Issue 34, November 2021
$10
Taro Takizawa, Cotton Candy Mochi, Relief
Collograph, 16” x 13”, instagram.com/tarotakizawart
Taro Takizawa, Infinite Grid, Relief
Collograph, 16” x 13”, instagram.com/tarotakizawart
Calvin Grier
54-55 Glossary
*Cover Photo:
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Minna Resnick
12-17
28-33
issue
CONTENTS
Minna Resnick
Journey 1
57 Call for Entry Lithograph, punched
22” x 17”
minnaresnick.com
Editors’ Notes Dear reader, Welcome back to The Hand Magazine! It’s been a busy summer judging by all the fantastic work you submitted. We are always thrilled with the amount and quality of the work we recieve, and this issue was no different. It seems like artists going back to their studios and teachers and students returning to classrooms has created a new energy and productivity that is exciting to see. Thanks to everyone who submitted and contributed to this issue. We are excited to bring you two outstanding featured interviews in this issue. The first interview is with a doyen of the printmaking world. Minna Resnick has been making work prints since the 1970s that are engaging and beautifully executed. It is a rare artist who can find a voice that stays both fresh and consistent over such a long period of time. Minna’s body of work is as deep as it is wide. She has seen and done so much in her career. It is truly an honor to speak with someone who is so incredibly knowledgeable, generous, and talented. Minna talks
Taro Takizawa, Sleeper’s Dream, Relief
Collograph, 16” x 13”
Adam Finkelston
Owner, Publisher, Co-editor adamfinkelstonphotography.com
to us about her first exhibition, what inspires her work, collaborating across oceans, and maintaining her creative drive. It’s a wonderful conversation with a wonderful person and artist. Our second interview is with the owner and master printmaker at The Wet Print in Valencia, Spain. We don’t really do a lot of technically oriented features. This is not a how-to kind of feature, exactly. But Calvin’s technical wizardry is truly inspiring and creative all on its own. His ideas are clever and innovative. In our interview, Calvin describes his amazing carbon transfer process using natural pigments as well as his unique way of coating papers for gum bichromate printing. We also talk about his overall approach to printing, his wide variety of interests and influences, and his thoughts on how creativity and technical mastery work together in the artistic process. Along with these two great interviews, we have around 200 images by over 90 artists from all over the world. We hope you enjoy this issue!
Taro Takizawa, When Gravity Is Born, Relief
Collograph, 16” x 13”
James Meara
Co-editor, Lead Designer jamesemeara.com
The Hand: A Magazine for Reproduction- Based Art, (ISSN 2476-1427) is published quarterly in February, May, August, & November by The Hand Magazine LLC, 3950 W. 87th St., Prairie Village, KS, 66207. Application to mail at periodicals pricing is pending at Prairie Village, KS. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Hand: A Magazine for Reproduction- Based Art, 3950 W. 87th Street, Prairie Village, KS. Copyright 2021, The Hand Magazine LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the copyright owner. The copyright for each image / article is held by the credited author. All other materials are the exclusive copyright of The Hand Magazine LLC Statement of Ownership, management, and circulation required by 39 U.S.C. 3685. Title: The Hand Magazine LLC. Publication Number: 21320. Filing date: 12-10-18. Issue Frequency: Quarterly. Number of issue published annually: 4. Annual subscription price: $35 (USA), $45 (Canada and Mexico), $50 (Outside North America). Location of office of publication: 2812 W. 91st St., Leawood, KS, 66206. Location of business office of the publisher, editor, and managing editor: 2812 W. 91st St., Leawood, KS, 66206. Owner: Adam Finkelston. Known bondholders, mortgages, and other security holders: None. Extent and nature of circulation (first number gives average number of copies of each issue during the preceding 12 months; second number gives actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date). Total number of copies: (525;550), Paid and/or requested circulation: Outside-county (434;420), In-county (19;20), Sales through dealers, carriers, street vendors, counter sales, and other paid distribution outside USPS: (0;0), Other: (0;0), Free distribution outside the mail: (0;0), Total free or nominal rate distribution: (0;0), total distribution: (525;520), Copies not distributed: (0;30), Total: (525;550), Percent paid: (100%;100%). Electronic-copy circulation: Paid electronic copies: (0;0), I certify that 50% of all my distributed copies (electronic and print) are paid above a nominal price. I certify that the statements made by me are true and complete. Adam Finkelston, Owner, publisher, and editor, 9-28-21
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List of Artists Debra Achen – p. 24 Johnny Adimando – p. 18 Dora Agbas – p. 51 Sepideh Badakhshanian – p. 39 Francis Baker – p. 44 Michelle Bardino Vela – p. 40 Thayer Bray – p. 44 Sebastien Brias – p. 39 Mary Sherwood Brock – p. 48 Art Brown – p. 46 Linda Bryan – p. 22 Jamie Buzil – p. 47 Jesse Campbell – p. 36 Frédéric Carrayol – pp. 3 & 37 Sally Chapman – p. 25 Alina Chirila – p. 49 Carla Christian – p. 39 Seth Adam Cook – p. 46 Bob Cornelis – p. 10 Julie Cowan – p. 45 Margaret Craig – p. 40 Sandi Daniel – p. 23 Buffy Davis – p. 22 Nadine Defranoux – p. 44 Thomas Dold – p. 33 Barbara Eberhard – p. 47 Mitch Eckert – p. 5 Chris Estrada – p. 51 Grace Farish – p. 38 Beth Fein – p. 26
Magdéleine Ferru – p. 23 Janet Fine – p. 53 Karen Fiorito – p. 51 Laszlo Galos – p. 46 Justin Gibson – p. 47 Calvin Grier – pp. 28 through 33 Frank Hamrick – p. 39 & Back Cover Kristy Headley – p. 51 Kathryn Hood – p. 48 Renata Janiszewska – p. 27 Allan Jenkins – p. 32 Jill Jensen – p. 54 Angela Johnson – p. 49 Nikolai Kalinin – p. 42 Juliet Karelsen – p. 47 Marky Kauffmann – p. 27 Dorothy Kloss – p. 22 & 36 Nathanael Kooperkamp – p. 24 Hyejeong Kwon – p. 21 Jun Lee – p. 6 Therese Livonne – p. 53 Ulisses Lociks – p. 9 Travis Lovell – p. 35 Kayleigh MacDonald – p. 8 Jessica Meyer – p. 7 Julie Milton – p. 50 Farah Mohammad – p. 24 Sara Morton – p. 2 Bill Myers (Lynk Collective) – p. 41 Angel O’Brien – p. 7 Marcus Newton – p. 50
Hattie Phillips – p. 24 Raul Pineda – p. 34 Bryan Raymundo – p. 42 Kathryn Reichert – p. 49 Minna Resnick – Cover and pp. 12 through 17 Jacoub Reyes – p. 50 Mary Robinson – p. 20 Georges Salameh – p. 38 Blake Sanders – p. 41 Jennifer Scheuer – p. 41 Devon Stackonis – p. 4 Robbie Steinbach – p. 40 Michael Strickland – p. 29 Vicky Stromee – p. 19 Krzysztof Strzoda – p. 36 Gerardo Stübing – p. 8 Emily Swierzbin – p. 11 Taro Takizawa – pp. 2 & 3 Carla Taylor – p. 11 Lara Vaienti – p. 43 Brian Van de Wetering – p. 55 Sébastien Vaucher – p. 33 Catherine Vesce – p. 26 Ryan Whitaker – p. 45 Linda Whitney – p. 56 Simone Wicca – p. 43 David Wischer – p. 52 Gretchen Woodman – p. 57 Cynthia Woolever Molinari – p. 45 Keith Yearman – p. 8
Artist Title Media Size
28This page: Sara Morton, My Darling, Cyanotype on Stonehenge paper, 11”Website x 7.5”, saralmortonart.com
28
Frédéric Carrayol Mountain Firs 28
Silver gelatin print 10” x 8” frederic-carrayol.com
3
Very Secure Government Plant, Mezzotint, 6¾” x 3¾
Man, Handling, Mezzotint, 6¾” x 3¾
You, Me, and the Moon, Mezzotint, 7⅞” x 10⅛” 4
Devon Stackonis devonstackonis.com
Still Life with Cherries Suspended
Still Life with Lemon and Hydrangea
Still Life with Four Inedible Pears
Still Life with Three Plastic Pears
Still Life with Cherries, Berries, and a Peach Mitch Eckert
Salted paper prints 6” x 6” ea. mitcheckert.com
5
Breeze Before The Leap, Five color reduction woodcut, 43” x 30”
The Commander, Six color reduction woodcut, 43” x 30”
Whisper and Wait, Four color reduction woodcut, 30” x 43”
6
Jun Lee
junleeprints.com
Angel O’Brien Letty’s At Night
Gum bichromate over platinum/palladium 17” x 13” 5x7angel.com
Along Similar Lines
Salt of the Earth Jessica Meyer
Cyanotypes on fine art paper 10” x 8” ea. SayJesToAdventure.com
7
Kayleigh MacDonald Self Portrait on Hosta
Keith Yearman Hasina
Chlorophyl print on hosta leaf 13” x 9.5” kayleighmacdonaldphotography.myportfolio.com
Chlorophyl print on hosta leaf 10” x 5.85” keithyearman.com
Achananthes
Amphora Gerardo Stübing
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Photogravures (intervened) from scanning electron microscope negatives on 250g Guarro Superalfa paper 16” x 12” ea. gerardostubing.com
Renaissance Tropical, 125cm x 90cm
Abstract Nr. II, 42cm x 27cm
Ninho da Ninfa, 57cm x 45cm Ulisses Lociks
Woodcuts etsy.com/shop/EPAGallery
9
Village 1, Monotype, 10” x 8”
Ball and Chain, Monotype, 10” x 8”
10
Village 2, Monotype, 10” x 8”
Chain Link, Monotype, 10” x 8” Bob Cornelis bobcornelis.com
Iceberg, Monotype, paper, acrylic paint on canvas, 12” x 12” x 1.5”
To See, Monotype paper collage with acrylic paint on wood panel, 6” x 6”
Carla Taylor
carlataylorart.com
You Probably Don’t Remember, Collage, 9” x 7⅜”
We Can Only Hope, Collage, 9” x 8”
Emily Swierzbin
instagram.com/abstractions_by_em
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Minna Resnick By remixing cultural and historical narratives that focus on the ways we communicate both verbally and through our bodies, Resnick’s work invites the viewer to not only engage with the story within the image, but consider our own way of transmission.
Hi Minna. Thank you so much for talking to us. Your oeuvre is so impressive! Your website shows work going back to the 1970s and it doesn’t seem like you’ve taken a break. Can you remember the first exhibition you had of your own work? Where was it and what did you show? What do you remember about it?
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Actually, I cheated and had to look it up in my resume. After all, it’s almost 50 years ago. But it’s a doozy. I thank you for unleashing some of the most memorable times in my early career. You might be sorry you asked, as this is a very long answer. My first solo show was in Canberra, Australia! We spent a semester there in late 1974/early 1975 – their terms are on a different calendar than ours. My husband was asked to be a scientific research fellow at Australian National University. Canberra is the capital of Australia and at that time was a backwater and a pretty bleak place to live; just civil servants and university personnel with barely a restaurant and one cinema. The National Gallery of Australia lived in a warehouse. However, it had a fabulous small art gallery owned by Ruth Prowse, who was in her 50s when she opened Gallery Huntly, shortly before I arrived. Every time my husband and I traveled abroad, the first thing I packed was a large pile of photos of my model, as I expected to
Did You Ever Ask Why Mixed Media Drawing (digital, solvent transfer, colored pencil, acrylic ink 16 1/8" x 24 1/16" 2021
continue working. I also packed a portfolio of my prints since my identity is my artwork. I immediately looked for places to see art and came up blank except for Gallery Huntly. I ended up going there 2-3 times a week to see Ruth’s immense European and contemporary inventory, with the other days drawing in our apartment. She offered me a show within a month, and it opened before I left. I actually sold work and she represented me for years. One magical moment I especially remember is that she took me, since she knew every art person in town, into the National Gallery (still unopen to the pubic) to peek at Jackson Pollack’s “Blue Poles” which they had just purchased and unpacked. It was leaning up against a wall. At the time, most of Australia was angry that the government spent so much money on this purchase. Today it is the diamond of their contemporary collection.
Quick Exit
Lithograph
9.5" x 12"
2019
Journey 1
Untitled (Rectangle #1)
Lithograph
15" x 22.5"
Lithograph
22" x 17"
1975
1981
That’s a great story! It seems pretty rare that a first show would turn into a long relationship like that. At least nowadays I feel like most people’s first show is some tiny little gallery, coffee shop, or maybe a group or juried show. What have you learned about showing your work since then? I’ve always been careful about where I show my work. Even before grad school, I knew I would never participate in an outdoor arts festival. I knew I wanted a professional relationship where the work was respected and handled properly (a former teacher/mentor made me aware that this should be my goal). So, early in my career, when a gallery had interest in my work, I asked a lot of questions, plus requested some artists that they represent, who I could talk to. You’d be surprised about those answers – how payment was late, how badly work was handled or damaged, how uninterested staff were in the work!!! So, I chose very carefully. I had few galleries that represented me, and each became family. They had my personal and artistic interests at heart. There was trust. Unfortunately, I have survived longer than all but one of my galleries and I’ve been with them since 1979!!
What are your own tastes in art that you collect? Oy. I collect everything and my taste is all over the place from abstract to photo realism, handmade toys and ceramics. And handmade earrings — that has to be my biggest collection! I guess I relate most to things that make me wonder or make me laugh. I also collect old broken and distressed dolls. I never spend more than five bucks on any of them and my greatest collection is very creepy and comes from the woman who cuts my hair. She was about to throw out dolls that she and her mother had used but at the last moment remembered that I might like them. Yes!!!
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Dutch Curtain III
Mixed Media Drawing
15" x 19"
1982
This might overlap with the last question, but what were your influences in your early career? What artists are you looking at now? That’s another question that I might have a different take on. My undergraduate degree was in graphic design (at Philadelphia College of Art, now University of the Arts) and my program was intense. I minored in printmaking and loved it too. Briefly, I got a fabulous design job right out of college, worked creatively for a year, got married, lived abroad for two years (working as a graphic designer while my husband taught at a university), returned to the US (Palo Alto, CA where my husband then got a job at Stanford), and started working in printmaking across the Bay, in Hayward, in order to build up a portfolio to enter grad school. From my design background, I could easily have made beautiful arrangements of shapes, but was desperate for a personal identity. I needed to find out who I was. For almost 2 years after returning to the States, I never once opened an art book or magazine, and did not visit a gallery or museum. I was terrified of accidentally being influenced by someone else’s work. I started by photographing my husband and myself, but that quickly proved inadequate. It was there that I met my model, another art student and friend, who became my model for the next 25 years. As to current inspirations, they are as varied as my minor collecting efforts. I just love looking at artwork of all kinds and disciplines. There is always something to learn, and also learn what not to do, when experiencing an image. (Again, if pushed, I could try to provide you with some specific artists – I’ve been in awe of Mantegna’s drapery forever and absolutely love the cheekiness and complicated composition of Phyllis Bramson’s paintings.) 14
I won’t push. Ha! And I think that’s a great answer. I think it’s interesting you were aware of NOT wanting to be influenced by other artists. I find that visiting the museum is inspirational for me. I think a lot of artists just get some creative push from that – or reading or watching movies, or whatever. Then what is it that inspired (or inspires) you? Maybe you don’t need “something”? How about asking it this way: When and/or where do you do your best creative thinking? I still get most inspired by museum and gallery shows and I don’t worry about them influencing my work anymore. I will look at anything! When we spent an academic year in NYC (my husband’s sabbatical in 2012-2013), I spent 3 days a week at the Blackburn Print shop making prints and 2 days a week going to exhibitions, eight hours a day (maybe seven). In the 9 months we were there I don’t think I missed a show, especially in Manhattan. Talk about eye-opening! I found out how much I didn’t know while living in upstate NY and happily working alone in my studio. I was introduced to the work of Thomas Nozkowski and Vanessa German through solo shows I saw. I also had a chance to see large exhibitions of work that I was already familiar with: Liliana Porter, Neo Rauch, Louise Bourgeois, Charles White, Vernon Fisher, Pat Andrea (Dutch), just to name a few. It was exhilarating. This visceral and emotional connection to the work inspired me in every way. Now, with personal viewing more out of reach, I continue to look at artist’s online, mostly through old-fashioned Facebook, where I post my new work and have many artist connections.
I think a really great artist is someone who remains creative and productive for a long time in a way that is consistent but never gets stale. Your work, to me, fits that description. The subject matter is almost always women, and there’s a similar aesthetic from the lithography and drawing style. But the images themselves don’t feel repetitive or schtick. How would you describe the overall themes you work with and how has that changed over time? Oh dear. I guess the easiest way to explain this is what I mentioned about early influences: fear! Fear that I would have to find something so personal that it would last my lifetime. Perhaps that is what is consistent about my work. I was so lucky to have a close friend model only for me at the very beginning. She became the emotional connection to my themes of the public and private nature of a woman’s place in the world. I strongly think that the era into which you were born informs your perceptions throughout your lifetime. My parents were products of WWII and the Depression. I graduated college in 1968 during the heyday of the women’s movement. My beginning years were consumed by themes of personal internal feelings and external societal expectations that often led to contradictory actions and conflicting emotions. Her photos have been relevant ever since. Plus, I had inadvertently, over the course of time, accumulated an archive of a woman aging – a very convenient source material to an artist dealing with getting older. By 2000, I was using appropriated visual materials, in addition to my model, to deal with inter-generational differences, which expanded into thinking about general informational delivery systems over the course of time and generational understanding. I’ve also been incorporating digital material into my work. Working with a printer in Bern, Switzerland, for more than 15 years, we first create a digital background onto which I would continue to draw in my Ithaca, NY, studio. Those digital images are appropriated and manipulated from sources such as old photos, children’s textbooks, and open-source museum collections from the nineteenth century. Can you tell us more about your collaboration with the printmaker in Bern? How did that start? I’m curious about your collaborative approach with your model too. What do you think those people – the printer and the model – bring to your work that you could not? Oh boy, my Bern connection is unusual. My husband was invited to work with colleagues for a month at the university in Bern in June 2004. I accidentally found out about the existence of a printshop there, in December 2003, from a show announcement that I received in the mail from a former print prof about work he did in a Bern print studio and was exhibiting in SF. I immediately emailed Tom Blaess (https://www.tomblaess.com) to inquire about being able to print there while my husband was working. Tom and I didn’t know each other but we shared four close friends and even more print connections (he’s originally from Detroit and moved to Switzerland in 1990.)
We arranged that I would make images at his printshop for two weeks, which he would print for me. This was our first collaboration, printed from a huge flat-bed offset press. I came with several drawn images on mylar, Tom put them on photolitho plates and they were printed in different compositions and colors. Each piece of paper had a different configuration. I took all these first-layers home with me to my Ithaca studio and continued to draw on each to complete unique works. I returned to Bern in 2004 to have a show at his gallery (in the printshop) with these mixed media prints. Our following collaborations were digitally printed first-layers, printed on rag printmaking paper since it absorbs the ink differently than coated digital papers, much more like lithographic printing, which we both preferred. In spring 2023 I will have my fifth solo show in Bern. I have been using the same model, a friend and fellow artist, since 1972. Since I draw very slowly, I started taking photographs of her to be more efficient with her time and more flexible with mine. Over time, we both moved from California, where we met. We’ve been living 2,000 miles apart for decades, but our close relationship has remained intact. Over those years, I visited her for about a week at a time, every 6 or 7 years, to go over themes and projects that have concerned me and taking the appropriate pictures. The last time we got together for a photo session was over 25 years ago, although we still keep in good contact. It has been very important for me to use a model that is a close friend, for two reasons. First, since I draw so slowly, it is wonderful to spend so much time drawing someone who you hold dear. Second, my friend modeled exclusively for me, and as a non-professional model, allowed for openness and an emotional vulnerability in her response to the camera, and me. Can you describe your creative process at all? Is there a method or what? In overview, my work has generally focused on the visual meaning of language, starting decades ago with body language, and broadening it to include communication of every sort. Is there a method other than personal exploration? Not sure. My questions lead me down many paths and some of them become images. My aim is to encourage information displacement and disorientation. Remixing the narrative creates new associations. Each method changes and deconstructs any hierarchy of information. I hope to do this while still retaining a sense of humor.
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One Little Regret
Lithograph, Silkscreen
10" x 20"
2016
Garden Fresh Photo, Lithograph, Collagraph, Silkscreen 15" x 19" 2012
Is the Pillow Smooth and Inviting?
Lithograph, Silkscreen
22.5" x 30"
2001
What kinds of other things do you like to do when you’re not making art? Are you a cook, a musician, a movie or book buff? An athlete or a gardener? What are your other interests?
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What brings me joy when I’m not making work is gardening. We moved into our home in upstate NY over 30 years ago. It was a spec house on dirt. I planned and planted every tree, bush and flower in our garden. It is lush and peaceful after all this time though maintaining a low-maintenance garden is still a great deal of work. Pleasurable work. We live in Ithaca, a town surrounded by natural beauty, which includes
multiple waterfalls and walking trails which have been especially appreciated during this past year and a half, as it is a relief and a joy to be outside, in every season. I also love cooking for guests, a good book (I’m in a great book club), folk dancing once a week for over 30 years, and of course, my great friends and family. I won the lottery on my adult children and their offspring. I’m now training my grandkids, from 3 ½ to 13, to make prints, which we can do in my basement studio every time they come to visit. Ah, my own studio with a large electric litho press. I guess that’s another story.
Do you have any new work, exhibitions, or projects our readers should look for? Anything you are particularly excited about right now? I’ve been especially lucky, as I’ve mentioned, that I have my own well-equipped studio in our home basement. So, I’ve been very productive this COVID year and a half since we haven’t been traveling and I have few other obligations. It’s been my sanctuary. My imagery seems a bit more aggressive and more contemplative because of this seclusion and I’ve certainly relied so much more on using my model for a resource. Just looking over the decades of photos of her comforts and inspires me. This past year I was the featured artist in a Belgian print magazine, Actuel, l’estampe contemporaine (Current, Contemporary Print), which is distributed throughout Europe. Richard Noyce (Wales) graciously volunteered to write a critical essay about my work for the publication and my imagery was on the front and back covers of the magazine, with a large selection of my work. As part of being the featured artist, I was contracted to make a small editioned print, which was sold to subscribers. “I Need To Hear Your Voice.”, was the print I made for this project and you can see me working on it in the photo at the beginning of this article. (The magazine is also available to purchase online, but it’s in French. If anyone is interested in purchasing a copy, I will gladly send them an English version of both my artist statement and the critical essay.) The best place to look at my work is probably my website, as I honestly do not actively solicit showing anywhere. My association with Tom Blaess in Switzerland keeps me busy enough. I’m currently working on finishing the over 50 digital first-layers we made in October 2019, although I do manage to make indepen-dent work which doesn’t include digital imagery. From the end of January through mid-March 2016-2020, my husband and I had been invited to work at Australian National University, in different departments, since he is not an artist. Because of the pandemic our trip to Australia this year was cancelled, and it is my hope and dream that at some point we will be able to work there again. Fingers crossed.
Entrance
Lithograph
19" x 15"
1977
Yes, fingers crossed, indeed. Well, thank you again for speaking with us and for such thoughtful answers. For more on Resnick, see minnaresnick.com
Chair with Figure #1 The Way We Were Paper Lithograph (One layer printed on rice paper) 30" x 22.5" 2020
Lithograph
15" x 22.5"
1980 17
Burdensome Armor/ Bearable Cage (The Falcon Bridle), 34” x 22”
Burdensome Armor/ Bearable Cage (The Drowned Man Bridle), 22” x 34”
Burdensome Armor/ Bearable Cage (The Fawn Bridle), 22” x 34”
Johnny Adimando
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Ink and toner on paper under gloss laminate sheet; hand assembled collages of laser and hand-cut elements johnnyadimando.com
Cubist State of Mind #2
Cubist State of Mind #10
Cubist State of Mind #4
Cubist State of Mind #7
Cubist State of Mind #8 Vicky Stromee
Photocollages 9” x 12” ea. vickystromeephotography.com
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Regeneration 4
Handmade paper, thread, collagraph, relief print, gouache and glue on mulberry paper 13” x 10.5”
Regeneration 2
Regeneration 1
Screen print, relief print, gouache, and glue on mulberry paper 13” x 9.5”
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Regeneration 3
Relief print, screen print, digital print, gouache, and glue onmulberry paper 14” x 10.5”
Relief print, intaglio, digital print, gouache, and glue on mulberry paper 13” x 10.5”
Mary Robinson
maryrobinson.studio
Never Ending Story 2, 78cm x 108cm
Never Ending Story 3, 113cm x 88cm
Never Ending Story 1, 78cm x 108cm
Never Ending Story 5, 100cm x 78cm
Hyejeong Kwon
Aquatint, etching, chine colle, embossing, rolling, frottage, paper cutting blog.naver.com/printart
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Linda Bryan Falling Down
Cyanotype 11” x 15” redhousestudio.com
Dorothy Kloss Henry’s Vase
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Cyanotype on kozo paper 4½” x 5” dorothyklossphotography.com
Buffy Davis Water Tower
Cyanotype 24” x 18” buffydaviscyanotypes.com
Almost Human
Cyanotype, handmade lotus book 40” x 14” (open) 5” x 5” (closed)
Sandi Daniel
sandidanielphoto.weebly.com
Butterfly Book #3
Cyanotype, meandering lotus book 27” x 13” (open) 2½” x 2½” (closed)
Magdéleine Ferru Pukmina (Passeuse d’âmes - Sould Whisperer)
Artist book - leporello, 15 photos, mixed techniques: cyanotype over inkjet print on Canson recycled paper, gold colored pencil 53” x 1” (open) 6” x 6” x 1” (closed) justmagd.com
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Nathanael Kooperkamp Enclosures
CMY inkjet print with black platinum/palladium print 11” x 14” instagram.com/Krokis.Creations
Hattie Phillips Let’s See You Get Yourself Out of This One Cyanotype, screenprint, laser engraving 9” x 12” hattiephillips.com
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Debra Achen Shoring Up
Hand-manipulated archival pigment inkjet print 16” x 12” debraachen.com
Farah Mohammad Dictator Lover
Woodcut prints on Kitakata paper, hand-stitched with French linen thread, pierced by and held to the wall with metal sculpture 40” x 64” x 15” farahmohammadart.com
Pan
Lettuce March
Rose Romp
Balboa Pilgrim
Moon Serenade Sally Chapman
Cyanotype and pastels 30” x 14” sallychapmanphoto.com
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Poet’s Dream
Quarantine Dream
Beth Fein
Pinhole photos, etching and altered photographs printed on aluminum 24” x 24” ea. bethfein.com
Float - Yellow
Rest - Red Catherine Vesce
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Archival pigment inkjet prints from original digital painting 16” x 16” ea. neoimages.com
Orange Female
On Fire Female Marky Kauffmann
Archival pigment prints from scanned chemigrams 36” x 28” markykauffmannphotography.com
Poisson Volant / Flying Fish
Chiaroscuro Renata Janiszewska Digital output Size variable renatajaniszewska.com
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Calvin Grier is a master printer and the owner of, The Wet Print, a printing lab in valencia, Spain that Attracts students from all over the world. Calvin's extraordinary technique in carbon printing and gum bichromate defy any notions that alternative process photography can't be sharp, focused, and controllable.
Hi Calvin! Can you start by telling us a little about yourself? Where are you from? Where do you work now? And what exactly do you do? I grew up in the states, but for the last decade I’ve been living in Spain, where I run a studio revolving around carbon transfer printing. This entails making carbon prints for photographers, teaching workshops, lots of research, and supplying materials for those who are interested in the process. Where did you learn photography? What is your background and what was your path to where you are now?
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As long as I can remember, I’ve had a camera with me. When I was in middle school, I would develop film in the cellar underneath the stairs, and I have boxes and boxes of negatives from high school, but as I got older and it became clearer that I wanted to become an orchestral musician, I had to push photography to the side. I would still shoot in college, but I saw it merely as a distraction from music. It wasn’t until I moved to Spain and was finishing a masters at the conservatory in Valencia, that I decided to pick up photography
Finding a pigment that works with the carbon process requires a l pigments don’t mix well, they sediment out too fast, cause defects too dull.
again as a serious pursuit. During rehearsals, I found myself constantly looking at the time, and even concerts were more of a chore than anything else. It was time for a change, and photography was the obvious choice. I started shooting portraits and weddings, but it wasn’t as fulfilling as I hoped. So, I played with the idea of going back to school and finishing a degree in engineering that I had started; and also with the idea of becoming a carpenter. I had worked summers in construction, and even won an award for a very organic looking table I built with interlacing curved lines based on my experience of seeing the Sagrada Familia in Spain. Then in the spring of 2015 I came across the alternative photographic processes, which were the perfect combination of photography, engineering, and working with one’s hands. I was immediately hooked. The next step was to choose a process. I narrowed down my options to either carbon or platinum printing. The market for platinum printing seemed quite saturated, and carbon permitted printing in color, so my mind was made. Out of arrogance and ignorance, I figured I could master the process in a couple months, but what ensued was an extremely humbling couple of years involving failure after failure.
Seen here is the wet relief on the plastic temporary support. The image will then be transferred all at once to a sheet of paper. Image by Michael Strickland, michaelstricklandimages.com
carbon process requires a lot of testing. Some nt out too fast, cause defects in the emulsion, or are
Wow, you have a lot of interests and talents! It sounds like everything you do has a strong technical element to it. Music, engineering, and carpentry are all very exacting practices that require tight precision. You obviously bring that mentality to your photography. Do you have a set strategy for the intense investigations that you do with all of these processes? What questions do you start with and how do you work your way through answering them? I take a very systematic approach to learning anything new, which usually means reading everything I can on the subject first. So, when I started carbon printing, I spent six months reading before I ever purchased a single item to start making prints. This approach usually works for me, but with carbon printing there were just too many variables and basic concepts that I didn’t understand, so I ended up hitting my head against a brick wall.
For example, I didn’t understand that the abrupt and uneven tonal transition in the highlights is a fundamental part of the process, and while it can be minimized, it can only be truly avoided with a halftone negative. Without this understanding, which my entire process is based on, prints will always have either blown out or muddy highlights. Knowing this would have saved me months of frustrating failures. Since my usual method of reading first then acting didn’t work, I had to resort to research – and a lot of it. I spent over a year, working twelve hours a day, six days a week, systematically working through various theories and seeing what worked and what didn’t.
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Washing a yellow layer on a carbon print. The image is first developed layer by layer on a sheet of plastic for precise registration. The order of printing with the earth pigments is yellow ochre, red ochre, lapis lazuli, green earth, and carbon black.
Various amounts of ink are systematically laid down in a chart. This allows the computer to know what color will printed if it sends for example, 30% yellow, 0% red, 50% green earth, 10% lapiz lazuli, and 40% black to be printed. The resulting profile is used to convert an RGB file to CMYK, or in this case a multichannel profile containing the colors mentioned above
Green coating layer for carbon printing: A dimensionally stable support is coated with a hot mixture of gelatin, sugar, sensitizer, and pigment. This emulsion is dried then exposed in contact with a negative
Calvin Grier, Cascades, Carbon transfer print
That is an incredible commitment! You have a lot of patience! But the results you get, in terms of the technical precision of the work, are second to none that I have seen. The same is true for your gum prints. Can you tell us about your prints using natural materials? I think this is one of the most interesting innovations I have seen in photography in a long time. It’s really clever and simply amazing that you can get such sharp, saturated color with those pigments. I have seen a lot of natural pigment-based images from anthotypes and chlorophyl prints to images toned with natural dyes. But this is a whole other level. What got you thinking about trying this approach? With advancements in profiling, editing software, and color science, it’s easier than ever to create and calibrate photographic prints that are not built from cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. We are free to break the mold, crafting works of art from an endless variety of pigments. Using earth pigments like red and yellow ochre, green earth, and lapis lazuli will create a very natural palette, but it’s just one possibility for using these new advancements. I almost never make standard CMYK prints anymore because I’m adding in an iron oxide layer to create smoother skin tones that are very easy to calibrate and look good regardless of the lighting; or incorporating green, violet, or orange pigments to increase the gamut; or creating custom gamuts for special projects. It’s a good time to be alive. The 30
tools we have at hand allow for limitless creativity. Using these natural pigments seems like such a game-changer, both for the variety of things one could use as a pigment and also for the sustainability of it. Is that an important factor for you? An endless variety of colorants have been used to create photographs since the invention of the camera and print, so there’s really nothing new with the use of natural pigments. What’s new is the ability to easily create digital color separations that are not tied down to CMY as the primary colors. This technology has been around for 50 years, but it’s only now starting to get traction in mainstream and affordable software. Printing should always add something to a photograph, a certain quality, depth, or characteristic. This is where interpretation is key. Bringing nature into a print, instead of using synthetic pigments, is a great way add to the story/texture/style of a landscape for example. The most important factor for me is to avoid creating photographs that die on the page when printed.
There are three steps to calibrating a color print. First a density must be chosen for each color. Then each of those colors or channels needs to be linearized. The test charts used in this step are seen in this photo. Next a profile must be created by combining those colors into a test chart.
This is a test chart made with the traditional brush application of the emulsion. Appyling the emulsion with a HVLP sprayer produces colors that are much more intense, smoother, less staining, and accurate. The colors are read with a spectrophotometer to create a profile.
Following traditional procedures, a solution of gum Arabic, pigment, and sensitizer are brushed on a sheet of paper. The paper is dried, then exposed
Can you tell us more about how you teach these processes? Which processes do you teach and how can people take classes from you? I teach carbon transfer workshops out of my studio in Valencia, Spain. The workshops are two weeks long for groups of four people and I teach them almost every other month. This year is booked (although I might open a workshop in November) and next year I will be busy with a few projects, printing, and research, but in 2023 I’ll be teaching again. I get a lot of questions about gum workshops, but I don’t think I’ll ever teach the process since my heart lies with carbon printing. I do have another question about your gum printing approach. You have used a spray technique to apply the gum and pigment. But you are NOT spraying the dichromate, correct? What is the advantage of that application process? The biggest problems I ran into when trying to make color prints with the gum bichromate process were getting a smooth tone, deep vibrant colors, and good blacks. The root of all these issues is the same. As each color is applied with a brush, the previous layer is slightly rubbed off, leaving white paper showing. It was obvious I
had to do away with the brush, but there was no way I was going to spray dichromate. After a month of research, I invented a system where I could spray the non-toxic gum and pigments, then once the layer was dried, I could sensitize it with dichromate. If I had more time, I would have continued research into using a diazo sensitizer to avoid dichromate altogether. I also invented a method of spraying a clear coat of gum before the pigmented layer, so that staining was reduced to almost nothing, which allowed for even more vibrant colors. Alternative process photography has a reputation for serendipity or chance - sometimes relying on them too much for some tastes. But for many artists there is a lot of creative value in the accidental and unique things that can happen when working with these processes. In fact, one thing I love about gum printing, in particular, is that every gum printer’s work seems to have its own unique look. In my opinion, gum tends to be more idiosyncratic than even other alternative processes. I can think of a dozen gum printers who all have a very distinct “look” to their work. With the kind of technical precision you are working towards, what do you think about the value of chance and the creative implications of such a technical approach? Do you think one can be overly technical? I think there’s an interesting “push and pull” there.
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Photograph by Allan Jenkins
For black and white prints, brush coating is fine, but for color prints, brushing eats away at the previous layers introducing a lot of paper texture into the print. Spray coating solves that problem, allowing deep and vibrant colors to be achieved. NEVER SPRAY DICHROMATE. This system breaks the spraying and sensitizing into two parts. First the non-toxic pigments and gum Arabic are spray coated, then it is sensitized afterwards
Oh, there’s a lot going on in this question, but let’s start out with a technical vs. creative approach. I think a technical looking print can require a great deal of creativity in coming up with novel solutions to problems. Likewise, a creative looking print and achieving one’s own style is likely the result of a great deal of technical control of the process. I don’t see the two terms, technical and creative, as being mutually exclusive or even opposites. If one completely understands a process – which is not my case with gum printing – they can imitate any style or push the boundaries creating something totally new. I think Picasso is a great example of this. His early work is very realistic, or what we might mistakenly call technical in alternative process lingo, but then he goes through a few different periods, each one pulling further away from realism, until he invents cubism. For me, right now, I enjoy realistic looking photographs, but I do feel a pull away from that goal. That’s why I’ve started working with the earth pigments, and have a number of more abstract and impressionistic ideas and goals for the future.
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Iron Oxide
Magenta
Cyan
Yellow
Black
Now for chance vs. precision. This mostly just comes down to the negative. If I use a more continuous tone negative, like those from an inkjet printer, there will be more variability in the process. Likewise, a halftone negative will give more controlled results. That’s why a process like gravure, where no one ever makes a plate without some sort of a screen, is seen as more precise. However, if chance beauty is important or valuable in printing, then it can be worked into the process. For example, if you try to use a continuous tone printing plate with gravure, then inking/pressure/humidity/paper etc.. become huge factors so there will be a lot more variability in the results. It all comes down to your personality and what kind of approach you want to take. One approach isn’t more valuable than the other. That’s very well put. And thank you for reframing the question. Do you have any new photographic projects or goals that you are working on? Anything we should look for in the future from you?
Calvin Grier, Flower, Gum bichromate print, 10” x 10”. Adding in tonal separations to black and white gum printing, and using halftone negatives makes achieving dark blacks and smooth highlights a walk in the park
The list is endless. I wonder if I die when I’m 90 if I’ll have time to do everything I want to do. Big projects for the next few years are: learning all the major pigment based processes and writing a book series, creating a portfolio and doing a few exhibitions, creating a print that switches from black and white to color based on the illuminant, teaching workshops, getting and being able to use negatives with a 10 micron dot size, expanding the online store, making more prints for photographers, and a whole bunch of creative projects I have in the back of my head.
Holy cats! That’s a lot of things to work on! And I assume you need time to climb, play music, and see your family, too. Well, I’ll leave you alone so you can get to work. Ha ha! Thanks, Calvin. It’s really been a pleasure speaking with you. Good luck! For more information, see Grier’s website: thewetprint.com
This print is made with earth pigments, but it has an extra layer of synthetic magenta that adds just a touch of color to the flowers “Temple” Photographer: Thomas Dold Model: Sebastien Vaucher Printed by Sebastien Vaucher with Calvin Grier
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Corté Estas Flores Para Ti, 25.9” x 19.6”
Nunca te Pude Alcanza, 31.4” x 24.8”
Catorce, 31.4” x 24.8”
He Soñado Mucho Contigo Desde Que Desapareciste, 24” x 37.4”
El Ultimo Baile, 24” x 29.5”
Raúl Pineda Arce
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Mezzotints instagram.com/arteraulpineda
Arthur’s Seat, 24” x 20”
Tantallon Castle, 20” x 24”
Snowdonian Alter, 20” x 24” Travis Lovell
Platinum / palladium prints travislovell.com
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Krzysztof Strzoda Non-Grey Katowice #7
Platinotype / palladium print (Pt/Pd 3:1) on Hahnemuehle Platinum Rag 12cm x 18cm kstrzoda.com
Dorothy Kloss Reiki I
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Gum bichromate over cyanotype 7” x 5” dorothyklossphotography.com
Jesse Campbell The Foresaken Water Nymph Gum diazo print 9” x 6” thepreraphaeliteopleasaunce.com
Gwada, Untitled (Curved Trees), Silver gelatin print, 7” x 10”
Gwada Brown Coast, Silver gelatin print, 3” x 10”
F/64 - Untitled (Peony), Silver gelatin print, 8” x 9” Frédéric Carrayol frederic-carrayol.com
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Grace Farish Trauma Being
Archival pigment inkjet print 24” x 36” gracefarish.com
Subway Tickets - HEAR YOU ATHENS
Athenian Face - HEAR YOU ATHENS
Georges Salameh
35mm slides georgessalameh.blogspot.com
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Sebastien Brias Untitled
Silver gelatin mordançage print 8.23” x 7.1” instagram.com/sebastien.brias
Frank Hamrick Betty’s Creek
Wet plate collodion tintype 9.25” x 7.5” frankhamrick.com
Carla Christian Alepisaurus
Cyanotype toned with green tea 10” x 8” carlachristian.com
Sepideh Badakhshanian The Touch Wet plate collodion tintype 5” x 4” badakhshanian.com
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Translating Dreams Onto Paper, Diptych III
Translating Dreams Onto Paper, Diptych IV
Robbie Steinbach Mixed media prints 7” x 10” ea. robbiesteinbach.com
Margaret Craig Bleached Reef Evolutions
Target etching, repurposed plastic trash, mixed media, LED light 24” x 20” x 15” margaretcraig.com
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Michelle Bardino Vela Ultimas Flores
Wire, chlorophyll print portrait on a heliconia leaf of my grandfather outside of his home in Peru, and white roses that I gave to him at his funeral 8” x 10” x 3” michellevela.com
Blake Sanders Home Bound
Bill Myers (Lynk Collective) Roots To Crowns III Drypoint 48” x 24” lynkcollective.com
Borage / Melancholy
Screen print 21.5” x 14” blakeanthonysanders.com
Solomon Seal / Joints Jennifer Scheuer Lithography 18” x 13” ea. jenniferscheuer.com
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Nikolay Kalinin Skater
Screen print, three layers, 260gsm paper 11.7” x 16.5” instagram.com/nikalini_
I Am 2, Woodcut, 4” x 3”
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Russian Roulette, Intaglio, 18” x 12”
Bryan Raymundo
instagram.com/raymundo_printmaker
Simone Wicca Untitled
Daguerreotype (mercury development) 2.28” x 2.9” wiccaverna.wordpress.com
Detail Piece 3, Handprinted paper, burnt Wall Street Journal, ashes, string dimensions variable
Afghan Burka 3 (Trampled), Handprinted paper, burnt Wall Street Journal, ashes, string, 24” x 18”
Lara Vaienti
instagram.com/vaientilarazzurra.pt.1
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Tent
Best Rate Thayer Nicholas Granstrom Bray
Photographs of ephemeral offset litho transfers with chine colle on skin 36” x 24” ea. instagram/redshortsbindery
Francis Baker Walking In The Anthropocene
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Unique gelatin silver print-out photogram (lumen print) 10” x 8” francisbaker.com
Nadine Defranoux Botanical 2.3
Silver gelatin lumen print on found paper (fixed) 7” x 5” instagram.com/artnanoux
Memory Palace, Lithograph, colored pencil, and pastel, 60” x 44”
Skyscraper In New York, Lithograph and colored pencil, 30” x 22” Julie Cowan juliecowan.com
Ryan Whitacre Cyclical
Archival pigment inkjet print Dimensions variable ryanwhitacre.net
Cynthia Woolever Molinari Louisville Bridges Woodcut (multiple blocks) 12” x 12” cynthiawoolevermolinari.com
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Art Brown Nocturne
Linocut 25” x 37” artbrowndesign.com
László Gálos Collodion-archive 26 46
Silver gelatin montage 19” x 15”
Seth Adam Cook Of Flesh and Oil
Acrylic gel photographic transfer on plastic wrap 29” x 16” x 2” sadamcook.com
Jamie Buzil Yellow Rose 2
Emulsion lift on cotton paper 20” x 20” jamiebuzil.com
Barbara Eberhard Lost Part Of Me
Gum bichromate with Haiku 16” x 12” barbaraeberhard.com
Justin Lee Gibson Chrysalis Photomontage 3½” x 4½” justinleegibson.com
Juliet Karelsen BEE FLOWERS
Silk screen on paper, collage - 10” diameter kaleidoscopic mandalas quartered and reconfigured 47” x 35” julietkarelsen.com
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Mary Sherwood Brock Flower Book I (open and display views) 8” x 24” Artist book, intaglio with chine colle studiosherwood.com
Kathryn Hood Dinner Menu at the Le Café (closed and open views) 48
Plastic ware, styrofoam, cardboard, trash bags 20” x 10¼” x 3” kathryn-hood.com
Alina Chirila Ghosts (II)
Silver gelatin photogram 10” x 8” alinachirila.com
Kathryn Reichert Hiding a Memory From Myself Silver gelatin print 10” x 10” kathrynreichert.com
Angela Johnson Sandstorm
Holga medium format film, silver gelatin print 10” x 10” angelajohnsonartist.com
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Julie Milton All Encompasing
Lithograph and ecoprint on Fabriano paper 16cm x 11.5cm instagram.com/juliemilmoon
Jacoub Reyes Deep Cuts
Woodblock print on unbleached muslin 37” x 60” jacoubreyes.carrd.co
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Marcus Newton Insects - 19’53”12
Cliché verre on silver gelatin paper 11” x 14” marcnewtonphotography.com
Chris Estrada Citrus v. 3
Screen print 8” x 10” farewelltransmissionprints.bigcartel.com
Kristy Headley Blowout #2
Silver gelatin mordançage print 7¾” x 9½” kristyheadley.com
Karen Fiorito Cops
Gum bichromate print 16½” x 22” karenfiorito.me
Dora Agbas Box Eye View Weaver Pinhole camera photograph Dimensions unknown instagram.com/doraagbas
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There Are Rules and Regulations, 15” x 15”
Employed at Unemployed, 12” x 12”
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Views Are Not My Own, 12” x 12” David Wischer
Screen print and varnish on paper davidwischer.com
Savvy and Sophisticated, 12” x 12”
Therese Livonne Invisible Monotype 10.8” x 7.2” thereselivonne.com
Soothsayer, Cyanotype on braile paper, 12” x 12”
Optic Nerves, Cyanotype and graphite, 22.5” x 22.5”
Janet Fine janetfine.com
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Glossary of Processes Albumen print - Albumen is egg white. This type of print is similar to a salted paper print, but with the silver nitrate-based emulsion infused into an egg white solution. This technique yields a smoother, shinier surface than silver nitrate alone. Ambrotype - See “wet plate collodion”. Aquatint - An intaglio printing process using a fine dust-like particle as a resist so that when the plate is etched, a fine texture is created on the plate. Archival pigment inkjet print- A digital print using pigmented ink laid down on a surface using an inkjet printer with nozzles. The most common type of digital print for exhibition. Also called, “inkjet print”, “giclée, and ”pigment print”. Argyrotype - A process developed by Mike Ware, using silver sulphamate as the sensitizer. It is similar in appearance to Van Dyke Brown but with properties of platinum/palladium prints as well. Bromoil - From the words, “bromide” and “oil”. A bromoil print starts as a silver bromide gelatin print. The print is bleached to remove the silver which leaves behind an image matrix that can be rebuilt using oil-based inks “pounced”, or blotted using a heavy rounded brush, onto the paper. One can use different colors or simply use black paint. The effect is a photograph that feels - because it is - very much like a painting. Carbon transfer print - A difficult and time-consuming process using sensitized pigmented carbon tissue that is exposed and transferred to a substrate. The process can be used to create monochromatic images or you can use layers of color to build up a full color palette image. Chemigram - A photographic process usually done with silver gelatin paper. The artist uses a combination of various resists and photographic chemicals (usually developer and fixer) to “paint” an image onto the paper. Chine-collé - A printmaking process using tissue or thin paper between the ink layer and the main substrate. Usually used in etching but can be used with other printmaking processes. Chlorophyl print - A photographic print using the natural dyes in living plant material. A transparent positive is placed over the leaf and exposed in the sun until the dyes bleach out in the highlights, leaving a photographic print. The print is not permanent but can be coated in UV-resistant epoxy to help it last longer. Collagraph - A printmaking technique in which the artists essentially creates a collage of various media. The resulting plate is then inked, wiped and printed like an intaglio plate. Copperplate photogravure - See “Photogravure” Cyanotype- Also called a “blue print”. A contact printed photographic process using ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide to create an iron-based emulsion. The emulsion is applied by hand to paper and exposed using a transparent negative to UV light. The UV light reacts with the iron to create a blue print. The print can be toned using tannic acid or a number of other substances. Drypoint - An intaglio printmaking process that is simply direct etching by hand onto a plate using a sharp utensil. The etched lines are inked and transferedto paper using a press. Ecoprint - A name for a natural dye process in which paper or fabric is wrapped with plant material and steamed or boiled for several hours along with iron (ex. rusty nails)
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Engraving- A printmaking term used to describe an intaglio process by which the artist makes marks directly on the plate by hand, as with a needle, burin, rocker, or other tool. Encaustic - Colored wax that can be used to coat a photograph or other kind of print to give it a unique finish. Etching- An intaglio printmaking process that uses a strong acid to cut into unprotected areas of a metal plate. The plate is coated with ink and wiped off to leave ink in the cut areas of the plate. The plate is then passed through a printing press and the image transferred to paper. Gum Bichromate - Or, “gum printing”. A contact printed photographic process using gum arabic mixed with pigment (usually watercolor pigments) and light- sensitive dichromates (usually ammonium or potassium). The emulsion is coated on the paper and exposed to negatives under UV light. Multiple colors can be built up using different pigments. Negatives are color balanced to accommodate these different colors. Gum diazo print - Similar to a gum bichromate but using, “diazo”, or diazonium salts, as the light trigger in the sensitizer. Diazo is often used in screenprinting emulsions. Image transfer- Any of a number of techniques for transferring an image from one substrate to another. Usually from an archival pigment print made on a transparency, then transferred using alcohol gel (hand sanitizer), Mod Podge, or some other binder or solvent. There are a number of techniques for different surfaces and original print types. Intaglio- A printmaking term used to describe processes that involve ink settling into a cut or etched area of a plate; in essence, the opposite of relief. See “engraving”, “etching”, “mezzotint”. Linocut - A relief printing technique that uses a linoleum block instead of wood. Lithograph- A printmaking process that uses a block of stone as a plate. An image is applied to the stone using wax or oil- based crayons. After the image is applied, the stone is treated with an acid and gum arabic mixture. The stone is then coated in ink, however, the acid/ gum arabic mixture allows the parts of the stone not covered in wax to repel the oil- based ink, thus leaving the ink only on the original drawing. There are many versions of lithography that do not use a stone, but use the same basic, “oil and water don’t mix” concept. Lith print - Not related to a lithograph, a lith print uses a slow developer on silver gelatin prints to yield a variety of effects, colors, and tones depending on the paper, developer, developing time, and other factors. Lumen print - A variation of the photogram typically, but not necessarily, using expired paper. The print is laid in UV light - usually the sun - for an extended period of time allowing the silver in the paper to react to the UV light. Various papers give a wide range of resulting colors depending on the state of the chemistry. Mezzotint - A kind of intaglio print that uses an etched plate and a rocking tool to work the plate from dark to light, rather than the other way around, which is more common. It is very labor intensive and requires many hours of building up layers of tone. Monoprint- A printmaking term for a one- off print. Similar to a monotype; the distinction being that a monoprint is taken from a plate that includes some
features, i.e. etched or engraved areas, while a monotype is taken from a plate that is completely featureless. Jill Jenson Ghost Garden I (top right of page) Monotype- A printmaking term for a one- off print. There are many different ways to create a monotype, but essentially an image is applied to a clean plateStream Serenade (above) usually copper or zinc, but possibly Plexiglass or even thin Mylar or acetate - and then transferred to another surface via a press or hand- pressed technique.
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Cyanotype, indigo dye, stitched on fabric 60” x 15” ea. jilljensenart.com
The term could also be used to refer to any one- of- a kind image made with a printmaking technique.
Mordançage - A silver gelatin photographic process by which chemicals can be used to free the gelatin image from its base, creating “veils” that can be manipulated and then dried in place. Offset litho - A printmaking process by which images are printed onto metal plates before being transferred (or “offset”) from the metal plate to another surface. This process is sed in most commercial printing. Photogram- A photographic print made by placing an object or objects directly on a light sensitive substrate, exposing directly to light, developing and fixing. The result is a kind of “reversed shadow” of the object. The technique can be used with many different paper processes and in combination with negatives. Photogravure - A traditional photogravure is done on a metal plate. A sheet of carbon tissue is used in between the plate and a phototransparency. The image is exposed, creating a carbon-based image on the plate that can be etched in acid like a traditional etching. The plate is then inked an printed. In contemporary practice, a photopolymer print (see below) is often called a “photogravure”. Photolithograph - A printmaking process that uses a image transferred onto either stone, aluminum plate, or even paper, then inked and printed as you would a lithograph. Photopolymer etching / photo intaglio - Similar to a photogravure, except the image is transfered onto a thin metal plate coated with a light-sensitive polymer. The plate is exposed to UV with a transparency, with the polymer hardening where light hits it. The plate is then etched using regular water, which washes away the unexposed- and hence softer- polymer. After hardening in another UV exposure, the plate can be inked and printed liek any intaglio plate. Platinum/ palladium print- A photographic process using platinum(II) and palladium in combination with ferric oxalate to create the emulsion. After sensitizing the paper, a UV exposure is made by contact printing with a negative. The exposed print is then developed in ammonium citrate, fixed, and rinsed. As platinum gives more contrast and palladium adds warmer tone, the proprtion of platinum to palladium in the sensitizing solution can give varying results. The process is considered to give the widest tange of tones of any contact printing process. Prints can also be toned to give further variants. Also called, “platinotype”, “palladium print” or “platinum print”, depending on the predominance of one metal over the other. Reduction print - A relief print that uses one block (woodblock or linoleum) to create a multicolored print. With each successive color, the artist carves away or reduces the amount of surfacce space that gets inked. Relief - A printmaking term used to describe processes that involve ink remaining on the raised surface of the print; in essence, the opposite of intaglio. See. “woodblock”. Risograph - A stencil duplication machine made by the Riso Kagaku Corporation. It works essentially like a combination copy machine and screen printing machine. Stencils are created and wrapped around drums in the machine. Each color is printed separately as in screen printing, but the machine is capable of printing many prints quickly. Salt print (or “Salted paper print”) - A very early type of print - actually, the first to be used to print a photographic negative - invented by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1839. Paper is first coated with a salt water solution and then with a solution of silver nitrate to create a light sensitive emulsion. The paper is exposed and developed in another salt water bath before being fixed in sodium thiosulfate. Screen print- Also called a silkscreen or serigraph. A planographic printmaking process that often uses light-sensitive emulsion to create an image on a screen mesh. The sensitized screen is exposed with a positive image to UV light, which hardens the emulsion in specific areas. The unhardened emulsion is washed out, leaving those areas of the screen open. Ink can then be pushed through the open parts of the screen to print the image. Screenprinting is often done without any photographic emulsion and simply using screen filler, tape, or other adhesives to block areas of the screen that will not have ink. Serigraph - See “screen print”. Silkscreen - See “screen print”. Many screens used in screen printing don’t actually use silk as the screen matierial. A “silk screen” implies that silk is used, and that the silk helps the printer achieve greater detail. Silver gelatin print- A photographic print using a paper coated with silver nitrate suspended in gelatin as an emulsion. This type of paper is more sensitive to light than other hand- coated emulsions, giving the artist the ability to use an enlarger to create enlarged positive prints of negatives. Also sometimes called, “Gelatin silver”. Stone Lithography - (see “Lithography”). With so many other versions of the lithographic process, many printmakers specify that their prints are truly made using a “stone” or “litho”-graph. Toner transfer - An image transfer process using a laser printed image made with carbon or plastic-based toner. The toner can be transferred to another surface using a number of varieties of solvents such as acetone or wintergreen oil. The transfer can also be created by using Mod Podge or acrylic medium to adhere the toner-based image to a substrate, waiting until it is dry, and then using water to rub the paper backing off, leaving the toner (and hence the image) still stuck to the substrate. Uranotype - Yep, it’s what it sounds like (UrAnotype - not UrInotype). This is a photographic print that employs an emulsion using uranium nitrate as the senistizer. The emulsion is coated onto the paper and exposed just like a cyanotype or any other hand-coated emulsion process. The exposed print is developed in potassium ferricyanide. The amount of uranium is very low and poses a radioactivity risk only if ingested. Still, this is not a process you want to try unless you are experienced and take all proper safety precautions. Van Dyke Brown- A photographic process using both silver nitrate and ferric ammonium citrate. The emulsion is applied by hand to paper and exposed using a transparent negative to UV light. The light reacts with the iron and silver to create a brown print. Wet plate collodion- A photographic process that uses collodion as a substrate to accept silver nitrate, thus sensitizing the plate. The plate is placed into a camera, and the plate is exposed, developed and fixed while the silver/ collodion emulsion is still wet. There are three main types of wet plate collodion plates: 1) An ambrotype is a positive image made on glass. The image is backed using some type of black substance- ink, asphaltum, or black fabric, for example. 2) A glass negative can be made and then contact printed using a wide variety of hand- coated photographic processes, traditionally, albumen. 3) A tintype is a positive image made on a piece of metal. Traditionally tin was used, but modern practitioners usually use aluminum. Therefore, these plates are sometimes called aluminotypes or ferrotypes, referring to the aluminum substrate. Other substances can be used as the substrate, such as Plexiglass (called a “Plexitype”), agate (called an “agatype”), or any number of other “-types”. Woodcut / woodblock- A relief printing technique using carved wood blocks as the printing plate. The ink is rolled onto the raised surfaces of a carved block and paper is placed on top. The ink transfers to the paper. See “relief print”
Brian Van de Wetering Citrus Illicitus
Polaroid emulsion transfer on plaster cast 3” x 1.5” x 2” brianvandewetering-photo.com
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Linda Whitney Butterfly Sister Dancing For The Little Ones 56
Mezzotint with hand-applied earth pigments 30” x 22” lwhitneystudio.com
Gretchen Woodman Lest We Forget Wood block relief print 40” x 64” gretchenwoodman.net
NEXT CALL FOR ENTRY: Issue #35 (January 2022) Submissions Due November 30 Submissions to The HAND Magazine are always open There is NEVER A THEME The due date for entries for Issue #35 is November 30, 2021 The HAND Magazine is a magazine for reproduction-based arts: We will consider any and all techniques that incorporate photographic and/ or printmaking techniques. The cost for submission is $15 (more outside the US) and includes a copy of the issue, which you will receive whether or not your images are selected for publication Artists may submit up to 5 images per entry fee Subscribers can submit to all of the issues on their subscriptions for no additional fee For the required submission file specifications, payment information and submission forms, visit the website: www.thehandmagazine.space, and click on the “Current Call For Entries” page.
Back Cover: Frank Hamrick, Tributaries / Storn Surge, Relief print on tea / coffee stained handmade paper, 12” x 9”, frankhamrick.com
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