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

Baren Digest              Sunday, 18 January 1998      Volume 02 : Number 039

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From: Graham Scholes <gscholes@islandnet.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 07:41:01 -0800
Subject: [Baren 165] Re: 'Edition Numbers' 

>From Patrick
>Actually, from the standpoint of an appraiser I'd have to say that it
>would be nice if EVERY printmaker would provide that kind of information
>. . . for help in determining value downline. The more database
>information there is, the easier a print can be judged as to its relative
>value. But there are no legal requirements for this, except by the
>aforementioned three states.

I thought everybody did this but I have several original (hand pulled)
prints and had to ask for something like a certificate.  I got a letter for
one and the other print nothing was made available.

I include with my print a certificate that states
the Number i.e. 1/75
The quanity of A/P - 7 (10% of edition size) and P/P (Somewhere around one
to three proofs).
The number of impressions of colour.
The number of carved plates.
The kind of paper.
and the final statement is:
	"When the artist has finished printing this edition the
	woodblock plates are cancelled (defaced)
	insuring this edition can never be produced again."

Graham

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From: Bill Mixon <bmixon@nine.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 14:51:02 -0500
Subject: [Baren 166] This and that... 

Hi, all,

No, I haven't disappeared, just "got real busy" for awhile there!  But
I've been following the threads, and some interesting ones they've been
too.

David, hope your exhibit is going well.  Good luck!

I've very much enjoyed your interior conversations "at the gallery".  I
find it fascinating to see how other people think, even where my own
opinions may be unformed or different.  And your thoughts are always
"good grain for the gristmill"!

Your comments about prints doomed to hang forever on a wall, behind
glass, untouched, eventually unnoticed and unappreciated, hit a resonant
spot.  I've always admired the Japanese concept of rotating just a few
art objects at a time, through the tokonoma (art nook) in the home.  At
least this shows them off in a more focused way, giving them some of the
respect they're due.  And they get to rest between showings, better for
the objects archivally, as well as for the viewers' retinal fatigue.  An
additional spin on this is that, typically, objects from diverse arts
(prints, paintings, calligraphy, pottery, flower arrangements, whatever)
selected to *complement* each other are shown together, rather than just
all the same or a hodgepodge.  So there's a lot of variety packed into a
small and harmonious space, with no distractions... an intense
experience.

Another good way of showing prints, more common in the West, is to
collect a set of them together in  a case (loose, unbound sheets).  This
combines elements the bookbinder's art with those of the papermaker and
printmaker, and optionally the essayist, to create a tightly-integrated
little tour de force.  To take the prints out of the case (with
printer's fingers!) one by one, admiring each by itself (in good light),
then carefully putting it back and going on to the next... I've seen a
set of 30 block prints, all black-and-white but one, cut and printed in
South Africa just after Mandela's election, which viewed this way, with
the accompanying text, had a powerful effect! 

I don't have strong feelings (yet!) on the editioning issue, just
bemused puzzlement at the many and sometimes contradictory practices I
see in use.  (Actually, devil's advocate that I am, I find the diversity
of opinion here to be a wonderful thing!;^)

In my readings I came across the following little anecdote.  Possibly
apocryphal, but it would certainly fit the character:
	"Shiko Munakata's prints were not numbered.  Occasionally he'd get an
investment-hungry customer who would insist "but I *want* a numbered
print!"  Munakata would obligingly write a number on the print... any
number..."

So, the practice of numbering prints is by no means universal among
"modern" Japanese printmakers.  I've seen prints by Onchi, and by Maki
Haku too, in the museum here, that were not numbered.

I too have read that the practice of "signed, numbered editions" is a
fairly recent phenomenon.  Early western prints were open editions, much
as their Japanese brethren were.  I believe limited editions were
hatched by Whistler and Haden in 19th century Europe.  They were
certainly "fine art" printmakers, but they worked in a milieu in which
printmaking had become a *purely* reproductive medium -- printmakers
were the "Xerox machines" of their day.  They needed a gimmick, a
marketing ploy, to set their works apart from the public perceptions of
what a print was.  I don't know how well it worked for them, but the
idea had spread by the early 20th century.  By the time of the 1960's
"print boom", it had become established as "the way", at least in the
United States.

Also, as I understand it, the numbering does not *necessarily* imply
sequence.  Print #N is NOT guaranteed to be the Nth print pulled.  This
practice may vary among printmakers, and certainly sequential numbering
could be meaningful in such media as drypoint or mezzotint, but it's not
at all safe to assume a connection.

Actually, any edition, even an open one, is "limited" by, if nothing
else, the physical impossibility of printing an infinite number of
prints.  The fundamental difference between open and limited editions is
that for the former, the size of the edition is not known and may even
be a moving target;  for limited editions, the size is known and is a
fundamental part of the buyer/seller communication.

Graham's point about demographics was a good one.  Working in a
tradition in which numbering is unknown, in a well-populated area where
that style is easily accepted, open editioning may be an easier sell.
It might be a bit tougher for someone working in a new or evolving or
unpopular style, in a less densely populated area, in a society in which
limited editions are "expected", to make a living this way.  Some people
don't care (and I applaud them), but I have also heard print collectors
say they wouldn't buy an un-numbered print!  To me it seems both customs
have their place, one chooses what is appropriate to one's style and
market.

(Was it Jasper Johns who took a cancelled plate from one of his
editions, and made a monoprint out of it?  Thus wryly mocking the
custom, without terribly offending anyone...)

The important thing, whatever custom one adopts, is to be open about it
with one's customers.  Numbered editioning can also be viewed as a
well-intentioned tool of communication, not just a devious and
artificial creator of rarity.  *All* handmade prints are more or less
*rare*, if you get my drift.

In this spirit, I find Patrick's and Graham's tales of shenanigans
played by the less scrupulous, shocking!  To represent an edition as
"limited to a certain number of copies", when this is patently not true,
or then to later go back on that commitment by diluting the market with
reproductions:  this is certainly a breach of the trust that should
exist between buyer and seller.  Kudos to you for blowing the whistle on
that one, Graham!

I can certainly empathise, too, with your distaste for mechanical
reproductions marketed as "fine art", or even worse, as "original
prints" (now *that's* a perversion of the accepted use of the term)!
One philosophy is that "art is in the image (or concept), not in the
technique", so OK, I could grudgingly grant such posters "art" status.
But to hawk them as original prints is simply dishonest.

On the other hand, I have no problem with mechanical reproductions
honestly marketed as such.  In fact, they serve a useful purpose, making
[sometimes poor copies of] art available to masses of people who could
not otherwise afford it.  I have many such reproductions of art by
Matisse, etc.  I could NEVER afford an original Matisse!  There is
nothing ethically wrong with this, even if it is competition for some of
us.  (Some collectors who whet their appetites at this basic level may
later graduate to a more sophisticated level where they appreciate the
finer qualities inherent in a hand-pulled print, and move into our own
market.  Some may never, but then, do you really want to sell your
prints to THEM?  It's like that lady, wavering about whether to sell you
that expensive nagura stone, David, unsure whether you were ready for
it...)

The "Giclee" process, that's an interesting animal.  I remember a little
desktop printer made by Casio, in the 1970s, the "Typuter".  It sprayed
a continuous stream of fine, charged droplets of ink out a nozzle.
Electrostatic plates deflected the jet to "draw" on the paper as it
passed by;  unused ink was diverted to a catch-basin and recycled.  A
pioneering use of  the exact same principles Dan described for the Iris.
 Of course the Iris has much larger capacity and better output quality,
and can take a wider range of inks and papers.  Great strides have been
made in that technology over the past 20 years.  In another 10 or 20,
probably most of the remaining *technical* problems will be overcome:
truly archival inks may be available;  and the machines will be much
less expensive.  What we really need to address are not the practical
issues, but the philosophical and ethical ones.

One of the reasons Iris prints are so expensive, is that the equipment
to produce them is so expensive.  It is not widely available.  This
alone gives them a certain cachet.  When Iris quality can be obtained at
the cost of an HP DeskJet, though, the public's perceptions of such
prints will change.  When something costs pennies to print, the cost of
the art may then be more in line with intrinsic values like the image
and the artist's "name".  (Maybe someday there'll be a "fine art" market
for collectors of copy-protected JPEG files, stranger things have
happened...?:^)

Inkjet printers are just GREAT for proofing.  For final output, they
aren't there yet, not up to acceptable technical standards.  Someday
they will be though, and then other issues beyond the technical will
come into play, marketing issues.  I liked Dave's idea of a public
"print-off" between a human block-printer and an inkjet device.  (Like
the proverbial abacus-user vs. calculator, or Bobby Fischer vs. IBM's
Deep Thought!:o)  Independent of image quality, if people knew what went
into each process, it should make an impression on their buying habits.
(In any case, it could make for good theater...!:^)

Anyway, printmakers have always been very adaptable critters, masters of
absorbing new tools and technologies, and pushing them to untried
limits.  I found Dave's description of the photographic color separation
process he used to prepare templates for carving blocks in the "Hundred
Poets" series, an interesting example of this.  (Read the early
newsletters on his website, great stuff!)  The inkjet printer is just
another tool, with as much potential for both good and evil as a
knife...

I see an underlying principle emerging here.  The most serious problem
we as printmakers face, is not the inexorable march of technology (we
can turn that to our advantage), nor differences of opinion or tradition
regarding print editioning (there's room for all here).  It's a poorly
educated public, sometimes inadequate communication between buyer and
seller, and the dishonest or shady marketing practices that a few may
use to exploit these conditions.  Sound familiar?  These are universals.
 That's what we have to fight.

Regards,
Bill

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From: David Bull <davebull@asahi-net.email.ne.jp>
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 08:10:59 +0900
Subject: [Baren 167] Re: This and that... 

Bill wrote:

> Also, as I understand it, the numbering does not *necessarily* imply
> sequence.  Print #N is NOT guaranteed to be the Nth print pulled.  

I can't speak for other methods, but in the traditional woodblock method
here, the sequence must be maintained extremely rigourously during the
printing process.  To mix up the order of the sheets in the stack leads
almost inevitably to disaster.

All the printing starts with the key-block, and the colours must then
later fit in-between those lines.  But as the blocks for many of these
prints are quite wide, it is common for the key block to expand some
millimeters during the process of printing a hundred or so copies. 
Print #1 and print #100 can vary in width by as much as two or three
millimeters.

So when it comes time to work on any particular colour, you try the
first sheet by putting it in place on that paper that was stuck on the
block to show where the registration mark lies, and taking an
impression.  You then cut the kento marks after seeing how things look. 
Then as the printing process continues sheet by sheet the kento will
need to be gradually moved, hair by hair.  

If however, the order of the sheets was scrambled, then 'wide' sheets
would be mixed with 'narrow' sheets, and colour alignment would become
completely hopeless.

So at the end of the final colour, you've got a stack that could in good
conscience be labelled #1  #2  #3 etc. if you wished to.  

I don't number them, so this is only of technical interest to me.  It's
also worth noting that with the small size of my 'editions', usually
around a hundred copies, the block wear and tear is so slight that I
can't tell the difference between #1 and #100.  During the drying
process I let them all get mixed up, and once everything is done, there
is no way I can then separate them into 'early' and 'late'.

***

> ... I have also heard print collectors
> say they wouldn't buy an un-numbered print! 

But none of the people ordering my prints could be described as 'print
collectors'.  I'm sure that 99.9% of them don't own any other prints. 
They would never have ever thought of walking into an art gallery, or
especially a gallery's 'print room'.  They are just (excuse the term)
'normal' people.  But they saw something that they liked, and decided to
want one for themselves ...



> I liked Dave's idea of a public
> "print-off" between a human block-printer and an inkjet device.  

I wasn't seriously suggesting such an event!  But you've mentioned this
now at just the right time.  Three of the six days of the annual
exhibition are now over, and I've been reminded again (as if I needed
it!) just how important it is for people to _see_ what I do.

I've got the printing bench sitting right in the middle of the room, and
whenever there are a few people gathered around, I sit down and print
off a copy of the little card I sent you a few weeks ago.  As I do, I
chat with them, answer questions, and we all have a generally good time
...  They start chatting with each other as they cluster 'round, some of
them sitting on the carpet, others standing behind.

As the print progresses, I explain what's going on.  When it gets to the
end, I pass over the print for inspection (along with a few others I
pull out from under the bench), and they then start holding them up
under the lights, trying to see the embossings, etc., and then
regretfully return them to me.  And a few minutes later, _that's_ when
the order forms come in!

You may criticize this as being 'theater' or 'entertainment', but I
don't see it that way.  These people are learning just what a woodblock
print really is, and something about how to look at it.  Once they've
learned that ... they want some for themselves!


Dave

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From: Graham Scholes <gscholes@islandnet.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 21:29:41 -0800
Subject: [Baren 168] Re: This and that... 

All good interesting stuff This and thats.

Just a couple of thought that were juggled loose as I read your e-mail.

	>On the other hand, I have no problem with mechanical reproductions
>honestly marketed as such.  In fact, they serve a useful purpose, making
>[sometimes poor copies of] art available to masses of people who could
>not otherwise afford it.

When I discuss the merits of reproductions with customers be they numbered
or not I have adopted the phrase....Decorative Art and always express that
it is a whole industry onto itself but not to be confused with the hand
pulled fine art print.

	>Another good way of showing prints, more common in the West, is to
>collect a set of them together in  a case (loose, unbound sheets).  This
>combines elements the bookbinder's art with those of the papermaker and
>printmaker, and optionally the essayist, to create a tightly-integrated
>little tour de force.  To take the prints out of the case (with
>printer's fingers!) one by one, admiring each

Interesting thought about being able to examine them closely for greater
enjoyment.
Maybe you have seen the Collectors set of prints which uses one of the
carved blocks for the lid. I will use the idea Dave put forward as well as
yours Bill when discussing them with interested parties.

	>One of the reasons Iris prints are so expensive, is that the equipment
>to produce them is so expensive.

The cost of 1, 2 or 20+ of these prints as produced by the company in Nova
Scotia is
$100.00 CAN. The size I was 24" x 36"  The price varies very little with size.

Cheers.

Graham

ps The best for you show David.

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From: Graham Scholes <gscholes@islandnet.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 21:30:24 -0800
Subject: [Baren 169] Re: This and that... 

David.


>As the print progresses, I explain what's going on.  When it gets to the
>end, I pass over the print for inspection (along with a few others I
>pull out from under the bench), and they then start holding them up
>under the lights, trying to see the embossings, etc., and then
>regretfully return them to me.
>

Nothing wrong with this approach.  It is warm and friendly way of educating
people about our sport.

>And a few minutes later, _that's_ when the order forms come in!

Smart.  I always demonstrate but could never figure a way to ask for an
order in s subtle way.  I'm going to work on this.

Graham

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End of Baren Digest V2 #39
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