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

Baren Digest               Monday, 26 April 1999       Volume 07 : Number 544

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From: Gary Luedtke <GLuedtke@compuserve.com>
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 23:28:35 -0400
Subject: [Baren 4209] Re: What is meaning? 

Mary wrote....
> I decide where I am going by looking at the piece. I decide when it is
> finished by the way it looks. Sorry visual thinking cuts in here - I really
> don't know if I can verbalize "how" I know - it just is or isn't.   If it
> isn't, then I usually think it needs more or less of something in a
> particular area.

Aside from your carving elements, which I haven't attempted yet, this
sounds  like just what I do too, Mary.   It sounds like you are starting
from photographs or remembered landscapes, and then simplify until you're
on the threshold or even cross into abstraction.   Is this always the case
with you Abstractionists?   I would think some of you start right out
without something definite in mind, and just feel your way through shapes
and textures, letting something indicate a direction and follow your
intuition as to how to develop it rather than some "real" image you measure
it against.   When I did woodworking I sometimes wanted to have a design
cut out, and I studied the woodgrain which usually suggested something
which when cut out would seem natural with the grain.   Is this the sort of
intuition you use? 

Sunfun wrote....
>the most wonderful piece of art i have ever seen was and is hanging in the
>seattle art musem modern art floor  it is total abstraction  it is surface
>and color  and it is the most beautiful thing i have ever seen  can we not
>appreciate beauty for beauty  for the creation it is?    just as we
>appreciate an ocean or a tree of a flower?

Absolutely.  The capacity to see beauty in anything is a wonderful gift. 

Gary

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From: Michelle Morrell <jmorrell@ptialaska.net>
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 20:05:55 -0800
Subject: [Baren 4210] Various 

Hello to All:

Michael's CD arrived late last week and I have been enjoying it thoroughly.
I plan to send it on Tuesday, April 27, to Sarah.  If you decide you want to
be added to the list of recipients after Tuesday, you will need to write
Sarah at  cucamongie@aol.com .  Until then, you can be added to the list by
writing me at jmorrell@ptialaska.net.

Nothing in life ever seems to be what I expect it is going to be, which is
fine because I would be terribly bored otherwise.  I thought Michael was
sending a CD, instead it was a CD elegantly embedded in a book.  Being an
American, who suffers six layers of cellophane plus box to access a bar of
soap, I am highly impressed with the packaging.  There is one simple layer
of heavy-duty plastic that serves as a dust jacket, and the CD is embedded
in the hard cover of the book (of his prints).  These may be viewed in the
book in their entireties, but they are, of course, smaller than they really
are and considerably dulled by the offset/lithograph (boo, hiss) method of
printing.  The CD is accessed by the Netscape browser (which, if you do not
have it, is provided on the CD).  There is a version for Mac's.    What I
found most interesting were the video film clips.  I did not have Real Time
to view them with, but of course, Michael also included that program to
download on the CD.  In these you can see the various stages of Michael's
print production.

Initially I was intrigued by the one titled "performance."  In it you see
Michael stretched out on what looks like some sort of sleeping table in a
traditional Japanese sort of room, pounding away at his poplar plate.  There
is sound for this pounding.  At the end, the camera backs off and you see a
willowly young maiden sitting raptly in the foreground.  You wonder, who is
this raven haired child?  Why is she so intent?  After viewing it a couple
times I saw she had a music stand before her and apparently a flute at rest.
All this time the film is accompanied by interminable pounding, and you
wonder, "Why does she attempt to play for him with such a racket?  Why
doesn't Michael simply wear a walkman?"  After several viewings (I was
hooked) I saw the shadows in the background and realized that yes, it was a
MUSICAL performance.  Michael would start up the percussion at the
beginning, the rest of the group would pick up with an
I-don't-know-how-to-classify-it jazz,  Michael's pounding would be overtaken
by the percussion instruments, and at the end, Michael would conclude with
his pounding on his poplar plate.  What an absolute hoot!    I am going to
watch it a couple more times before sending the CD on.

On the CD the wonderful blacks come out in his prints.  There is the
illusion
of and probably there is in fact a great deal of texture that is glossed
over in the book reproductions.   Unfortunately, you generally have to
scroll to see the entire print, even after getting rid of all your toolbars.
I am not sure what is abstracted, what is calligraphic, and what is
non-objective.  I find most of the prints very pleasing.  The patterns and
textures are wonderful.    The blacks are so rich.

Also, in the video clips it is interesting to see he puts a large sheet of
crispy-type plastic over his moist paper before applying the baren.  What a
clever way to keep from tearing the paper.  Also, you do get to see his
tools up close,  5 stones with concave fracture lines that apparently do not
need sharpening (darn--I really wanted to see that done).

________________

Does David's video still exist?  I have not heard of anyone sending it on
for a while, and I am still patiently waiting to see it.

_________

I for one have really enjoyed reading the recent discussion about
abstraction in art.  Graham Scholes comments where very enjoyable as were
many others.

Michelle Morrell 

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From: Jack Reisland <reislandj001@hawaii.rr.com>
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 19:25:41 +0000
Subject: [Baren 4211] Re: What is meaning? 


Jack wrote:
>  The changing communicative role of purely visual art through the ages in
>  response to the invention of writing, then printing, then photography is
>  fascinating to me.

and Greg Valentine replied:
> Now that's a statement that is worthy of some explacation.  At least a
> thesis; probably a doctorate there.  Can you just touch on what you see as
> the high points?     

Ok, high points only. In the beginning... the arts were the only form of
permanent visual communication. If you wanted to portray an idea, that was
it. Visual images were thought to have great power, to actually embody a part
of the form portrayed. Then writing was developed (in most cases as a form of
shorthand pictures) and the role of visual portrayal had to change. This was
a very gradual development as the use of writing was confined to a few elite
for a long time. This was usually quite intentional, because once the elite
found a method to record and communicate that was not as easily understood as
pictures, they then controlled the power of ideas and commerce. Once the
secrets of printing were coupled with the ideas of writing (and this was
vigorously resisted by those in power), then the cat was out of the bag. More
people had access the the power of the written word, and the visual arts
really had to scramble. It was at this time that the idea of art for the sake
of art was really expanded. A painting to look at, portraiture as an
expression of social prestige. Once photography entered the scene, and
particularly when cameras became available to the masses, art was once again
turned on it's ear. At the time, there were predictions of the death of
painting. Instead, painters found way to express things that could not be
photographed, impressionism, post impressionism, surrealism. Developments in
photographic manipulation and darkroom techniques quickly followed
developments in painting, with schools of impressionistic and surrealistic
photography, perhaps driving developments in painting ahead. Finally the
leading edge in art has no exclusive images left, and "invents" abstraction.
  Well, just an idea. Art has always been a major form of communication, but
it's role in communication has had to change over time, and the way is viewed
or experienced must take into account the social environment that produced
it.

Jack Reisland

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From: Shimizu <shimizu@mail1.nai.net>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 02:36:16 -0400
Subject: [Baren 4212] Re: Plates and end use? 

Graham asked about plans for our blocks:

When I was first married, was living in Japan, and was using "good
wood", I used to make end tables and book cases from the used blocks.
More recently I've found myself storing the blocks from my favorite
prints and fueling the woodstove with the others.

Lynita

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From: David Bull <davebull@woodblock.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 16:36:59 +0900
Subject: [Baren 4213] Re: Plates and end use? 

Graham wrote:
> I was wondering what some of you have in mind for the plates you carve.
> 
> Do you sell them......
> Do you plane them down and reuse them......
> Do you donate them to a museum.....
> Do you mount them for display....
> Do you stick them in a cupboard and let the kids handle them down the road.

No, no to all those things.  After finishing up each print, I wash the
blocks carefully, dry them thoroughly, then wrap them up (with
protective sheets between each face) and put them away ... somewhere. 
'Somewhere' used to mean in the closets here, but I long ago ran out of
such storage space, and the blocks are now taking over my living space,
which is inexorably decreasing, month by month.

The value that these blocks represent is really quite substantial.  A
couple of years ago, before I got to the end of the series, I was
approached by a publisher who wanted to 'take them off my hands'.  I was
polite, and didn't laugh at him ... but can understand his interest.  To
have a set of blocks carved for a typical ukiyo-e print like these seems
to run around 400,000 yen (somewhere just over three grand US).  I've
got a hundred such sets here ...

So that's their 'potential' value.  As for their 'real' value, now that
I've started a second run of the poet's prints, they come out of storage
(two prints each month) for re-printing.  The hard cherry wood, if
treated with common sense, will allow many hundreds of prints to be
pulled ...

'plane them down and reuse them'?

Not a chance!

***

I forgot to mention it a few days ago (too wrapped up in the 'abstract'
stuff), but the two-week grace period for the _third_ print exchange has
expired, and the sign-up sheet is now open for any [Baren] member who
wishes to 'think ahead' and get involved ...

***

Jean, can you please give us a source for that interesting Emerson quote
you posted the other day?  What book/essay is it from?

Dave

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From: <hudson@panther.middlebury.edu>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 05:52:42 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Baren 4214] Used blocks 

This is from Ray H in Vermont.   
Regarding used woodblocks.   I've made three wood collages with old blocks
carved from various woods, not plywood.   I saw and peg them them together
then sand them, add some highlighted colors, sand again, rub with oil, and
build a frame.   Of course, they're very heavy.    I made one for the
public school at Unalaska, Alaska, with the hope that kids could do
rubbings from parts of it--and certainly that they could run their hands
over the carved surface.   It's the one regret I have about using shina
plywood!
Ray

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From: Cucamongie@aol.com
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 08:33:04 EDT
Subject: [Baren 4215] Re: Baren Digest V7 #543 

agatha wrote:
> what about the monkey that paints and mashes fruit on to the canvas?  is 
> that art?

I have a fun website for anyone that would be interested in seeing some 
paintings done by gorillas (as well as a lot of other info about gorillas), 
some of which I think are wonderful!  The website is www.gorilla.org - check 
out the painting that "Michael" did of a dog that he knows - Gorillas are 
highly intelligent & expressive animals, sometimes they sure seem a lot more 
intelligent than us humans!  

- --Sarah

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End of Baren Digest V7 #544
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