a more recent process
02.22.12 Saranac Lake (written for A breath of contemporary! show): My plate is the styrofoam tray, a dying species, produced in different factories who knows where. It is slowly being replaced by biodegradeable ones in supermarkets across the continent. This is so, so good. But they are my canvas. The surface textures of styrofoam fascinate me. The saturated richness of the print of the ink colors comes from the density of the tiny cells. I am stashing, knowing I will need a new printing media. There is always clay. But I am always on the lookout for another media to recycle into prints.
Each original consists of twelve prints and one word image mounted, with magnets, to a 60 x 40 piece of foamboard. The twelve prints, 3 to each 9 x 15 sheet of rice paper, hang one above the other as four sheets. To the right of the twelve prints is the word image. Particularly for this body of work, I strive for originals in which all elements tap the same well of time. The prints are paired with the word image that was created only hours, at the most, days, from each other. The styrofoam was also purchased during the same week. The 12 prints themselves are done within an hour, two at the most.
For this body of work, I found naming my prints after the original produce the most freeing. I cannot name my prints by what I see in them. Other people see other things, sometimes they see different things at different times. I want you to see unhindered by what I see.
The Richmond Hill, GA late Dec., 2011 is made from found objects found walking on Dec. 19. Then comes Cornish Hens and Smoked Pork Hocks named after the original supermarket produce and Black, blue indigo sky and Fire I. Richmond Hill, GA; Cornish Hens, Smoked Pork Hocks and Fire I are created from the same colors; blue, yellow and red, yet they are so different. Each color is rolled only once, at the most twice, across the plate. The plate is reinked each time a print is made, building layer upon layer on the plate.
(In December, 2011 I started writing word images that I pair with prints). Interactive performance became part of my art last month (Feb. , 2012). I presented the same week at open mic that I made the original. (In December, 2011 I started writing word images that I pair with prints). I read my word image to the audience and then the audience reads it with me. The prints are on display during my performance. So much fun.
making a print
I walk almost everyday, wherever I am. I collect rusted, flattened fragments of metal, and sometimes, plastic.
I press these found objects into a styrofoam tray – those trays of meat, vegetables and fruits we find at our supermarkets. And then I ink the plates and press them into paper.
I try to use only the objects found on the day that I create the plate/s to make prints. But my collection of curved and jagged twisted pieces does grow.
This morning I found the (lst photo) two round ones and I had found the long one two days ago. I hammered them into the styrofoam so an impression would be made of each; first the round brown one, which is plastic strangely enough, ended up on top (like a moon – very faint impression because it’s soft plastic), then the round white one with two jagged pieces – hard plastic – better impression – at the bottom of the plate, and finally the long rusted piece, hammered three times into three vertical lines. Voila my plate (2nd image) is ready to go.
