I’m in the process of building up thin layers of color by applying Graphic Chemical’s water-soluble block inks via a Duralar transfer sheet.  I’m aiming to build up a crisp shape eventually out of the negative space, and to that end, I’ve drawn my form in reverse on the Duralar to use as a guide while inking.  Normally, I use stencils to make my forms with this process, but I’m hoping that the slight imprecision of the edge after numerous runs will give an illusion of depth at the edges of the form.  After I’ve built up the water-soluble color to a satisfying degree, I’m going to use a stencil and the Duralar technique to apply an oil-based (litho ink) layer of color.

At this point, the impressions each have four to five runs–the single etching followed by multiple runs of color to build subtly blended tones.  I’m using Hahnemühle Copperplate paper in 300 and 350 gsm.

The first, published in the New York Times and written by Ken Johnson, is an overview of the Philagrafika print festival.  The article is basically a weak survey of some of the festival events, and it also purportedly addresses the nature of printmaking today.  [For good coverage of the Philagraphika 2010 print festival, I recommend printeresting.org over the NYT, or even the actual Philagrafika website and blog.]

I find the author to be skeptical of  (and somewhat clueless about) printmaking in general.  In the first paragraph, Johnson posits that “anyone with the right software and a good color printer can make infinitely reproducible images that are hard to distinguish from professionally made drawings, paintings, montages, commercial illustrations and other sorts of pictures”, which indicates to me that he himself has not actually had the pleasure of attempting color correction or monitor/printer calibration, among other things, and that he has never actually compared an inkjet print of a painting to the actual painting itself.  I’m sure that he also forgot to add, or perhaps his editors removed the caveat “anyone with a good color printer which prints larger than 13″ x 19″“, because we all realize that many paintings, drawings, montages, commercial illustrations and other sorts of pictures are a good deal larger than that.   But there I go, letting sticky issues such as scale and the realities of digital printing get in the way of argument!

Back to that, by the way.  In the third paragraph, Johnson quotes José Roca, an organizer of the festival, from an essay in the festival guide: “Fixated on defining the realm of printmaking based on technique, some printmakers have printed themselves into a corner, away from the center of contemporary artistic trends.”  Did you see that?  Slam!  Up yours, “some printmakers”!  Ha, ha–what a burn.

Of course, I know what he means–in printmaking, we call those “some” printmaker’s printmakers, and they do tend to not be seen as contemporary artists so much as they are seen exclusively as “printmakers”.  I doubt, honestly, (and by “doubt, honestly” I mean that I haven’t had the opportunity to actually read the essay) that Roca intended to bash such printmakers, but coming so early in Johnson’s article, after the absurd assertion that “anyone” can rival the quality of “professionally” made images, it reads quite harshly, and seems to call into question the need for such types of printmaking and printmakers.

Lest you think I am simply a contrary sort, know that I am one of those who personally prefers an expansive definition of printmaking–I usually tie the definition to repeatability, the idea of the multiple and the intent to distribute information (visual or textual).  I think that my sort of definition hearkens back to the historical outset of printmaking, and is not so revolutionary as many folks tend to think it is.

Anyway, here’s where it gets interesting.  There seems to be an arbitrary line drawn somewhere, separating an interest in or dedication to technique from the practice of contemporary art.  As evidence, you can simply take a look at the many types of printmaking used to show contemporary print possibilities, many of which involve digital and commercial processes.  The suggestion becomes: 1) that digital processes involve little technique and 2) commercially printed media also involve little technique, whereas 3) “traditional” printmaking does involve technique.  Clearly, anyone who has any awareness of digital and commercial applications will realize that numbers one and two not so.  The less aware among you may in fact be shocked when I reveal that the paper edition of the New York Times itself is not printed by magical elves using desktop printers in the basement, nor is its website maintained simply by uploading crap to iWeb.

What begins to become apparent then, is that it is allowable for a craftsperson (read: digital technician or commercial printer) to possess and be interested in technique, but that it is not allowable for an artist to also possess and be interested in technique (see “some printmakers”).

Now, I am not presuming that such a perspective comes from either the craftspeople or the artists themselves–I am in fact presuming that it comes from a lack of familiarity with the methods and history of printmaking overall.  [At this point, I will remind the reader that I have given Roca the benefit of the doubt/have not actually read his essay, and do assume that he is familiar with both--it is Johnson whom I suspect of being ill-informed on the topic.]

Worse, actually, I am presuming that this arbitrary distinction arises in the face of and contrary to a familiarity with and historical understanding of printmaking.  As evidence of this, the next bit of internet text I mentioned in the intro to this post becomes relevant.

Via Tyler Green’s facebook status update, I was led to a greg.org post on the machinations of the Warhol Foundation’s attempt to actively discredit all copies of a legitimate Warhol print/work, so that they cannot be considered authentic.  In the greg.org post, there was a link to a fascinating letter of response to these actions from a man named Rainer Crone who had worked on a catalogue raisonné of Andy Warhol’s (perhaps you have heard of this famous printmaker?) work as part of his PhD project back in the day.  Crone had numerous interesting points, beginning with this: “The artist had chosen at that time the unique and more modern production technique of silk screen over the traditional hand-painted ones; this new technique was a result of Warhol’s new concept of art-making and his rejection of the centuries-old theory of the artist as auteur, the unique artistic originator.”

Yes, the “modern” technique of silkscreen being perhaps better understood as “the commercially viable modern application of the stencil process which evolved from the centuries-old Japanese technique of stabilizing cut-stencils in a fabric-like web of human hair, which nobody but “some printmakers” were willing to do until they figured out how to do that shit photographically”.  Looks like “some printmakers” sure printed themselves into a corner, so much so that they eventually invented photo-silkscreen–CHUMPS!

And so: the centuries-old concept of artist as auteur, debunked so long ago, eh (at least in the 1960′s)?  Since Warhol ceded much actual production to other people, he surely subverted the notion of the sole creator in a way which since has altered the landscape of contemporary art.  Except, of course, that we still say it was Warhol’s contribution.   Except, of course, that the majority of artists today working in the multiple also outsource the technical production and nobody seems to be confused as to who made the work.

If you extend the relationship of technique/authorship to that bizarre arbitrary technique/no-technique contstruct mentioned above, you will see that as long as a technician (printmaker’s printmaker or commercial printer, equally) does not have the gall to claim image authorship, then they are a-okay.  So the printmaker’s printmaker becomes somewhat of an outcast from the contemporary art world, while those who outsource production still maintain authorship.  What went wrong with Warhol’s revolution?

At this moment, I have to interject that I cannot fathom how people can so clearly overlook the atelier system in traditional painting.  Honestly!  It is a well-known art-historical fact that painters such as the Renaissance gang (seriously, do I need to list them?) used apprentices to do a majority of the icky work for them and yet they maintained authorship.

Similarly, and this is probably a lesser known art-historical fact, printmakers of the same era (as well as previous ones) also used apprentices along with specialized technicians to make prints, while also retaining authorship–the difference, however, is that the printmakers had to fight to be attributed authorship in the first place.  Before the virtuoso engravers such as Hendrick Goltzius and Albrecht Dürer, printmakers were given about as much authorship as the magical printing elves of the New York Times, and further, printmaking before named printmakers served similar purposes as the New York Times, the National Enquirer, Random House, or your garden variety high-school underground newspaper.

[Important aside: Goltzius and Dürer (to name but two examples) were also massively skilled technicians, who became so partly because of the apprenticeship system--they trained under the Master Printers--and goldsmiths--of the generation before them.]

So, authorship was something a printmaker had to fight (read: market) to get in the 15th and 16th centuries, coming as they did out of the realm of commerce (and goldsmithing), and it seems that nowadays, if a printmaker is interested in maintaining a sense of authorship and also in being a keen technician, they get sidelined while everyone else, or to put in Johnson’s words “anyone”, who is not allied with technique may happily keep their authorship, the Warholian revolution notwithstanding.

Well, that’s just peachy.  Plus ça change, yadda yadda.

[The reason I have described myself in various places as "artist, printmaker, writer, teacher", jointly using artist and printmaker, is an act of solidarity with that exact historical invisibility keyed to technique; I may not be a printmaker's printmaker or a commercial printer, but I aspire to the technical prowess of one!]

The Johnson article culminates dismally with several unanswered questions after a somewhat cynical lead sentence to the final paragraph:

The upshot of all this is intellectually stimulating but inconclusive. Is printmaking dead, or is it reborn? Is it a meaningful category at all anymore for contemporary artists who revel in mechanically produced imagery of all kinds and fearlessly use and misuse whatever tools are at hand?  If you think these questions matter — and there are good reasons to think they do — you need to plan a trip to Philadelphia.

I’d wager that the upshot is inconclusive because the premises are incorrect.  Printmaking, even in the extended contemporary definition (with which I concur), requires technique, though the technique can be on the part of the artist-printer, the commercial printer, the digital technician, or “anybody”.  However, the art market won’t allow Warhol’s revolution (“…No one would know whether my picture was mine or somebody else’s”) to come to pass, because it is highly invested in authorship (see the actions of the Warhol Foundation itself as evidence).  As long as we ascribe to a 16th century authorship model in art (which we certainly still do), those who are primarily considered to be technically skilled will be payed a fee (or wage) while those who are primarily considered to be artists will be encouraged to cast their fate to the art market, and I think there are some serious questions as to whom among the two is better paid.

Also, you need to plan a trip to Philadelphia because the Philagraphika festival has a lot of kick-ass printmaking, not because you need to ruminate upon bogus questions we already know the answers to.

As part of the [Name] Publications book series, Beatriz Monteavaro created a book titled Quiet Village, which reproduces a casually-bound, slightly worn book in which the artist made many, many drawings inspired by monster movies and exotica music (See: Quiet Village).

Quiet Village also includes a CD by Monteavaro’s band, Beings, and includes an essay by me–along with a bit of cut-n-paste, ziney visual KH stylings.  With flies.

There will be a book release event this Saturday night, October 24 at Sweat Records, from 7:30 to 10:30 PM.  Beings will perform, as will Boise Bob and his Backyard Band. Sweat Records is located at 5505 NE 2nd Ave, Miami, FL, 33138.

More info at the Knight Arts blog here and here.

I’m saddened by the death of Nancy Spero this past weekend; I had known little about her until rather recently.  What prevented me from knowing more about her sooner was a typical sort of smugness found in a lot of artists–the idea that I knew enough already.  That changed when I actually saw her work in person a year and a half ago.  I wish I could say that it was the first time I’d been gobsmacked by my own idiocy and another’s  wonderfulness, but it wasn’t.   I hope I won’t be such a clod again, but I  probably will.

In case you–reader–don’t know enough about her, I highly recommend that you first read Tyler Green’s post marking her passing, followed immediately by an article he recommends in which Spero and her husband, Leon Golub, accompany Michael Kimmelman to the MET.

Her NYTimes obit is here.

On the topic of artists one may not know enough about, I’ll now segue to an article in the latest CAA Art Journal about Jo Baer by Patricia Kelly titled Jo Baer, Modernism, and Painting on the Edge.  Given that the body of work I made for my MFA show was an attempt on my part to (retrospectively, of course) infiltrate and undermine historical Modernism, specifically that of the era discussed in the Kelly article, I was interested to learn that Baer’s work at the time bridged the disciplines of painting and sculpture while using visual formalist and dance/movement-based strategies as mental triggers to enhance the conceptual reception of her work on the part of the viewer.

Baer strongly made her own path, challenged contemporary artists and critics (such as Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Michael Fried and Clement Greenberg), and suffered for it, unsurprisingly.  Unfortunately, the article is not available online (it might be on JSTOR, I’m not sure); I could hardly excerpt enough to do the article justice, though there are some choice quotes.  Of Judd, Baer wrote that he

implies that any vacuformed plexi-bas-relief is automatically superior to any contemporary ideated marks on a flat surface.  But ideas are ideas.  Ideas and materials have a functional relationship, not an identity.

That is to say that ideas and materials are tools whose worth lies in their joint function, rather than as individual keys to objective ideals one can appeal to or attempt to attain via art.  Though art now seems to be quite a distance off from the hegemony of minimalist sculpture’s era past, I suspect that there is an aspect of wanton materialism in much art today (very general statement, I know, but I’m just musing here–starting to stew these ideas up) which is like a flip side to an attitude of minimal austerity, as if we are now more weighted toward the allusive potency of a cacophony of material rather than toward idea, as in the past.

The relationship of works on paper (‘ideated marks on a flat surface’) to both is a question I’m pondering quite a bit lately.  Personally, I feel that works on paper are more effective at evincing sustained, dynamic thought from a viewer than sculpture or painting (also ‘ideated marks on a flat surface’), in large part because we are a literate culture, and are habituated to paper being the prime vehicle of our own literacy and life of the mind.  But that’s a topic for another day.

In 1983, after stating that she was “no longer an abstract artist”, Baer addressed some of Judd’s arguments against painting:

When in 1966 Judd attacked illusionism in painting he neglected to explore or even question its presence in sculpture–their aim was an ‘objectivity’ to be derived from the ‘making of non-illusionary specific objects’ (via numerical concept and a mundane restraint against philosophy’s ‘seondary properties’ –i.e., they used prefabrication, metals, geometric forms, bricks, mirrors, lamps, car paints, uniform colors, etc.).  Sculpture’s basic, scandalous fiction went unregarded.  All sculptures pretend to contain the real.

Certainly, this always seemed obvious to me, of course with the benefit of distanced observation.  Sculpture and theater have much in common.

Kelly does address the powerful ideological climate of the time, which would have–and did–prevent most artists from questioning the era’s artistic tenets to the degree that Baer (and many other women artists) did.  Relevant to this idea is a quote Kelly included from David Reed:

I am convinced that the one reason the innovations of ’70′s painting were unrecognized is that four of its leading practitioners were women: Lee Lozano, Jo Baer, Dorothea Rockburn, and Ree Morton.  It’s very strange that the history of painting could be thought to end just as women were beginning to make their contributions.

Reed’s observation is quite like one made by Adrian Piper which asserts that women’s successes during Post-Modernism were met with a backlash, among which was a claim for the end of art.  Danto’s essay (The End of Art) doesn’t even mention any women (to my recollection), but it is indeed strange that art would ‘end’ just as women gained greater artistic prominence than ever before.

A paternalistic atmosphere is reflected in the last bit I’ll share from the essay; in an anecdote about an encounter with Clement Greenberg,  Baer recalls

Greenberg was a brilliant writer, a brilliant critic, and slimy as hell.  I remember a conversation he and I had about color . . . . Clem said, ‘Jo, you know this is all very well,’ by which he meant he couldn’t promote my work if it was all white and gray.  Too stark.  ‘Why don’t you use  pink or some other color?’  And I said, ‘Because Ken Noland already does that.  You don’t need me doing it’.  By which I meant . . . I wasn’t a Color Field painter.  I was working with degrees of light, and he wasn’t paying attention to that.  I was supposed to apologize, but I didn’t.

What I’ve excerpted here reflects my concerns–the article is rich with other information: considerations of the science of visual perception, women artists’ relationship to movement, the intersection of politics and art, as well as more detail concerning minimalist sculpture’s epic* battle with painting.  If you can find a copy to read, I strongly recommend doing so (Fall 2009, Vol. 69, No. 3).  The issue also has articles about Walter de Maria and Louise Bourgeois.

*I use ‘epic’ in with a tongue-in-cheeck awareness of the internet parlance of the day.

DRYPOINT & ENGRAVING ON ZINC PLATES
Skill level: All Levels
Instructor: Kathleen Hudspeth
Six Thursdays, 6 – 9 pm
Class size is limited to 7 students
924 Lincoln Road # 103/ Print Room
$190 class tuition plus $45(+ tax) material Fee

Learn how to use traditional drypoint processes to make intaglio prints. Students will use various methods to make visually complex and rich images in a safe, non chemical manner, which can later easily be continued in a home studio environment.  Printing will be done with oil-based ink using an etching press.

MAKING UNIQUE PRINTED IMAGES WITH PAPER: STENCIL & CHINE COLLÉ IN SILKSCREEN & OIL BASED MONOTYPE
Skill level: All Levels
Instructor: Kathleen Hudspeth
Six Wednesdays, 6 – 9 pm
Class size is limited to 5 students
924 Lincoln Road # 103/ Print Room
$190 class tuition plus $45(+ tax) material Fee

Use cut paper stencils to create unique artwork using water-based silkscreen, oil-based monotype processes and collage. Resulting pieces will be dynamic, mixed media works which exploit positive and negative forms, ink transparency, and texture.

Welcome new printshop eyeball overlord!  The print above was a subtractive monoprint demo combined with a stencil monoprint demo followed by a chine collé demo.  Phew!  This lovely print now reminds us to be kind, courteous, clean and safe–or else we’re gonna get it!

The print above is the source of the red “YOU” in the previous image.  Hilariously, even though when using paper stencils, one does not have to reverse text, I’m so accustomed to reversing text when printing that I spelled “YOU” backwards without a second thought when laying the stencils out.  Hence the charming “UOY”.

This was a print I did in advance of the demo to be certain of the pressure/paper/ink/matrix combo.  Later I shaded the text with an ink pencil as if it were cast or carved, and the perspectival distortion of this photo really sets that illusion off particularly well.  This print would look great installed directly across from a mirror.

See?

Moving on.

The image above is clearly related to the eyeball overlord; it’s the ghost image, slightly reworked with a bit of ink pencil detailing.  I might add more to this print.  I find it lacking in authoritarian je ne sais quoi.

Ah, the soothing chartreuse and pheasant brown color palette really puts the zen in a stencil monoprint demo.  Or not.  I printed the second run one day after the first, and it shows some offset from the print below.  Don’t stare too long at this one.

Can you find the print above?  Pheasant brown and chartreuse–it’s either nuking your rods and cones or disappearing into the woodwork; who knew?  This was the ghost run of the brown run above, followed a day later by the second (chartreuse) run as part of the stencil-based monoprinting demo.

The print above is a drypoint I worked up for a 2-plate printing and à la poupée inking demo.  One can do wonders with a mezzotint rocker and a burnisher!  Oh, okay–and some zinc and files and clamps and steel wool and ink and tarlatan and a phone book and good quality paper and a press and blankets.  And tape.  One always needs tape.

DRYPOINT & ENGRAVING ON ZINC PLATES
Skill level: All Levels
Instructor: Kathleen Hudspeth
Six Thursdays, 6 – 9 pm
Class size is limited to 7 students
924 Lincoln Road # 103/ Print Room
$190 class tuition plus $45(+ tax) material Fee

Learn how to use traditional drypoint processes to make intaglio prints. Students will use various methods to make visually complex and rich images in a safe, non chemical manner, which can later easily be continued in a home studio environment.  Printing will be done with oil-based ink using an etching press.

MAKING UNIQUE PRINTED IMAGES WITH PAPER: STENCIL & CHINE COLLÉ IN SILKSCREEN & OIL BASED MONOTYPE
Skill level: All Levels
Instructor: Kathleen Hudspeth
Six Wednesdays, 6 – 9 pm
Class size is limited to 5 students
924 Lincoln Road # 103/ Print Room
$190 class tuition plus $45(+ tax) material Fee

Use cut paper stencils to create unique artwork using water-based silkscreen, oil-based monotype processes and collage. Resulting pieces will be dynamic, mixed media works which exploit positive and negative forms, ink transparency, and texture.

The printshop at New World has a set-aside clean-room for book-making.  Carol Todaro, book-artist extraordinaire, will be teaching the Sketchbook/Book Arts class, and I’m very happy to be sharing the printshop domain with her.  We’ll be taking a material and supply inventory in a few days, which will help us develop a better plan for the semester.

A book show is planned for the downstairs gallery in November, so I’m considering including a simple, single-sheet fold-book assignment in this semester’s class.  I’m excited to be working on the syllabus, keen to meet the students, and eager to get accustomed to the shop itself.

Miami Design District Featured Event

Miami New Times Calendar

Miami New Times Riptide 2.0 blog

MetroMix South Florida, Mixed Bag

Reviews/Discussions:

Alfredo Triff’s Miami Bourbaki

Onajide Shabaka’s Miami Art Exchange

BFI open by appointment.  Come to the closing event August 8, 7 – 10 PM!

KATHLEEN HUDSPETH

You Were Always there with Us

June 13 – July 11 August 8, 2009

Opening reception: June 13, 7 – 10 PM

Closing reception: July 11 August 8, 7 – 10 PM

BFI is pleased to present the first solo show of works by Kathleen Hudspeth. You Were Always there with Us is an exhibition of drawings and prints which addresses the seemingly contradictory ideas of oppression and inclusion. The works use a language of visual symbology to refer to dominant and marginalized groups within the context of both art history and impossible situations. Knives, bouquets, logs, flies and drips stand for actions, people and systems simultaneously. The work is made from a feminist perspective, and re-imagines the narrative of the white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy at an individual, intimate scale.

The culture of printmaking is an important influence on the works in this exhibition. Though many of the works are prints, none is part of an identical edition; Hudspeth exploits the possibilities of the multiple in such a way as to rephrase and reframe visual statements in order to better build an internal language of meaning. Engraving, lithography, mezzotint, etching and silkscreen are used together with collage to both evoke and undermine art-historical traditions. Methods are combined, artifacts from the printmaking process, such as pin and registration holes, remain in the works, the contemporary photo-litho technique is used to reproduce hand-drawn imagery—intentionally without the assistance of digital processes, and media which are static and sticky are used to depict fluid, painterly marks.

Kathleen Hudspeth is a Miami native with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Texas at Austin and soon to receive a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Miami in Printmaking. You Were Always there with Us is her Master’s thesis exhibition. Her work has been in numerous local and national venues, including the Fredric Snitzer Gallery, the Bass Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Washington, D.C. Her critical writings have been published in Art Papers, The Sun Post, and her (now defunct) blog, The Next Few Hours. She has been a visiting critic and lecturer at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, and a volunteer docent for 8 years at the Miami Art Museum. Recently, she was selected as one of 45 finalists for the Knight Foundation Arts Challenge for her idea to start a community print shop.

The BFI is an artist-run alternative space located in the Buena Vista Building in Miami’s Design District. It was founded in July 2004 by artists Hernan Bas and Naomi Fisher. The space is currently run by Naomi Fisher, Jim Drain, Kathryn Marks and Agatha Wara. Bas Fisher Invitational is open from 7 – 10 PM during events or by appointment.

Bas Fisher Invitational/180 NE 39 ST, Suite 210/Miami, FL

basfisherinvitational.com info@basfisherinvitational

For links to press and reviews, go here.