by almost September
The last of the summer’s visitors are gone but this late summer heat wave still slows me down. My thoughts are swinging to my return to the printmaking studio after the Labour Day long weekend in September. Many ideas have been incubating over the summer but now I need to try to see what comes together in new printworks. It’s always a slow process for me to restart that engine, turning ideas into action and getting into a regular smooth and productive flow. It’s rather like the annual back-to-school change in rhythm which we have all grown up with, and which continued for me through art school and teaching, then sending my own children to school and me to the print studio each fall.
It helps me to begin with some play with images, even if unrelated to the print projects. I am doing a series of scans with my hands and objects (for an online project that I may tell you about later). This image seems timely for me right now.
August 26, 2011 in Being an Artist, Human, Photoworks by Marja-Leena
Interesting idea. I like the flattened areas as a contrast. Have you seen the work of painter Jenny Saville? Some years back she painted nude portraits of herself from photographs taken of her lying on glass sheets, so that the body was flattened in some areas.
Hmm, the barrel of the pen is red … what colour is the ink?
Olga, I’m happy to hear you like the flattened areas for I was unsure if I did, playing with that element a lot in the other scans. I may have heard of Saville’s work… was she photographed underneath? Imagine if we had a scanner large enough to do that.
Rouchswalwe, the ink is red too. I started with my favourite black pen which of course did not show well against the black background. White would have been nice…
My favourite pen for letter writing is a Pilot V5 extra fine with green ink. In these days of the internets one of them now lasts much longer than previously. The image of your hand appearing from the darkness is most evocative for me of times gone by.
Susan, my favourites are Pilot pens too, Pilot V Razor Point Extra Fine in this case. I may not write letters anymore but I still make notes, lists, sketches. I remember the fountain pens of times gone by.
I hope Irene is not walloping your area too hard right now? I heard it’s reduced to a tropical storm from hurricane, so that sounds less dangerous.
I recognized the make and, yes, I have many lists, notes, and a journal too. How else could I remember the dates of events or the name of a film we saw 2 years ago?
So far we’ve seen worse storms that didn’t come with names but this one did find me looking up a big one that made a direct hit in 2003. Juan took out 90% of the mature trees at Point Pleasant Park. My goodness.
Is a pen an accurate symbol of print-making? Despite asking you for a definition of the process at the BR I remain in the dark. Isn’t there an interim stage, before the print is made, when one simply has art? Admittedly not art in profusion, but a single original piece? And do you carry these ideas casually in your head without creating notes or, more likely, visual aides memoires? As far as novel writing is concerned the act of writing tends to generate the smaller detail, but I routinely have brilliant ideas for blog posts which I fail to note down resulting in the mediocrity with which you are familiar. I was always fascinated to read about Beethoven’s notebooks in which he recorded musical ideas and themes, suggesting that when he strode through the countryside he wasn’t seeing trees and fields but hearing music – a good thing since when he did see trees and fields this caused him to come up with his most banal symphony. Plutarch too breaks off regularly to make notes in his Moleskin but summarising and transferring a visual reference seems to me – a visual ignoramus – a harder proposition, especially if words are not employed. On the other hand it would be very easy to forget one of these brief moments of insight. The pens in themselves are deeply attractive, perhaps because of their technical precision or possibly because of their inordinate price. I might fake being an artist just to justify acquisition of the pens.
It would be difficult to achieve such a delicate deliniation of shadow with a camera, certainly without careful preparation and thought as to lighting.
BB, we’ve had this conversation before, here and in London! Your questions re printmaking are such that I can’t answer in just a few words so I should write a blog post – it will have to wait a bit until I have more time to do a good job of it. As for the pens, they are not expensive at all. I checked one online site and you can get a package of 8 for $18 US which may last three or more years. Perhaps you are thinking of non-disposable types. As a writer, you’d like them.
Joe, yes, the scanner produces very different results easily and quickly. I don’t have the proficiency, equipment, time and patience to match that with a camera. Glad you like this.