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

Baren Digest               Sunday, 3 January 1999       Volume 06 : Number 395

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From: "Jeanne N. Chase" <studiojnc@prodigy.net>
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 09:45:56 -0500
Subject: [Baren 2464] Re: All our endeavors 

Andrea
When I read your e mail I was really touched as it sounds SO familiar!
i believe that most artists go through a stage where they compare their work
to others and feel most inadequate. It is a normal process for growth. Your
work is so very professional and wonderful , you certainly do not have to
take a back seat to anyone!
When I visited the Louvre in October and wandered around in a daze as I
looked at David's work, I felt like a real amateur. I said to myself "I am
really lazy, How on earth could a mere human do the fantastic paintings that
he did. How can I even compare to one corner of one of his even lesser
paintings?" I came home and looked at my work and it took every ounce of
will power not to cut them up. {I did that once before}.
I guess what I am trying to say is that Art is a challenge, a task master,
your muse. But whatever it is, it is yours and their is nothing that can
compare to picking up a pencil, a brush and actually creating something out
of your own  soul.
I WAS going to attempt a print ala the Oriental style, but thought I would
wait until the spirit is just right. For now I will stay with the roll on
oil base printmaking. I feel more secure.
Well, I have rambled on so I will leave you with a joke for the New Year!

An artist asked the gallery owner if there had been any interst in his
paintings on display at that time.
"I have good news and bad news, "the owner replied. " the good news is that
a gentleman enquired about your work and wondered if it would appreciate in
value after your death. When I told him it would , he bought all 15 of your
paintings."
"That's wonderful!" the artist exclaimed. "What's the bad news??"
" The guy was your doctor."
Jeanne

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From: Graham Scholes <gscholes@islandnet.com>
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 10:04:16 -0800
Subject: [Baren 2465] Something new, old, & blue 

I have downloaded a new image on my web page.
 http://www.islandnet.com/~gscholes/

'Fragility' is as a result of experiences which I captured 20 years ago in
a pencil sketch.  I found this little sketch 5" x 3" in a pile of stuff and
it struck me as been a gem from which to make a new print.
I remember sitting in front this scene in northern Ontario's Algoma
district when I was travelling back and forth across Canada doing lectures
and watercolour workshops. I had done a watercolour using this sketch which
can be found in my book 'watercolor and how' by Watson Guptill.  (now out
of print) on page 21.  This is considerably simplified and only the
essentials have be recorded with the dominance of the three colours.  Isn't
that what should happen?

Well, not always I guess.  Right now I am working on a new image that has
taken me 6 weeks to create and I am only at the colour rough stages. I have
done numerous on location sketch or section and individual parts of the
overall image in that time.  However yesterday, I nailed down all the
elements of design and saw the first image on paper,  (I have seen the
image dozens of times in my mind)  but to see a
living-in-the-real-breathing sample was really quite exciting.  The print
is still about 4 weeks away, as now I have about 10 plates and 20 odd
burnished colours ahead of me.  It will be called the Fantasia Suite and is
a depiction of the Victoria Symphony Orchrestra in concert.

Stay tuned.

Happy New Year

Graham
ps I have not forgotten the promise of the transfer method.
Having got the problems of the new image out of my face I can now go back
to a normal life.  What remains will be easy.

Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.

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From: Gary Luedtke <GLuedtke@compuserve.com>
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 16:20:14 -0500
Subject: [Baren 2466] Something new, old, & blue 

Graham,

   I like your Algoma image, very nice.    Captures the feeling.   Kinda
reminds me of the view out my back window now.   It's been snowing and all
the winter colors are muted by the gray sky.   Your first impression is
gray and white, yet looking more closely there are a terrific number of
colors simply muted down.   Someday I hope to do something like that with a
more subtle color range.   I like it, do you have any others in that vein? 

 Looking forward to seeing your "Orchestra" print.

Gary

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From: Jean Eger <jeaneger@LanMinds.Com>
Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1999 13:22:16 -0800
Subject: [Baren 2467] Re: Baren Digest V6 #394 

David Stones: thanks for the attempt to translate the seal. I have righted
the words that were upside down.  Perhaps Baren will someday acquire a
Chinese printmaker who will be able to translate the words.

Fatima, a couple of years ago, I learned about a program at the National
Academy of Art in Hangzhou, China which has a six-week college credit
summer program in printmaking for English speaking students.   Now I forgot
which U.S. University coordinates the program.  In fact, I spent a couple
of hours trying to find it again on the World Wide Web, but with no
success.  I did find a very busy web site which plays music, which is a
university in Hangzhou, but maybe not the right one.   (Almost as good as
Dave Bull speaking in Japanese.)
http://www.ent.ohiou.edu/~guting/zu.html  

Otherwise, you could just express your concerns on this forum and perhaps
one of the professors could give you guidance, if it's all right with Dave
Bull.  It would be a great experience for all of us to follow your
progress, if you could upload your images to a web site!  It would be a
real lesson in long distance learning.  Where are you located?  Are you in
Portugal or Malta?

Thanks for the words of reassurance, Andrea.  I am looking forward to
viewing your upcoming slide show in Berkeley.

Jean Eger

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From: "Ray Esposito" <brassring@brassring.org>
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 17:00:44 -0500
Subject: [Baren 2468] Re: All our endeavors 

>" The guy was your doctor."

Jeanne

This joke is so old, Michelangelo told it to his assistants.

He got it from Graham.

Thanks for sharing it with us.

Cheers

Ray

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From: April Vollmer/John Yamaguchi <jy6@columbia.edu>
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 18:23:06 -0400
Subject: [Baren 2469] little balls of paper 

Jean- so what kind of paper are you using? You might get little balls of
paper fiber if you are accidentally printing the image on the rough back
side of the paper instead of the smooth/sized front side of the paper. I
also find fibers are likley to pull up if the paper gets too wet. You can
help this situation by sliding a sheet of tracing paper or glassine between
the back of the print and the baren when printing. The baren will glide
more smoothly and not pull up fibers, and some moisture will be drawn out
of the paper.

And put it in the refrigerator if you must leave it for a week. Overnight
is okay, but in three days it will start to mold. If it's more than a week,
dry out the whole edition and redampen when you are ready to print.

I'm really working hard on my exchange print...it's a huge job! Does it
ever get easy? Dave? I still have tremendous difficulty printing colors
evenly.  My baren covers keep cracking from the dry heat! And to make my
print perfect, I keep adding colors, now it's five blocks plus an
additional bokashi on block #4. I'm working too hard on it to print only
29, my edition will be bigger so I can have some for myself too!

Am I overdoing this? Is my compulsive side dominating? Should I relax? My
prints are good because I work so hard at them. But they are so labor
intensive I don't know how I can ever make a living with them!

Andrea and Bill have both pointed out the futility of negative comparisons.
So I guess I should just relax AND work hard on my print.

Perservere! I look forward to seeing a great portfolio!

April Vollmer

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From: Becky or Roger Ball <beckorro@inquo.net>
Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1999 17:01:59 -0700
Subject: [Baren 2470] Jean's consistency issue 

Jean,

Consistency!  I am experiencing the exact same problem on my edition.  Some
are vibrant, others subdued.  But what to do at this point?  I'm afraid it
shows that we have a bunch of maturity to pick up in our pigment
delivery/moisture and perhaps rice paste mix.  I intend to strive for the
most uniform edition I can while realizing that at this point, I can't
deliver the exact match on hue or intensity.  To the members of the
exchange, it will be the luck of the draw...

It sure is fun trying for it though!

Later,

- -Roger

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From: amoss@mindspring.com (JOHN AMOSS)
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 19:57:18 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Baren 2471] video queued up 

To everyone waiting for the video-
I just received the elusive but delightful David Bull "Human Theatre" tape.
Thanks to the person who passed it along (names withheld to protect the
innocent) and for David B. for sharing it with us.

The tape is much fun, but somewhat torturous with it's lack of English
subtitles. I laughed, I cried, I scratched my head. Gets 4 barens.

According to the sheet that accompanied it, I think that it needs to travel:

First to: Jean Eger- CA
Next to : Gayle Wohlken- OH
After that to: Ray Hudson- VT
Last to: Ray Esposito- MD (has a copy?)

It's worth the wait, guys!

John- GA

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From: "Ray Esposito" <brassring@brassring.org>
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 22:06:17 -0500
Subject: [Baren 2472] Re: video queued up 

>According to the sheet that accompanied it, I think that it needs to
travel:

I don't know who made this list but it keeps changing.  I am number one or
two on the list then all of a sudden I am last?  But regardless pf who is
playing games, I can be taken off the list thanks to Julio.  And the tape is
everything John says it is.

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From: Graham Scholes <gscholes@islandnet.com>
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 21:24:03 -0800
Subject: [Baren 2473] Re: video queued up 

Ray wrote....
>I don't know who made this list but it keeps changing.  I am number one or
>two on the list then all of a sudden I am last?

He's keeping a list and knows who's been naughty and nice Ray.  ....... !!!

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From: David Bull <davebull@woodblock.com>
Date: Sun, 03 Jan 1999 21:26:54 +0900
Subject: [Baren 2474] Yes, I'm still here ... 

I guess I should 'pop up' for a moment and say 'hello' ...

I'm just back from the 'set-up' at the gallery.  The two girls and I and
friend Sadako, along with my brother in from Germany with his
girlfriend, have spent the day setting up the exhibition.

All 100 prints are up on one wall, and the newest ten are featured on
the opposite wall, along with their little 'stories'.  They look pretty
good!

But it's the section for the new project that is most nifty.  One end of
the long gallery room is closed off by a hanging black curtain to make a
separate 'room'.  This is almost completely dark inside - the only
illumination comes from a 'light box' I built, which casts soft white
light through a long low wide 'shoji' screen, onto a slanted panel on
which are placed a couple of copies of the sample 'surimono' print I
finished the other day.  The embossing shows up wonderfully well, and
the soft light just makes them look so beautiful I can't stand it!

I 'tested' this set-up this afternoon after it was all built - asking a
couple of the gallery people "Excuse me Yoshida-san, could you step over
here for a moment and look in here?"  The response was just what I had
hoped; they go through the curtain and I hear a gasp, followed by
"sugoi!!!" (incredible!).  

We were too busy to take pictures today, but I'll try and do that
tomorrow and get a web page up when I get home.  I'll let you know ...

The media has been excellent - major stories in all the papers here,
quite a lot of them national as well.  Good TV as well, and a couple of
full page stories in weekly magazines scheduled to come out during the
coming week.  I'm doing a radio interview live from the gallery tomorrow
afternoon for NHK, and if that works as well this year as it did last
year, I'll be _guaranteed_ a good attendance.  Unlike last year the
weather looks great ...

I still have absolutely no idea about what to expect in the 'order'
department.  Although the surimono display looks wonderful, I know that
I'm asking a lot by expecting people to give me orders for something
that doesn't yet exist.  The sample print they see there isn't even in
the first set of ten (it's my Baren exchange print!), and I'm _not_
showing them the prospective designs for the prints that will be
included.  It's simply "Trust me!  I'll send you ten beautiful prints. 
Trust me!"

Will there be one order ... or a couple of hundred?  It could go either
way.  An incredibly beautiful print ... but an incredibly bad economic
climate.  Which will win out?

I'm sure all your fingers are crossed ... 

Dave

P.S.  Sorry to ignore all the interesting stuff on [Baren] recently. 
I'm letting them stack up in the Inbox, and will toss in my
comments/replies later.  Just one note for now, re the video that is out
there somewhere.  That was an NHK show from last year, and is not the
'Documentary: Human Theatre' program.  That one (the one-hour
documentary) will finish filming at the party on the 9th, and will then
be broadcast here on the 20th.  Once it has been shown on air, the
producer will send me a couple of copies, and I'll of course be free to
send one out to circle around [Baren].  But seeing that the previous
tape is not actually 'circling' very well, I'm not sure how to handle it
this time.  Any suggestions?  Anybody have access to inexpensive dubbing
facilities to run off a bunch of copies?

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End of Baren Digest V6 #395
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