 23:00:12 +0200 Subject: [Baren 4100] Re: Michael's new prints ... David Bull wrote: > Why did you make these? > What do they mean? > When people buy them, what do they _see_ in there? The answer to your question was almost finished yesterday, when after writing for two hours, I hit the wrong button and sent the file into the silicon nirvana. I was really desperate, writing about more complicated things in english is not something that can be done "en passant". But, it also had its advantage, you don't have to read the hole essay and I can try to make it shorter and more precise. I skip the two pages of personal and woodcut history and jump into "medias res". "Your work and mine are about as opposite as woodblock prints can possibly be;" I think you are right, david, but not because of the concept of "old fashioned" contra "modern". The idea behind the traditional japanese woodcut and therefore also your work, is to generate a reproducible image, mankind woodcut a real, yes the first mass media mankind had at its hands. The different blocks you use are like musicians in a symphonic orchestra, if you hear just one voice, you will not have an idea of the beauty of the piece played by all of them together. Only when the imprints of all blocks join on the paper, the work is finished and visible. I did prints like that, not far as perfect as yours, but enough for me to express what I had in mind, but found myself fascinated by a different approach. I tried to go back to the origins of woodcut and relief printing and found a feeling stay at the beginning. To take the imprint of some significant object with you, to materialize a picture of something that would be impossible to carry with you. To keep something in your hands and not only in your mind when you move on. To make an imprint of time. (Why are so many photographs are taken all the time, and what are we hoping to get from them.) I tried to situate my work somehow before the tradition of the culturally refined tradition of wood cut. I am not interested in the production of a high edition, the three prints I do from a plate are just representations of the infinite number of different images you can get from one object (plate). That leads to the question: "what is more important, the artwork, the plate or the print. The answer is, that the plate is nothing without having been declared worth an object to be printed, but after being printed with black the structures and forms are almost invisible, except when printed. The print on the other hand just represents the plate, but when finally separated from the plate the print exists in its own right, and the fact that it points to something else becomes part of its message. To do research in this directions is maybe one answer to your first question. They mean to make you ask this. I do have some explanations, about what some structures have become to mean for me, but that is of no importance to the work as such. I try to express the loss of understanding, the loss of overview and our permanent wish to decipher. I see them as forms just in the moment to become able to carry significance and meaning. They are in fact all parts of one great picture that would contain enough information to explain itself to us and therefor give us the key to read it. (Ruth, I take your mail as a great compliment.) For the time being, they are just pieces of a puzzle of a unknown number of parts. We don't even know the outline of the final work. So far to: What do they mean? When people buy them, what do they _see_ in there? To be honest, I don't know. Sometimes people tell me what they see, Ayatholla Khomeini sitting on a mountain, landscapes, maps, UFOs, writings, secret messages, feelings, angst, lust, etc. All of this is legitimate and some of the things I do see in them myself, about some (f.e. Khomeini) I have never thought. But they all see something in I that they can discover, and when they do so, they are the first, they posses this discovery, they have looked behind one of the secrets. Who am I to know more than they do? There is a lot more to be said, but this should be a discussion and not a monologue. michael ------------------------------ From: Michael Schneider Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 23:30:17 +0200 Subject: [Baren 4101] Re: Michael's prints ... Gregory D. Valentine wrote: > Michael-- before you relax let me add my ode to the ahhs. I too find your > prints very exciting. I love the 'feel' of them, half way between > petroglyphs and graffiti, some strange script, a Linear B, undecipherable > except for the urge to leave a mark. I believe that your reply is a very good answer to Davids last question. "What do the people _see_in them?". Thank you very much. The translated title of the works is "slab undeciphered". michael ------------------------------ From: Michael Schneider Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 23:34:02 +0200 Subject: [Baren 4102] thoughts to my page I finished to write answers to David's initial response, but would like to also write some words on the technique I use. The structures are made with a stone into popel plywood. I print without adding any paste, but with amounts of water David would never find useful. I print with a ball-baren and a strong brush. The graduation is in principle the same technique used for bokashi, but had to be altered a little bit to work with all that water. The paper is hosho with a part kozo fibers in it, pleas don't ask me the name the last time I ordered I sent a sample sheet to japan because I lost the notes with the names on it. The paper gets a one side dosa sizing, but I use more glue than indicated by traditional recipes. I hope to have given some useful information. If there are more questions to come, after the opening of my exhibition on saturday I will have time to write answers and answers and answers...... michael ------------------------------ From: Aqua4tis@aol.com Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 18:53:57 EDT Subject: [Baren 4103] Re: surimono #2 >http://www.woodblock.com/surimono/1999/1-2/display_print_1-2.html dave this print is awesome what is a meating technique i can see i have much to learn can anyone recommend any good books i can get on the hanga method? i want to learn thank you georga ------------------------------ From: Graham Scholes Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 18:17:13 -0700 Subject: [Baren 4104] Re: surimono #2 >http://www.woodblock.com/surimono/1999/1-2/display_print_1-2.html The skill and craft of this work goes beyond belief.... Congrates Dave. Graham ------------------------------ From: Wanda Robertson Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 20:49:05 -0700 Subject: [Baren 4105] Re: surimono #2 Wow, Dave! This is *so* beautiful! I think your two pages on the Surimono prints answered my inspiration question wonderfully! The photography of the two prints, is exceptional. You can actually see the embossing and the fibers of the paper. I loved reading your description of carving Hokosai's "Horses in Snow". His prints have always been my favorite. Such wonderful composition and they fairly burst onto the paper with contained movement. Thanks for 10 minutes of wonderfully enjoyable looking and reading! Wanda ------------------------------ From: Sunnffunn@aol.com Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 02:04:49 EDT Subject: [Baren 4106] Re: Michael's new prints ... life is a constant change it is not concrete it moves and reflects daily images artists create are about life in some form we are not always sure what that is but it is there for the viewer as for the plate or the print which is important well i still am hoping to be in wood may not but your discussions encompass the myriad forms of art and other forms of making prints i love the collagraph and here often the plate in itself is more a creation then the print and if you leave it after the final inking it too can be framed and become a part of the series in this realm there is the plate maybe an emboss with no color and then a print it is like a progression stages of change an evolution so therefore as we create and have a plate it then evolves into the print each segment is of equal value as with all things we live each day change grow age and die but each of us leave behind such as the shadow a flower leaves on the grass michael i found your prints very human by that i mean to the beginning the core of human being existance such as when we began and now evolve so when i said they seem very human that is what i meant human as in primitive, from the beginning some how it feels like a circle the primitive evolving and then back to the beginnig to find the meaning of being thank you for sharing these prints michael and thank you for your thoughts Marilynn ------------------------------ From: Jack Reisland Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 21:18:51 +0000 Subject: [Baren 4107] Video, finally. Thanks to everyone for your patience, it's time to warm up your VCRs. The video tapes of David went out today, and should be arriving in three or four days. There are still a few people that signed up for one that I haven't heard from yet ($), so if you want to get in on all the discussions, you'd better get in touch as soon as possible. Also, for those that missed the purchase period, there is a "borrow" copy that will be going around. Please post if you would like to be added to the list. Grab a seat and some popcorn, and don't forget your tissues, because this is Japanese TV! Jack Reisland ------------------------------ From: David Bull Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 16:32:16 +0900 Subject: [Baren 4108] Re: meat and meanings ... John wrote: > Did you use a baren or the "meat printing" technique? No, no 'niku zuri' here. It's all printed with a baren. The embossed white parts in the kimono pattern are cut away areas that get sort of squeezed up when the colour is printed, and the embossing on the mat and the kimono sash are specifically carved 'karazuri' blocks ... (The niku zuri (meat printing) that John mentioned is simply the use of the rough skin of the elbow in place of the baren to press the paper onto the block. But no thanks - not with a run of 200+ copies ...) Thanks for the nice comments everybody - I had a lot of fun making that one! (If it is of any interest, I have just updated that page with a list of the 20 impressions used to make the print ...) http://www.woodblock.com/surimono/1999/1-2/display_print_1-2.html *** Michael wrote, in answer to 'What do they mean?': > To be honest, I don't know. Sometimes people tell me what they see, Ayatholla > Khomeini sitting on a mountain, landscapes, maps, UFOs, writings, secret > messages, feelings, angst, lust, etc. All of this is legitimate and some of > the things I do see in them myself, about some (f.e. Khomeini) I have never > thought. I guess we are here at a very basic difference between our two viewpoints - I believe that the _content_ of the image is something that should be created by the artist; you believe (I think) that the content is created by the viewer. But if this is the case, then what is the difference between your abstract prints and any random pattern of water stains that might be there on the gallery wallpaper? The viewer could see islands, landscapes, Nato bomb craters, Kosovo refugees, etc. (Yes, one difference is your beautiful techniques, but as I said before, I don't think technique by itself is enough.) I was talking about these points with a friend the other day, and he brought up the example of 'a Rorshach inkblot, where the burden is all on the viewer to supply meaning'. Surely none of us would think of those inkblots as 'art', but I really can't find a great deal of difference ... Please let me emphasize again that I am not trying to denigrate your work (and other such prints) but just trying to explain my personal inability to enjoy it. I see an artist as a person with a 'vision', who then uses his decades of experience mastering some particular technique to turn that vision into a concrete object by which the viewer can share it. I don't want to struggle and think 'What does this mean?' - I want you the artist to _tell_ me what you are thinking. I will then accept or reject it, will like or dislike it, will love you or hate you ... but at least I will _understand_ what you have said. Without that understanding though, what communication can there be between us? (Michael: I'm sorry to 'push' back at you when I know you are very busy with your exhibition work. Please do not feel you have to continue immediately with this discussion. We have lots of time!) Dave ------------------------------ From: April Vollmer/John Yamaguchi Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 08:59:16 -0400 Subject: [Baren 4109] Portland Welcome, Barbara Mason, I enjoyed your comments about Michael's work...lots of activity from Portland today! Do you know Elaine at McClain's from your printmaking circles? She is a woodcut artist as well as a dealer in hanga supplies. Graham's workshop is going to be great with so many Bareners! I will be teaching a class in New York at the Lower East Side Printshop, six Thursday evenings from June 24 through July. Can't offer the beautiful scenery, or Marnie's cooking, but if anybody in the NY area is intersted, give me a call! I'll send John Amos the details for the Baren classes page. April Vollmer ------------------------------ From: mkrieger@mb.sympatico.ca Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 07:52:37 -0500 Subject: [Baren 4110] Re: Abstraction & meaning David Bull wrote: > I believe that the _content_ of the image is something that > should be created by the artist; you believe (I think) that the content > is created by the viewer.(excised) I don't want to struggle and think >'What does this mean?' - I want you the artist to _tell_ me what you are thinking. Trying to read in a alphabet that you don't know can be extremely frustrating. It can make you wonder whether anything is meant by these strange signs. When I hear people compare abstract work to ink blots, I think I hear that kind of frustration. I think there is a little misunderstanding about the meaning or lack of it that Michael is working with. In his explanations I hear a quite specific vision. The remarks about clouds and islands etcetera were responses to the question what do people see in your work? Representational work can be misinterpreted in this regard as easily as abstract. In Dutch still lifes, each object had a specific symbolic meaning which is lost on viewers of today. A better simile is to music - a song without words. We don't always expect programmatic motifs or imitative bird song. The subject is more often abstract - an mood or pattern in chaos or something. Does that make more sense? I appreciate the opportunity to talk through some of these issues - without descending into name calling - It's a pretty rare opportunity Mary Krieger ------------------------------ End of Baren Digest V7 #535 ***************************