Baren Digest              Saturday, 9 August 2003      Volume 24 : Number 2335


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From: G Wohlken <blueman@pantek.com>
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2003 09:41:15 -0400
Subject: [Baren 22505] Political messages 

John, political messages are deleted,  period.  It doesn't matter if it 
is conservative or liberal.  No political discussion on Baren, though 
you certainly may do so in your prints. Political messages on the forum 
will not go into the archives for online reading.  Ordinarily I would 
write this to John, privately, but I would like everyone to review our
posting guidelines, particularly #4 at 
http://barenforum.org/guidelines.html    Gayle of Ohio
 as Archivist

ps  I appreciate all your printmaking advice, John  


>political posts are deleted if conservative       so this one should be 
>deleted as well
>
>this link is offensive
>
>john center
>


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From: Myron Turner <mturner@Ms.UManitoba.CA>
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2003 08:58:27 -0500
Subject: [Baren 22506] Re: Political messages 

Gayle,

I just looked at #4 of the posting guidelines and wonder whether it would 
be possible to make the point more forcefully.  The current guideline 
places the posting of political content in a dependent position, ie. we are 
to refrain from politics out of sensitivity to the nationalities of other 
members:

      Keep in mind that [Baren] is an international group, and therefore
      postings which have political overtones, denigrate another country, or
      are boastful of your own country should be avoided.

It is true that #1 states that postings should be "restricted" to 
"woodblock/woodcut printmaking", though there is a bit of leeway for "other 
topics".    But perhaps, #1 should state that "other topics" should be 
confined to printmaking and #4 should state, without qualification, that 
under no circumstances should postings that espouse political or religious 
viewpoints permitted.

Myron



At 08:41 AM 08/08/2003, you wrote:

>John, political messages are deleted,  period.  It doesn't matter if it is 
>conservative or liberal.  No political discussion on Baren, though you 
>certainly may do so in your prints. Political messages on the forum will 
>not go into the archives for online reading.  Ordinarily I would write 
>this to John, privately, but I would like everyone to review our
>posting guidelines, particularly #4 at 
>http://barenforum.org/guidelines.html
>
>Gayle of Ohio
>as Archivist
>
>ps  I appreciate all your printmaking advice, John
>

>>political posts are deleted if conservative       so this one should be 
>>deleted as well
>>
>>this link is offensive
>>
>>john center



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From: Bette Wappner <bettewappner@earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2003 10:31:34 -0400
Subject: [Baren 22507] Attn:  Colleen Corradi 

Would Colleen Corradi please contact me ASAP please concerning the 'deck of
cards exchange'.   

Thank you.
Bette Wappner
bettewappner@earthlink.net 


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From: Charles Morgan <cmorgan@uvic.ca>
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2003 07:41:52 -0700
Subject: [Baren 22508] political postings 

I agree fully with the policy against political postings. You will recall 
that not long ago I urged restraint on the part of the membership to avoid 
such postings.

I recently referred the membership to a website. I made no comment, 
positive or negative concerning the political content of that website. My 
reasons for posting the website, as I stated previously were:

1) It is a story about censorship of art, which is clearly of concern to 
all of us.

2) It concerns playing cards, and Baren is involved in a playing card 
exchange at the moment.

3) It concerns Ebay policy with respect to the sale of art works, which is 
surely of interest and has been previously discussed on this list.

4) In concerns lino block prints, which are included under the Baren mandate.

It was NOT my intention to inflame political opinions. I urge everyone to 
avoid making political commentary on this list, as I deem it to be 
inappropriate. As artists, we need to be able to abstract from and rise 
above the political content of the work. I believe discussions concerning 
the 4 points I have listed above to be entirely appropriate for this list. 
(The list moderator may correct me if I am in error.) If you have comments 
to make on these 4 points, I think the group could benefit. If you have 
political or personal comments, please email me OFF-LIST, and I will be 
glad to engage in a dialogue.

Respectfully ......... Charles

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From: Mike Lyon <mikelyon@mlyon.com>
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2003 11:23:18 -0500
Subject: [Baren 22509] Re: political postings 

At 07:41 AM 8/8/2003 -0700, Charles Morgan wrote:

>I agree fully with the policy against political postings. You will recall 
>that not long ago I urged restraint on the part of the membership to avoid 
>such postings.


Personally, I enjoyed the woodcuts displayed at the link Charles sent -- 
very humorous and interesting, especially all the hubbub which surrounded 
the attempted sale of those innocuous images of politicians on playing 
cards.  I think your post was entirely appropriate to BarenForum even 
though your intent may (or may not) have been provocative, and even though 
the woodcut images (definitely) portrayed politicians.  Our strategy is to 
stick more or less to the woodcut topic, so let's do that...  Now, on with 
the show!

- -- Mike


Mike Lyon
mailto:mikelyon@mlyon.com
http://www.mlyon.com  

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From: =?iso-8859-1?q?dimitris=20grammatikopulos?= <aenaonartst@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 17:46:34 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [Baren 22510] Re: Political messages 

Dear Baren,
regarding the results of the summit in South Africa, in which Bush, more
or less, disagreed with the ecological policy of all the countries in the
world. If i make a statement through my work on this, then ecology is also
policy?
Is this a woodCUTTING organisation, a woodBLOCK_PRINTMAKING organisation
or a forum for artists who express themselves through relief printmaking?
Perhaps, you enjoy a game of words... Or perhaps you perceive the meaning
of the word 'policy' otherwise... Goya was making political art, so was
Kolwitz and the german expressionists. Where would modern art be without
those people?
What do you stand for?
Where do you live? on this planet or another?
What is it being an artist if you muffle your own voice with
'regulations'?

I envy those who live in a paradise without problems, war, injustice,
refugees, opression by the powers,...
But not for long. The way or reaction (the hard one) leaves you something
to talk about when you grow old or everytime you see yourself in the
mirror or when your children ask you about your achievements in life.

MY VERY BEST to all,
Dimitris


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From: "Brad Teare" <tearebl@ldschurch.org>
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2003 10:59:19 -0600
Subject: [Baren 22511] cherry vs basswood charset=us-ascii 

Any opinions on the merits of basswood over cherry?


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From: "Gillyin Gatto" <gillying@Maineline.net>
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2003 13:52:00 -0400
Subject: [Baren 22512] website linocuts  

hi folks  

Charles/ Jon
  -i found the  AXIS OF WEASELS playing cards  interesting
 especially as i'm presently designing my four of spades
 for  our " deck of cards exchange"
interesting to see how he did all the faces

the only thing i would find offensive
 is that it is insulting to weasels !
weasels possess an incredible amount of energy  and ingenuity ,
weasel fur is worn by royalty-usually the Ermine or white phase

perhaps it is their propensity for stealth
 that the artist is reffering to ?

weasels are not evil
but they are fearless


the proper usage for those who seemingly have  weasel energy
 would be to use their power for the GOOD of all

i don't see this happening in our world enough
but i think its great that the artist used lino prints
to convey his message

Gillyin in Down East Maine-foggy for thirty days and counting..........

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From: ArtfulCarol@aol.com
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 14:14:13 EDT
Subject: [Baren 22513] More About Influences 

This is about how I got to be a single-minded woodblock printer:

For decades I was involved in watermedia--experiments in watercolor, 
monotypes and other print methods. I was doing things to find out what would happen 
if...

After getting through a medical treatment more than 5 years ago, I had an 
additional impetus to my already "go for it" art attitude. So, although I had no 
inclination or interest in learning a labor intensive technique,  when I 
received a schedule of classes describing April Vollmer's woodblock printing 
workshop I had second thoughts.
I was hooked.

Just before that I had been composing geometric abstracts and I found KUPKA.  
April recognized my Kupka similarities.   In her class I was printing by 
rotating and layering  (part  of  my  credo "Less work for Mother). April 
suggested that I compose in a square and have been doing that ever since. OK- I am a 
square printer.
Example:
www.rst-art.com/carol03w.htm

The woodblcok printers that have a special place for me are
Josef Albers--
 We saw one of his prints at the Spencer Museum study room and there was a 
show of his woodblocks at Hirschl Adler Gallery, NYC this year.
 Toshi Yoshida
- --I experienced responses from heavy breathing to LOL for his Dragon B and 
Arab in Baghdad.    Floating world.com   pages 11 and 12.
Escher--
Using his one of his  techniques I am now  composing "Escheraria" variants.

What has influenced me also is what I have been told. Among other advice:
"You can't do that"
"Follow your gut feeling'
"Your work is too advanced for Connectucut"

Carolistically
Carol



 
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From: Julio.Rodriguez@walgreens.com
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 13:36:24 -0500
Subject: [Baren 22514] Re: political postings 2 08/08/2003 13:37:03, Serialize complete at 08/08/2003 13:37:03 


I'll second Mike Lyon's post re this topic. 

In the past, when the contents of a post has information that is not 
particularly woodblock printmaking in nature, people posting usually 
indicate via a subject "warning" to the list  that their post is off-subject 
or that it may contain a subject some may find inappropriate or sensitive....that 
way those not interested have the option to use the 'delete' key. 
I think this a pretty simple request that we can all live with and which 
may help us all get along....and also making the people-behind-the-scene 
job less difficult. We are all too busy back here to be mediating the 
list.

When members continue to send messages that are not primarily 
"printmaking" or barenforum-related in nature, it is discouraging to the 
general list, specially new members looking to fit in. If the problems 
persists, members unsubscribe and it  also encourages members to simply 
skip/filter/trash/bypass posts coming from that person via their mail 
program....sometimes missing out on what valuable information maybe 
included.

Please.......PUT IT in your prints !!!!! 

thanks....Julio Rodriguez (Skokie, Illinois)

------------------------------

From: Aqua4tis@aol.com
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 15:09:36 EDT
Subject: [Baren 22515] Re: More About Influences 



> www.rst-art.com/carol03w.htm
> 


i couldnt open this carol
georga


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From: michael schneider <mikasch@t0.or.at>
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2003 21:19:15 +0200
Subject: [Baren 22516] prints and politics 

Dear Bareners,

I fully agree that baren as an international forum and group of people 
has to be careful when political topics are brought up.
Our main concern should not be the question whether to allow political 
discussions or not, but to acknowledge that this forum expects and 
deserves a decent discussion without nationalism, racism and offensive 
language.
Printmaking, ( I might repeat myself) has always been a medium for 
artists with outspoken political intentions. Woodblock printing is a 
mass medium and has been used for ideological, religious and political 
groups and movements as means to communicate to as many people as possible.
To entirely deny the socio-political aspect of printmaking and not to 
allow to discuss printed artwork that is showing political content, 
would reduce baren to a group craftsmen without connection to the world 
and the topics that are of importance to contemporary art.

The link provided by Charles gave us the opportunity to see a fine 
example of block printing that has hit a nerve. It is showing a good 
portion of humor, awareness and a feeling for the right medium to 
realize the idea.

The fact that ebay unlisted the prints is creating unease. It would be 
an interesting experiment, to list the same prints with ebay in other 
countries and see ebays and the ebay users reaction.
In my opinion, the story of ebay and the satirical prints shows, that 
free speech and tolerance has greatly suffered in the US. (For all of 
you who think that I as an Austrian should not make such statements, ask 
yourself, what your reaction would be if an Austrian company like ebay, 
for example onetwosold.com show the same reaction to a critical 
satirical piece of art that an American artist has listed.)

I did not want to be involved into the discussion until now, because I 
came to the conclusion that this topic was not handled the way I expect 
an international community of artists would, but if the reaction to the 
discussion would be to ban politics from being discussed in connection 
with printmaking, I have speak out.

michael

BTW: Ukioe was controlled and censored permanent. Not only the designs 
had to be accepted by the authorities, every print was controlled to 
make sure that it does not show any alternations to the originally 
approved design. Even though artists managed to include hints and 
objects that indicated their political convictions and offered some 
critical thoughts to their audience.



------------------------------

From: Julio.Rodriguez@walgreens.com
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 14:23:34 -0500
Subject: [Baren 22517] Re: Political messages...reply to Dimitris 


Dear Dimitris....

I found your last post pretty witty and amusing and full of 
pasion for your beliefs. I aplaud your candor.

Your use of the words  woodCUTTING and woodBLOCK were obviously
in reference to baren censorship. You statement  "or a forum for
artists who express themselves through relief printmaking?" hits
target with my previous post...we should all be expressing
ourselves thru our relief printmaking....make art and make a
point...yes....leave your discussion on political views off of
barenrorum...save it for the block or the canvas....

Your other statement...."Goya was making political art, so was
Kolwitz and the german expressionists. Where would modern art be
without those people?"

Again...key word is "was making political art"....had they been
talking political art, had they been openly protesting in the
streets, had they been openly writing about their views... they
probably would have perished along with many others and the world
would have never received their full gift.

You write: "What is it being an artist if you muffle your own
voice with 'regulations'?

I think you are confused, baren regulations do not "muffle" your
art, only the content of your email postings. We are a woFeel
free to follow your create art in any way you feel appropriate..

regards...Julio Rodriguez 


>regarding the results of the summit in South Africa, in which Bush, more
>or less, disagreed with the ecological policy of all the countries in the
>world. If i make a statement through my work on this, then ecology is also
>policy?
>Is this a woodCUTTING organisation, a woodBLOCK_PRINTMAKING organisation
>or a forum for artists who express themselves through relief printmaking?
>Perhaps, you enjoy a game of words... Or perhaps you perceive the meaning
>of the word 'policy' otherwise... Goya was making political art, so was
>Kolwitz and the german expressionists. Where would modern art be without
>those people?
>What do you stand for?
>Where do you live? on this planet or another?
>What is it being an artist if you muffle your own voice with
>'regulations'?
>


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From: ArtfulCarol@aol.com
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 16:09:52 EDT
Subject: [Baren 22518] Correction 

In a message dated 8/8/2003 2:14:49 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
ArtfulCarol@aol.com writes:

>  OK- I am a 
> square printer.

Sorry   Corrected address:
www.rst-art.com/carolw03.htm

------------------------------

From: Mike Lyon <mikelyon@mlyon.com>
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2003 15:15:39 -0500
Subject: [Baren 22519] Re: cherry vs basswood 

At 10:59 AM 8/8/2003 -0600, you wrote:

>Any opinions on the merits of basswood over cherry?


Or vice versa...  Basswood and cherry are both classed as hardwoods (as 
opposed to fir or pine which are classed as softwoods).  Basswood is much 
softer, lighter weight and much easier to carve than cherry.  Cherry is 
about half-way between basswood and oak as far as open fiber-bundles in the 
grain go -- so the grain of cherry usually prints in a more pronounced and 
'clearer' way than basswood.   Basswood's usually less expensive.  Cherry 
can potentially hold a much finer carved line than basswood, and will also 
stand up to more printings (although for most of us that won't be an 
issue).  For water-based inks, basswood is more absorbent than cherry and, 
under pressure, that water squeezes out more from basswood than cherry 
which can be undesirable.
- -- Mike

Mike Lyon
mailto:mikelyon@mlyon.com
http://www.mlyon.com  

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From: FurryPressII@aol.com
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 17:34:34 EDT
Subject: [Baren 22520] Re: cherry vs basswood 


The only basswood I have ever used is in the form of plywood and the more I 
use plywood the less I like it way to many hidden suppresses it seems that knot 
holes under a certain size they don't fill in so you can have hallow spaces 
under the veneer.  This can be a pain to correct in the middle of a detailed 
part of the image.    I will only use plywood for text messages were it would be 
easy to correct   if the hollow space were to be under a letter or word than 
all you would have to do is fill it with wood putty and glue another piece of 
veneer over it and carve the letter or word over but in a detailed image you 
would always see the white line were the old veneer met the new veneer,

I like to carve cherry plank wood a clear even grained piece of cherry can 
give you almost as much detail as maple.  Maple can give you more detail and it 
does not splinter as much as almost any other wood.  For a fine thin isolated 
line maple works better than anything except for endgrained boxwood but that 
is a horse of a different color.

What is funny to one person might not be funny to another.  I think we should 
keep all politics off list even politics the poster may agree with.  As we 
are about to enter into an election year here in America it will only get worse. 
 The original reference to weasels came from a now infamous New York Post 
cover I bet many in here would not find that to be funny either.  Please keep it 
to printmaking.

John Center



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End of Baren Digest V24 #2335
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