Hello & pardon my silence! I’ve been at the Tamarind Institute since the end of August (probably since I last wrote) and my mind has been occupied with lithography and sleep (and occasionally New Mexican food) 24/7. Here’s a selection of photos from the T:

I think this might have been the 5th or 6th project. Water tusche washes on stone. Up until this point, I was scrambling so much I didn’t even think about taking photos.

The student side of the shop.

Printer Training Program ’09-’10, minus Preston. From l to r- Jen, Peter, Me, Jon.

Balloon Fiesta! We pretty much saw the ascention (when all of the balloons take off) from the highway en route to the park, but still good.

Visiting artist Kaye Green & I, rock hoppin’ in the Sandia mountains

Printer Training Program in a tree! Me, Peter, Preston, Jon, Jen

Sponging for Bill on the pro side. The image on the stone is one of Kaye Green’s.

Bill! And an essential part of Tamarind culture – the NYT daily crossword.

Mixing colors for our second collaboration.

Peter, getting ready to print run 2 of my image for our second collaboration.

Large blended flats (three words that should make you pee your pants with fright!)

Newsprint from my first blended flat.

From our trip to Takach. Here, they’re ball-graining aluminum plates!

Now, here’s some art that I’ve made:

My image for our first collaboration. Printed by Preston.

My image for our second collaboration (totally inspired by Tron). Printed by Peter.

I know that was kind of a quick and dirty way of catching everyone up to what I’ve been doing, so I apologize. Email me if you want all the juicy details. Love all y’all! I’ll actually post more stuff from now on, hold me to it!

Here we are.

I look at this sometimes and I love it. I love the brightness, the energy, the complete chaos of the whole thing. And then other times, I just loathe it. It’s so self-indulgent and over-the-top. This is where you can see how indecisive I am. I often feel like I’m having an arguement with myself. Yes. No. Yes. No. Ad infinitum. Honestly, it holds up the creative process and makes me so frustrated I can’t even look at the work.

It’s only been a couple of days, but I think I’m going to leave it the way it is. I think it’s done. The tabs are still taped to the print, so if I change my mind, I can continue working on it. I don’t think it’ll come to that, however. I was originally going to tone down some of the color with some transparent white & grey, probably on the bottom of the print. After some experimenting, I scratched the idea. What I enjoy about this piece is that it’s so explosive and maybe toning it down would defeat the purpose?

Enough rambling, I need to let this go for now.

Here’s a little look into the “planning” stages of a print:

Draw downs on top of a test print. Choosing colors, mixing colors, trying to find the right ones. Sometimes it’s very obvious what I want in a print…other times, not so much. Sometimes I really need to push myself away from colors that I use too frequently (read, TEAL) other times, I don’t. Can’t explain it, don’t know if I fully understand it, I just let my intuition work its magic.

One of many type collage films that I’ve printed out for this group of prints. I can’t say that I’m excited to make these collages on the computer (would be much more entertaining to do with actual letter cut-outs), but I don’t hate it either. Something to do while watching a movie or TV. After I’ve burned all these images to screens, I think I might cut them all up and make ridiculously abstracted new collage films. Avoiding the computer, maybe, but I sure do love cutting and taping.

I don’t do much planning apart from that. After I have a good stack of films made, I’ll usually sit down and play with composition. There might be a couple films that I’ll pair up because they fit together in just that way. Or I’ll lay films on top of works in progress, trying to find the right shapes to add to what I’ve already printed. I’m trying to approach these more like paintings, where I step back and evaluate the piece many times in the process. If it needs a certain shape or color, I can create a new film or pull from what I already have to address that need.

Something that has been helpful this time around are the screens that I’ve burned for the monoprints of random shapes. Plenty of little geometrics, swooshes and the like of all sizes, for little bits of color. Instead of using films for these shapes, I just cut them out of scrap pieces of paper. Good way to use those old prints that I never really liked!

This is where the prints are after today:

Added the teal (see, can’t stay away) type today, making this print a total of six layers so far. After much thinking, I concluded that it needs more fill layers to knock back the text (too strong right now), and since I don’t have any big shapes lying around, it’s on the back burner.

Seven colors & counting. I really got into this one today, after weeks of not knowing what to do with it. I’m afraid I let my impulses get the best of me though, because that top right corner looks like a carnival exploded all over it. A classic case of getting carried away with bright colors. What can I say, I can’t help it. Definitely needs some muted colors. I would also like to mention that I triple hit the yellow ‘f’ because I put too much base I into the yellow. Not a total loss though, that ‘f’ is now velvety smooth, yay. …Apparently, I was so excited by the color orgy that I neglected to take a picture of the whole thing. So just pretend the picture below has an orange rectangle in the top right and you’ll get the idea.

Five layers so far. Eh. I really enjoyed this print after I printed the white text layer and even after I printed the purple text layer, but I’m just not feeling it right now (and no, it is not because of the muted colors). This one might also need some large fill shapes, might be too busy with all of the letterform pieces floating about.

Going to start print four tomorrow. Fingers crossed for the best results!

Guess what guys? This morning, I sprung out of bed at 9am, without the aid of an alarm and got to work early. I’ve printed two layers already and I’m very satisfied.

I’m really happy with this. I thought I screwed myself over by making this raindrop shape the first layer. I couldn’t think of anything to put on it for weeks. But the large type collage works perfectly. Knocks out the grey. Thinking the next color will be a plummy purple.

Completely in love with the overlap of this blue and red. I mean, look at the purple-red it produces! So droolworthy. Haven’t encorporated the type into this print yet, or the blue one for that matter, but I’ve got six other type collages burned to screens already. I have a feeling these prints are going to take a lot of layers to get just right… the type layers can’t look slapped on… the need to be encorporated into the prints, which means lots of transparency and lots and lots of layers.

Also, tested out the little exposure unit last night. Works like a charm, roughly three minute exposure with the emulsion I’m using (Ulano TZ). I need to get something to weigh down the screen while exposing. I don’t have anything that’ll fit into these wee 20×24″ screens. Very tempted to make a cover for this unit and put it on a base…you know, make it into a side table. The geeky printmaker’s perfect sidetable. Great for setting your drinks on and hey, if you need to burn a screen, take the top off and your exposure unit is right there. Completely silly.

Anyway…back to work!

Afraid to say that I haven’t accomplished very much since my last post. The easiest explaination for this is to say that I’m overwhelmed with all of the things I need to do before I leave for Albuquerque. It’s funny how that works, the more stressed I feel, the less work I’m able to accomplish. Who would have thought. Anyway, here’s what I’ve done so far –

These are the only new additions to the monoprints. I’m not feeling it right now. Something’s just not right about these. Maybe the process is just too much for something that’s supposed to be more organic than the editioned prints that I’ve been doing? Can’t say just yet. I’m going to keep at it, of course, but with lowered expectations. My idea is to try and finish one monoprint a day until my show in October. That way, I’ll have more than enough options for the show. Guaranteed at least a handful of good ones! Fingers crossed for improved diligence!

I just bought this exposure unit today from a nice man in Catoosa. It’s an Atlas brand (something that was made by a company for the purpose that I want to use it for!), and it is a wee little thing, measuring in at 24x28x6″ !!! It works, has a timer and fits very nicely in the trunk of my car, meaning it could go with me on my journey to Albuquerque. We’ll have to see about that one, space is limited in my car and the unit has a glass top that isn’t attached. Risky, but potentially very worthwhile. Will be testing this later today to get a good exposure time.

Recently, I’ve been watching Venture Bros. Season Two while working in the studio, which is hilarious with the commentary on. Above is an illustration by Bill Sienkiewicz for the season two dvd package. Brilliant! Speaking of, I’ve also been browsing a lot of illustrator blogs, which makes me sad because I don’t posess the talent? drive? intutition? to make that kind of artwork. I wish I could enjoy drawing more, but my lack of patience is so hindering. Bleh. Don’t worry, I’ll get out of this funk. Back to exposing screens!

Multi-layered screenprint action:

Similar to Longitude. I’ll be adding some (subtle and not so subtle) text layers in coming days. I’ve decided that’s it’s much better to work on a bunch of prints at the same time than just focusing on one at a time. This way I can’t mull over the same print for weeks on end. If I get bored or stuck with one, I can play with another one. Hopefully it won’t all turn into an organizational nightmare. I remain optimistic about it.

In-progress monoprints I am working on:

Today I started the first part of this monoprint series. I had already planned on making some monoprints for a show in October (to break from the cycle of constantly burning and reclaiming screens and inject something more tactile into my practice) and I knew I wanted to incorporate type / the idea of language, but apart from that, I had no clue what these prints were going to look like. The majority of the summer, thus far, has been spent brainstorming and sketching. I finally had the “A-HA!” moment on Saturday, as I was walking through my house. I found some old, yellowing paper from a brief childhood stint at Chinese calligraphy and it so perfectly fits into the theme of this show (tentative title, “Lost in Translation” relating to the difficulties that I’ve had in communicating to my family, no intentional relation to the movie of the same name) that all the pieces quickly came together.

So long story short, I am now making my own alphabet / set of characters from structural shapes. In the future, I’d like to combine specific parts from the Roman alphabet and Chinese characters, but for now the shapes are mainly organic swooshes and geometrics that I freehanded. After this first chunk of printing, I’m really satisfied. I’m definitely going to add more layers (probably too many) and there’s always the possibility of hand drawing or painting shapes. Whatever strikes my fancy.

Here are some notes:
– More spray adhesive / more burnishing to adhere the calligraphy paper to the printing paper. No access to a press = being more attentive to this chine collé business. There are corners lifting and little bubbles scattered throughout, but I’m hoping it won’t completely peel off in the future.
– All of these shapes were made by drawing on the exposed screen with watercolor crayons (water soluable) and printing over it with clear base.
– Color choice definitely needs work. It’s difficult because with the watercolor crayons I’m using, I’m limited to 12 colors. Blending doesn’t work spectacularly and ends up looking more striped than anything else. I chose to use the watercolor crayons because it would be an immediate and tactile way to add texture to these shapes, so I’m in no way looking for them to be completely smooth. But I am also not looking for them to be striped. With more time and experimentation, I’m sure I’ll find the right balance.
– Instead of clear base, print with very transparent colors/tints. Add pigment to the base?

There’s not a whole lot to nitpick about at this point. Tomorrow there will be more!

This is the newly improved exposure unit.

The entire thing was built by Andrew, as I simply do not have the know-how to build such a thing. But man, am I thankful.

In my two month absence, I have…

- finished two more prints in the series that I last posted about
- packed and moved myself and all of my junk from Baltimore to Tulsa
- fixed up the studio to be more usable, which includes buying a paper cutter and teeny tiny drying rack
- printed what seems like a million cards
- came up with good idea re: collage exchange with Tristan (more on this later)
- went to Albuquerque with Jason and found myself an apartment for next year; also visited Tamarind, which is akin to my holy land
- attempted to help Andrew while he assembles the vacuum portion of my exposure unit (still working on it)

Many things to show you!

Print number two in this yet unnamed series is finished. The print is titled “Black Sheep” which is either too corny and obvious or completely random. What do you think?

The finishing of this print didn’t come with the same fanfare as the last one and I am still skeptical about all of these elements coming together. I’m just not convinced it works yet. Not sure that the white scribble actually belongs in this print at all and the text/scans feel too minimal to be purposeful/intentional. At the same time, I like that it’s more airy than the last print (which makes more sense, really because “Great Wall” is so much more…heavy than this one). 

Probably could have used a little more time in deciding the colors for the last few layers. Or at least I could have saved myself some time and combined some of them. I mean, two layers of the same brown that barely overlap? Two layers of black that don’t touch at all and could have been printed at the same time? And the random purple almost invisible layer that I printed four times on top of itself? I can do much better than this. 

Blerg. I just need to give it more time, right?

Part of today’s work. I actually finished the CMYK, but neglected to take a photo before I dashed out of the shop to refuel with coffee and snacks from the new kabob place. After laying down the yellow layer and still having that shape look completely strange, I had a temporary moment of panic. Had to keep telling myself that the image was originally from a pack of Polaroid film that I’d left in my car for months and that it was unnatural in color to begin with. Printed the black and everything looked alright again. At least a lot more like the mock up. Which by the way, looks like this–

This mock up was in no way complete before I started printing today and I’ve since made some changes. For instance, the whole image is shifted more towards the top left corner. I was originally going to encorporate a landscape element to this print (similiar to the lithographs I did last year), but in the interest of time, I came up with something else that actually makes more sense. I spent the better part of my evening working on these last remaining layers. They will include –

- chine-collé graph paper (I think I am slowly giving up on this remaining completely archival. I think I crossed the boundary when I used the scraps from that old dictionary…)
- portions from an old math textbook
- scribbling! preferrably from a soft lead pencil, enlarged a bit so you can see the anomalies from paper grain
- portions from notes I’ve taken while at MICA. perhaps litho notes, specifically. I still can’t decide whether or not it’s too cheesy…

Could potentially be another twelve color job. I’m becoming very indecisive about the colors. I keep wanting everything to be gray or a variation of gray, but I know I’m just defaulting to the first thing that comes to mind. Which happens to be gray. And boring. Might go with a pastel. Purple to match the lines of my graph paper or pink to match the colors in the old math textbook. Hmm. I just can’t picture it right now. 

I’ve got to get an early start tomorrow, but before I head to sleep, I figured I’d post a couple of things I’ve been reading…

For those unfamilar with my astoundingly routine music related habits, I’ve been reading some recent and old Spoon interviews. This always happens to some degree after seeing some good live music (just went to a Spoon show on Sunday). Music is so powerful I always have to wonder about it’s composed, how all of it’s individual parts get put together in just that perfect way. To be frank, it’s awe inspiring. So, I get very preoccupied with reading about the creative process from a musical standpoint, because it seems so foreign to me. I get even more preoccupied with reading about Spoon (mostly songwriter Britt Daniel) because of the attention to detail, their ability to remain within a certain sound but not be limited by that sound, etc. etc. So many things! Going to stop rambling now and just post those links–

Austin Chronicle article, “Drake Tungsten and His Boy Skellington” circa ’98 or ’99 – very interesting to read comments from the band when they were going through the toughest part of their career. 

Interview with Jim Eno from threemonkeysonline.com – in all these years of article reading, I think this is first I’ve read with Jim Eno as the subject.

Houston Chronicle article about Britt Daniel & the Bee Gees – correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like talking about influences in music is easier than art. or at least more entertaining?

I have more, but in case anyone actually reads this, I’m going to try and seem less crazy.

Ok, sleep.