Dedicated to Unique Mark Making
VOL.I Issue 2
Spring 2016
OUR MISSION Monoprint-Monotype.com understands the importance of providing a venue for this unique form of art. Our matrix is as open as the imaginations of the artists it supports. To that end we will explore the work of emerging, established and surprising artists from around the world. They will be presented here and in our on-line magazine.
If you are a Monoprint or Monotype artist, we are interested in what you have to say and what you have to show. If you are interested contact us for more information at; Donald@monoprint-monotype.com
Š2016 Monoprint-Monotype Reproduction of this e zine in whole or part is prohibited without permission
The easiest way to understand the difference between a Monoprint and a Monotype is to understand the underlying block or matrix. Monoprint When beginning a Monoprint, permanent marks are produced on the surface. This creates a common feature on successive works. But there would be an endless variation of images according to the application of medium, (paint, ink, chalk), and whether additional collage elements are added. Monotype
A Monotype on the other hand is created on a smooth surface. Similar to monoprinting, a variety of mediums and elements can be incorporated on the surface. But there are no permanent features that transfer to successive works. Once the image is transferred, except for the occasional ghost print from excess medium, the surface is freed from the created work of art and the chosen surface now holds the art work. Strappo A Strappo is a dry image transfer technique that has been recognized as a specific printmaking monotype procedure by the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a sample Strappo is in the print library collection. A Strappo is a combination of painting and printing. They are a monotype from a reverse painting resulting ia a dry acrylic transfer. developed a smooth surface such as glass.
Alan Singer
Alan Singer is an artist, writer, and professor at the School of Art at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY. “Both of my parents were working artists, and I learned the most from watching them create. Along with painting and printmaking, watercolor is one of my favorite mediums, and I now teach that at R.I.T..� Contact Information Email: alan@singerarts.com Website: www.singerarts.com
Alan Singer studied at the Art Students League, and The Cooper Union where he received his BFA. Graduate study began at Cornell University for his MFA,and he won scholarships to attend Yale University at Norfolk, CT, Boston University at Tanglewood, MA, and The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, ME.
In 1982, he designed and illustrated an award winninseries of U.S. postage stamps honoring the 50 State Birds and Flowers with his father, the noted wildlife artist, Arthur Singer.
Alan has worked with publishers as an illustrator including The National Geographic, Delacorte Press, Putnam’s, Random House, and Reader’s Digest. He has writtenand designed publications: State Birds, for Lodestar Books, and Botanica 2000 for Sonnenberg Gardens. in 1999, Rockport Press published his book “ Wildlife Art”, and he is currently developing “ Studio Practice “ a book devoted to interviews and practical advice for working artists in America. His writing has been published as well in Arts Magazine, American Artist, Step-by-Step Graphics, American Ceramics, Bookpress, and chronicles cultural events for Metropolitan Magazine published by The Arts & Cultural Council in Rochester, NY. Alan writes on his blog: Visual Art Worker ( VAW) hosted by First Fridays, at www.firstfridayrochester.org
In the Parent’s Imagination
Artist Statement I am looking at a very direct approach to making artworks on paper that can include marks and colors made by hand, while also accommodating elements that may be conceived of on my computer and output onto transfer film. My one-of-a-kind monoprints are made from successive layers of acetate that then create impressions on moist paper run through an etching press.
Bury the Bullets
Dreams Vanish
The Parade Ground’s
Odd Man Out
Reflects On You
Kling Neptune
Alan Singer’s art has been featured in exhibitions at The Smithsonian in Washington D.C., The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA, and the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY with numerous solo and group shows in galleries primarily in the east.
For more information: www.singerarts.com
Feature Inteview
Harold Garde
Harold Garde was born to immigrant parents in 1923 New York City. He attended N.Y.C public schools and spent three years as a science major at the College of the City of New York. After WWII ended, he attended the University of Wyoming on the GI Bill after three years in the Army Air Forces, with time spent in the Philippines. Garde worked for the art department as a student assistant and received a BA in Fine Arts studying with faculty members surrealist Leon Kelly, the abstract expressionist George McNeil and the geometric abstractionist Ilya Bolotowsky. When he returned to New York, Garde attended Columbia University and received his MA in Fine Arts and Art Education. He taught secondary school art for two years in Roselle, New Jersey before returning to New York City where he worked at commercial interior design. In 1968, Garde became an adjunct professor in the Art Department at the Nassau Community College in Garden City, NY. He continued painting and exhibiting, and in 1971 became a full time art teacher in the secondary school system of Port Washington, N.Y. in addition to his professorship at Nassau Community College. In 1970 Garde had his first solo showing in Huntington, N.Y. and since then has continued to exhibit regularly. In 1984 he retired from teaching and moved to Belfast, Maine, with his late wife, the writer, Barbara Kramer. Ten years later they bought a winter home in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Garde continues to divide his time between his homes and studios in Maine and Florida.
Recently I sat with my good friend and mentor, artist Harold Garde. While his career reaches back to the Abstract Expressionist days of New York his work has the freshness of all that we see today. While our usual lunch times cover a multitude of subjects, I thought I’d focus on his work with Strappo art. When and how did this unique art develop? I was teaching studio painting at Nassau Community College in the 70’s, with storage a problem I said so why don’t you try working with acrylics. I would encourage them to use acrylics because they could probably carry it home by the end of the session. I felt if I was encouraging them I really ought to be using them myself. So I started playing around with the acrylics and realized that setting up a palette the way you do with oil painting is very wasteful because the paint dries so very quickly. The paint was really starting to pile up and so I started scrapping it off and realized you could peel it off. I liked what it looked like and that was just the residual. Then when we were going around to yard sales picking up frames, as most of us do, and I was looking at the glass and thought I’d use them differently. I started to play around and put something on the glass and see what I could do with transferring it off. I was already peeling stuff off lids and putting it into paintings as texture. I still felt that acrylic did not have the texture or the body of oil paint so a way of getting something that was not transparent anymore and putting it down, was to use what I was scraping off the surfaces. I kinda liked the round ones from the lids and so I painted on them and tried to peel it off when it dried to use in paintings. Some worked some didn’t. Around this time I took three pieces of glass out of some frames and decided to paint on those to see about making a concerted effort to come up with an image. So two of the three actually worked but not well. I used the time trying to figure out how to get it to adhere, what to do on it (the glass) and trying to understand pressing because I was used to monotypes. I was at the Jersey Shore and I didn’t have a press.
I had gotten to work in acrylics and then I found when I peeled the paint off a glass, I loved the underside of the work,so I started to add that as a texture to the canvas. Then I did some images that were controlled and peeled those off. I started to do this drawing transfer–it’s a total transfer, so it’s great. I can control it! I see everything just the way it’s going to be, remove the clear glass in the transfer process, and it doesn’t depend upon how much the ink has dried, so I have a lot of control. I delighted in the process and learned how to simplify it. I started doing workshops in it.
Harold Garde Do you remember what those first images were? I actually did a chair and when I did the chair I was working with newspaper under the glass. When I put on the gesso to do the transfer it picked up some of the paper around it. I actually liked the look and then had it framed with some of the paper around it. My dealer at the time in Belfast put it in a show and asked why I didn’t do more of them. Working in Maine I had access to a press so there was no sense of urgency. Besides it seemed that the more concerned I was with the image the more chances there were that I would lose the image. Along the way I did manage to make one or two others. But then I went down to the Jersey Shore again with no press and relatively little space. So I said let me use some of this time to make these work better. It wasn’t until the 90’s that I felt I was getting excited results from people and decided to include them in workshops.
Your dry image transfer technique has been recognized as a specific printmaking monotype procedure and placed in the New York Metropolitan Museum Print Library. How did that come about. One of the people I showed how to do it (Strappo) got into a competitive show in Connecticut. She got to the opening late due to traffic but there were still people hanging around. A few wanted to know how she got what she got and she said, “well Strappo”. Their response was “What’s a Strappo?” She didn’t know how many people had picked it up from me at that point. So she started with an explanation and they got into a whole thing for hours on whether or not it was a legitimate monotype or print. Someone in the group knew someone who knew someone I think in the print library. Anyway I then get a notation either from the print library or from her asking to send an explanation which I did. They thanked me and asked if I had a sample of one that I was willing to send them for their record. So I sent them a small chair Strappo.
Development of your signature shape, the kimono is so strong that art historian Gail Scott wrote, “The fact that the kimono shape “appeared,” so to speak, to Harold Garde and evolved into the series is not surprising, since he’s especially attuned to images with human connection.” How have you been able to maintain the strength of this image? The kimono series came out of Strappo. Because in addition to it being a dry transfer, you have all the time in the world you need to work on the piece unlike conventional monotypes. I didn’t want to work on large glass so the idea of doing composites became very, very tempting. I would have a number of pieces (Strappos) around and I found that by taking one bigger one in the middle and putting two smaller ones on the side, I created a very interesting setup for a triptych rather three having to be the same size. And it formed a “T” and then I realized the “T” shape was in the shape of a kimono. The more I thought about the kimono the more I thought of it as the most universal human garment. It (the shape) was also a great surface for art. So it became fun for me to start doing composites and putting them together wherever it felt right to do a “T” shape or kimono shape. I love the surface of painting
A few years back you decided to do a project with Strappos called 90-90-90. What was that about? Yup, heading toward my 90th birthday, I never do this but I decided to make a New Year’s resolution. For some reason I noticed that it would be 90 days after the first of the year that I would have my 90 th birthday.There were two 90’s so I said you know what I’m gonna do,in the next 90 days I am going to do a work a day. At the end of 90 days I’ll stop the counter and see what I got. Turned out to be more then 90. That became a show? Yeah 90-90-90 it became an exhibition at the Harbor Square Gallery in Rockland, Maine. This show and the catalogue were produced under the auspices of Tom O’Donovan, Harbor Square Gallery’s director/ curator. The catalog was designed by Andrew R. Lejoia, my grandson. The strappos in the collection range in size from 5”x7” to 15”x15” and each is mounted on archival rag paper. …the challenge was both a stimulation and a celebration, and allowed me to get up each morning with a great avoidance of all other chores. Producing the art came first; bills, wash ups, answering email traveled out of their usual priority positions. Harold is now 94 and still creates paintings Strappo’s poetry and more. You can see more about him and his work at Haroldgarde.com The artist’s kimono series now numbers into the hundreds, and includes small, single image Strappos, larger composite Strappos, acrylic paintings on both paper and canvas, and a series of ceramic kimonos done in collaboration with ceramist Mark Kuzio.
Barbara McPhail
Born in North Carolina, Barbara McPhail received a BFA in Printmaking and Painting from East Carolina University, and a Masters in Education from Binghamton University. In 1977 she moved to New York City and joined Bob Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop where she learned the moveable shape monotype technique for which she is now known. Although monotype is McPhail’s dominate medium, she also works in colla-
graph, relief, litho, silkscreen and etching. She teaches at The Ink Shop Printmaking Center, Ithaca, NY, St. Joseph School, Penfield, and St. Michael School, Penn Yan. Barbara McPhail’s recent work relates to environmental issues and our natural resources. Her work is in private and public collections, including the Library of Congress. http://outofboundsradioshow.com/shows/barbara-mcphail-visual-artist/ Contact Information
In recent years I have become a hardcore anti-fracking artist. What distinguishes my work is how I can tell the story of the harms and consequences of hydrofracking, while creating a beautiful work of art to view. My work will never be done, as our earth will forever need artists' voices to plead her case. I work primarily as a printmaker in the monotype medium. Educated in traditional print techniques of etching, lithography, and relief, while at Bob Blackburn's Print Shop in NYC, I learned the moveable shape monotype technique, which has become a distinct vehicle of expression for me. Having varied interests has led me to also explore handmade paper, painting, collage, and ceramics; each of which I enjoy immensely. Marked by attention to detail and atmospheric areas of subtlety, my artwork responds to the places that I have lived and traveled, capturing a moment in time, as well as images on a theme that may be more abstract; making a statement, speaking a viewpoint.
Neighborhood Fires
Artist Statement I have experimented with both representational and non-objective ways of using monotype. My work is almost always based on a thematic series using these themes: relating to where I am living (geographically), events in my life, and most recently, environmental issues. I am inspired to challenge myself to make more difficult combinations of techniques with monotype, or to make an image that seems as though itwould be hard to do in moveable shape monotype. I have found that anything can be worked out (so far!). I do a lot of planning and drawing to make the image balanced in proportional and color relationships before making the shapes. I often place a guide under the plexiglass cover of the press bed to insure that I am inking and placing shapes where I have designed them to be. I also sometimes make a print using two plates with different shapes printed on top of each other, which means more planning and a guide under the press plexi. After the print is dry, I sometimes work into it with color pencil or watercolor.
Narrowsburg Bridge and Shadow
Final Jump
As a printmaker/painter in art school, I often worked with shapes, and when I saw this monotype technique, I immediately made it my own. Although I continue to work with traditional relief and etching, monotype is my primary form of expression. My method is: 1) rolling ink onto a plexiglass plate,
2) rolling ink onto shapes made from tagboard, fabric, textured wallpaper, wire, burlap, and a host of other items, 3) placing the inked shapes onto the inked plexi—like an inked collage 4) printing onto dampened paper in an etching press 5) taking shapes off the plexi and re-inking some and re-placing some of the shapes onto the plexi
6) make another print called the ghost print.
The 60’s Decade of Dreams
Where Have I Left My Body
Where Once Was Ice
Infinite Connections
bmcphail.art@gmail.com www.barbaramcphail.com
Nicholas Ruth
I was born and grew up in Philadelphia. I went to Pomona College, where I got a BA in studio art. I had the fantastic opportunity to do an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in between college and getting my MFA at the Meadows School of Art at SMU. From start to finish, I got to study with inspiring artists and educators. Now I live with my wife and children in Rochester, NY, and teach at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY. Contact Information E Mail: nruth@hws.edu Website Nicholashruth.com
I've been making paintings, drawings, and intaglio prints for a while now. In the early 2000's, I became much more interested in color. I decided to explore using color in a much more expressive way, privileging the development of a color structure over drawing and design. Of course, you can't really separate these things, but color was my primary consideration, and I was thinking about the remarkable things that artists like Bonnard, Willy Heeks, Bill Jensen, Mary Heilmann, and Thomas Nozkowski did/do. Somewhere around this time I saw Karen Kunc demonstrate her relief method at a Southern Graphics Council conference, and I was blown away by the richness and luminosity of the color she got in her prints. I decided to start experimenting with aspects of her methods. What I do now developed out of those experiments.
Artist Statement In my work, I spontaneously explore the anxious and funny ways in which we litter our lives with the artifacts of our desires. Our buildings are covered with satellite dishes, extending our reach at the same time that we withdraw to the interior. Pipes, holes, and structures coat a radiant landscape, their presence proof of their necessity. As I make my pictures, it turns out that the landscape is a little bleak. Color expresses the tensions, exuberant and moody. We work away at keeping things running, tinkering with and adjusting our antennae. Our technology is both a prosthetic and an armor, and maybe even a weapon, but fundamentally it is something we put between ourselves and the world, in order to mediate it. This is a strange time, dark and contingent.
I use differing media to suit my needs as they happen. These days, resonant color is important, and so water media and layers of transparent ink are important. I have been spending a lot of time in the print shop. Although printmaking has a reputation for being a very technical way of making art, it is in fact a wonderful field for improvisation. I make monoprints in particular because the technique seems to reward experimentation. I work with drips and smudges, with blended color and varied surfaces. Importantly, this adds to the visual richness I can achieve, and to the surprise and tension I can create between what is depicted and the way it is depicted. With my prints, drawings, and paintings invention leads me to unexpected places, materially, spatially, and therefore expressively.
Above and beyond anything else, I look for an organization of visual forces and humming color, color that seems to glow from within the image, and that feels capable of the wonder and unease I feel in the face of our complicated world. The imagery in my work, while typically not pre-planned, is thematic. I’m drawn to things that can hint at the often sad, funny, and absurd ways we humans try to control the worlds around us and within us.
It's all exciting, but maybe the most exciting of all is the possibility of intense color that seems to glow from inside. This feeling of color feels both deep and thick to me spatially, and I like to play it against the drawn forms in my images.