adventures in printmaking

Girl On A Hill

2006-01-12T22:10:00.000-05:00

Well. It's yet another return to the studio. A welcome, welcoming occassion! Prints were stacked almost as high as me in the drying rack, so I dug mine out. I tried my hand at color today, after some discussion at the round table about digital prints versus 'prints', which got me thinking. Is it the image? Is it the embossing, the imprint, the clarity of line, the freeness of expression? Are all of the above necessary to make a print? What makes one a printmaker?
I find it interesting that photopolymer allows for photographic quality 'prints' (through the press). One can take any digital image and create a plate that can then be used to generate 'prints'; and in so doing one is called a printmaker.
But what if one swings the other way, like I do? Today, I made a series of monoprints that found there way into my computer and used in this image which I then printed, through my Epson.

A New Year!

2006-01-04T19:20:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year Everyone!
The Holiday season has kept me away from the studio, except for the wonderful gathering we had. Party! It was a hard hug to give to Oliver, though, as he moves on to become a master printer out in Colorado. I do wish him well and feel so fortunate to have met him and worked together at ZeaMays.
I've started the new year with a bang, grrlware.com! It's my new business, an ecommerce venture. It's great how things roll together and combine to find you doing something you've long thought about but haven't implemented. My idea is to create a life style that supports me creatively, spiritually and financially. I do believe it's coming together even if it's little piece by little piece.

Show Some Love

2005-12-12T22:32:00.000-05:00

Well. This was the addition to the ghosts I made way back when. The lone figure now has a huge red heart. Somehow it feels more hopeful and more fitting to show, now that holidays are upon us.
There is something in the giving, when it matches the one receiving in a moment of honest appreciation. Here is such a giver, heart held out bigger than life.
Yours for the taking.
May you be seen as you are and learn to give it away.
No fear.

Transformation

2005-12-04T22:25:00.000-05:00

Today it snowed. A soft wet blanket that held me indoors until I ventured out to the grocery store. I decided not to make the long trip to the studio. Yet the accident lingers and I am not ready to drive as I would have before. Instead, I pulled out my prints from yesterday to find that I did not exaggerate much. Surely, they are prints to walk away from, but I wanted to hold them up, or at least elements of them, to view. If you look in you can see the netting I referred to and the brayer's path. I like the texture it makes in the ground. I am enjoying mixing media. My digital photo library has become a palette, as have my prints. The distance from photo to print to image shifts. Here a portion of a print is combined with a photo and computer drawing. This process makes sense to me. I am learning to trust my gut and willing to not know where I am going.

Entrance

2005-12-03T23:48:00.000-05:00

Today was a day of lessons. Anger and frustration spurred me on, shame surrounded me. In the midst of people, it was mine and I almost suffocated in it. Such is my bad temper.
I had left my house unhappy, delayed, to arrive at the studio convinced there was no longer time to make anything. But then words from a recent book spoke to me and said go into it anyway. I pulled out ink and decided color was what I was going to lay down and work with and I was immediately daunted, tongue tied and confused. I hated what I was doing. Instead of wiping my plate clean I printed it anyway as an unsuspecting onlooker looked on. I didn't know what I was doing, only that I was doing it. I couldn't answer why one might use dry paper, I only knew to use wet because I used wet paper the last time. And there it was, the kind of print everybody wants to walk away from, completely repugnant with little redeeming qualities. I made this as Diane and the unsuspecting visitor looked on. I stood there staring into the print,evidence that I had nothing to offer, and all should move away from me. And they did, as I continued to work, slowly finding little things I liked in the midst of ruin. The texture of netting and bubble wrap, brayers of ink. I was working large for me, half a sheet, and struggling to allow myself to keep making pitiful art, to explore without triumph. This was instructive and my silent victory: I stayed the course and in keeping on I was no longer on the same road. That's how I got to this locked door, which pleases me.

The Little Things

2005-11-27T11:51:00.000-05:00

The night before open studios I created this business card, artist card to give away to anyone interested. I was quite pleased with myself. I printed out a lot of them and people took them.

At What Cost?

2005-11-27T09:44:00.000-05:00

I'm not so disturbed by driving anymore, though snow has fallen and the roads are icy. It seems like so long ago returning from the hospital to the frenzy of open studios.
I stumbled into an edition of this image which compelled me to join the frenzied and display my prints underneath borrowed plastic. Somehow the oversized sheath made this image seem far more compelling. That one could no longer reach out and pick it up with bare hands led to an air of preciousness that in the end confounded me to doubt. What was this print worth?
At once I wanted it to be worth hundreds,thousands, appreciated by many. I wanted you to look into it as I did when I pulled paper from collograph and see where the ink held or to admire the off cut of the plate. I wanted you to feel your sense of self in the world, stark, muted and alive, a reflection of nameless form. In the end I asked Caitlin, who gave it the generous price of $80.
I was curious what it would be like to put my work out for sale. It's nerve wracking and boring sitting behind a table of your artwork with people strolling by mostly disinterested, every now and again stopping to look a little closer. It's loud and spastic with more than 10 conversations going on simultaneously. It's exciting and gratifying as someone stops and leans into the image. It is a challenge to open up to every passerby.
So I sat knitting. Many asked me what I was making and I replied, " A pink tube." before fleeing my station as artist to go explore other work, eat old fashioned cookies and decide that my time was better served at home cooking for the wounded and that my prints needed to be available to the masses. $25 anyone?

In The World

2005-11-10T13:10:00.000-05:00

I drove last night through rainy streets among the busy people moving fast and stopping short. It was a long ride to the studio, full of residual fear that is continually banking itself inside me since the accident. My daughter says I shouldn't be so paranoid, tells me to relax.
When I walked into the studio I felt like this print. The studio seemed large, so much space and I could not focus. There was a long moment of entering as if I did not belong or more like this was not my dream I was dreaming. I had greeted Stephanie and hugged Oliver and plopped my stuff on a table. A gesture that has come to signify I am here to work. So I reoriented myself as I searched for these prints, some of my first ghosts, as they're called. I found my supply tub and pulled out my new cans of ink.
And I began, again.

Hospital Bound

2005-10-31T13:20:00.000-05:00

I have been thinking about this image a lot recently. I made it when I discovered my scanner a month or so ago.
A little over a week ago I was in a car accident. It was very terrifying and disorienting. There was a moment in ER that reminded me of this image and I thought how strange because when I made it I didn't really know why it came out as it did. But in ER when I was lying on a guerney in a neck brace next to my daughter who was also on a guerney in a neck brace, it made more sense, as a weird coincidence or a strange premonition.
Life is strange. Moments can preceed our knowing and inform our past, as well as shed light on what is yet to come or even here, right now.

Blurry

2005-10-20T01:07:00.000-04:00

It's late and my wrist hurts from working with my computer so much. I've been going round and round through the many applications I'm working with, at times this is very exciting, but presently I'm tired. Feel like I've run the gamut. What is a gamut anyway?
I have yet to get into the studio this week, though I plan to be there all day tomorrow, printing up a new collograph and perhaps taking needle to copper plate as I've yet to do so. I have been busy getting my work together for submission. Sunday, I picked three pieces to submit for the upcoming members show. And over the last 48 hours I've been busy creating and revising "A Visual Journey" which I'll be submitting for a book show at Liz's suggestion. You can check it out on my website. The page link is: http://www.amandajudd.com/spiralstair.htm
It's not quite the same as the submitted piece because I hadn't learned about cropping photos in iMovie and couldn't be bothered to switch it in Flash yet. So many changes and revisions, it's hard to keep up.
I feel blurry, aware of many connections and ways to put things together but without the energy to do so now. But all the same, drawn to blog, to keep writing.

Coming Out Of The Woods

2005-10-17T01:24:00.000-04:00

I carry around a big portfolio now. It's in the trunk of my car. It's unwieldy and black. It's still new enough to feel a bit strange when I carry it, but it's becoming more and more innocuous. I've got paper, transparencies, some prints and folders, even an exacto knife that's enameled to look like a fish. Recently, I've added some plexiglass that Anita kindly gave me for monoprints. My first, the brown forest scape above which was an exercise in shoulds. As in, I should be making something more meaningful. More drawn. More gripping and artistic. More abstract, more compositionally beautiful, texturally rich.
I find it immensely challenging to work with the many shoulds that take up residence in my mind. Like the should that states you're not supposed to loose your deckle. Or the one that whispers I shouldn't use an exacto knife to cut my paper, paper should only be torn. Or that an edition should be a continuous run, no mistakes. Where did I come up with these notions?
This week I've cut my paper, lost my deckle and found out that there are artists who make prints without ever making them. And, there are printmakers who make those prints and are not the artists. Go figure.

From Delay to Drypoint, all in a Day

2005-10-07T19:08:00.000-04:00

I was already having a bad day when I walked into the studio this morning. My head hurt and the last words I said a half hour ago surely should not be repeated. Afraid to bring my terrible mood into the studio, I took a breath and greeted Liz and Diane. The electrician who was called in reported that the relay,wherever that is, in the vacuum press, would need to be replaced. Liz apologized as she said it could be a few weeks or more before it's fixed. It's an old machine and she's going to have to hunt for the part.
Ugh,okay. Not the best news, no polymer plates for me, at least for awhile.
Diane was busy and I overheard Liz mention that the scanner and the computer were not communicating. Ugh, I thought, it's going to be one of those days. Poor Liz. Broken machinery sucks, even more so when you need to use it. As I laid out my prints from yesterday, I glanced up at Diane's work. Oh, how awesome, her book's coming along. I gravitated over there and listened as she talked about her copperplates, a world I'm not too familiar with. But could be, want to be and quickly found out I will begin to be as there's copperplate available and I can borrow a needle and begin etching. Drypoint.
But not so fast as that, I had to measure and cut the plate first. Well, Liz kindly cut it for me in that big plate cutter machine. Then I filed and beveled the edges, borrowed the iron needle and flew out of the studio, to go do all my crazy errands in time to get home to get laundry dry for my daughter to go to her daddy's for the weekend.
With plate in hand and a needle in my pocket, we'll see how the weekend unfolds.

The Passage (a series of monoprints)

2005-10-03T17:44:00.000-04:00

Here she is, wondering. Standing in the darkness. Where does the light come from?

This past week my daughter asked me about darkness. Her question, "If it is night and there's no moon and a clouded sky so you can't see any stars and you are far away from any lights, will it be so dark that you can't see? Will it be dark with your eyes open? And you look and can see no distinction, not even your own hand."

Untold Stories

2005-09-25T21:20:00.000-04:00

It's hard to go out of business, my mother emails. She's been in the business of ephemera and odd lots for years now. Her garage a testament, as well as the boxes of fabric and trinkets stacked one upon the next piled under beds and chairs in rooms we are no longer invited to enter.
Awhile ago she sent me a random box with old photos of children in white dresses and black leather shoes, disintegrating books, valentines and someone's correspondence written in 1890 to some guy named Clayt. At the time she sent me this box I was looking for old photos, hot on an idea to make clothing out of recycled material. I had already begun to weave with video tape. I was liking the idea of captured memory, cast away and found anew. However, my weaving remains unfinished downstairs still on the loom like many of my mother's boxes.
I threw much of that box out in an effort quite similar to my mother's current affair. I had decided I must clean up, glean down and get on with the good business of getting on. I followed the advice of Mission Organization, self help books and all the magazine articles available calling me to live simply. I made piles to keep, sell and throw away. I tried to be ruthless but the letters to Clayt somehow made it to my work desk where they've sat all summer, until now.

Last night I got the hang of my scanner. Today, I opened one of those letters from 189X, that's how Frank (I think that's his name) penned it, and put it in my scanner. The result is this group of photoshop sketches.

I've prepared them for photopolymer and will try to make some test plates next week.
Interesting how life unfolds.

First Monoprint

2005-09-23T17:06:00.000-04:00

early sketches

2005-09-23T17:00:00.000-04:00

To begin is easy. Everything is new and there is no knowledge of better, or how I did it before. Perhaps this is akin to beginner's mind. There is an innocence and curiosity that allows for quick exploration. I found this in my first mylar prints.

Of course, there is also luck which perhaps will one day turn to skill. Understanding the press takes time. The plate, the paper, the pressure all affect the final print.

I am reminded that many factors go into the art of printmaking, into the process of art.

Pumpkins and Mist

2005-09-17T12:48:00.000-04:00

How does inspiration work? Yesterday, I was driving along the back roads of Hadley thinking about image and song. I'm taking a course at Hampshire that connects images with creating music in a computer application called Metasynth. I was struck by the cloudy mist held by the mountains beyond the chopped cornfields and pumpkin patches. Traveling with camera in car, I stopped, got out and crossed the muddy farmer's field. I stood midway between rows of trimmed cornstalks as I had inched ever closer trying to capture an image. I felt frivolous, exposed in the middle of the field standing in mud, holding my camera. Thinking to myself, what would the farmer think to find me here in his field, so out of place? I took two pictures then my battery ran out. Laughing to myself, late to everwhere I was going, I ran back to the car hopping rows of corn to get my spare battery. Thinking, all this to hear the sound of pumpkins on a misty day?

First Edition

2005-09-13T00:30:00.000-04:00

Welcome! My work at Zea Mays Printmaking Studio in Florence has begun. I came in last Thursday and met with Liz who oriented me to the studio and directed me in making my first collograph. I used a thick piece of cardboard which I carved into with a knife and built up with string and other odd end materials to create an image which I then covered with three layers of a glue medium so that I could ink it to print later.
The studio is big and can accomodate 5 working artists. There are 2 operating presses and five work stations. There was a lot to take in because the presses are different than the ones I learned on at UMASS. Plus, there were new people to meet and new work to be seen.
I came in on Friday and printed my plate which became more an educational experience than a desire to edition. I had messed up my 'd' and it read as a 'b' which was dumb, but oh so easy a mistake to happen.
It's a great atmosphere. I can join in conversation if I choose to, or be quiet. Frequently other studio artists are available to check out work, offer suggestions or input if requested/invited. I'm looking forward to exploring new techniques like collograph and monotypes, as well as continuing with photopolymer.
This blog will be a way of documenting various experiences, thoughts, reflections on my process with printmaking over the academic year 2005/06.
Comments, input, inspirations are always welcome.