Etchings

Following up on the etching theme; I thought I would post some of the etchings I did many years ago. These hand pulled original prints were pulled from zinc plates that were etched with nitric acid and then inked a la poupee (with little wads of fabric), relief (with big rubber or gelatin rollers) and intaglio (ink wiped deeply into the incisions). The plates were in many cases cut apart with a jeweller's saw and re-assembled on the press like jigsaw puzzles after the individual pieces were inked. All of the inks I used were oil based so that all the plates had to be cleaned with paint thinner. It was a stinky, yucky mess and I had black ink under my fingernails for about 12 years. Yuk!!

I printed on many kinds of paper but mostly on Murillo which is an ivory colored paper that took embossment very well. You can see the paper pillowing up around the plates which were quite thick. The paper had to be soaked for about half an hour and printed on while damp.

I think the script on the plate above is called Carolingian (my calligraphy memory is rusty) and in latin reads: "Everything that lives is holy." I looked at wrought iron gates for the embossed white-line imagery. I've always loved the flowing lines and grew up in a place where I saw a lot of it. The imagery was transferred to the plates by a photographic method that involved Photo Resist, exposing the plates to a bright light for a certain amount of time, washing it out in a chemical and then cleaning the plate before multiple acid baths to add aquatint and deep embossment. Are you snoring yet?

Cicada Song was the follow up to Chrysanthemum Page. (Those were the titles of the two prints directly above.) On this page I wrote in Persian the same quote as above and in addition it says, "Every Creature Loves It's Life". I found an Iranian student at PSU who did the translation for me. That was before the days of Babelfish.

I am doing some painting for a commission and ramping up a bit for the season but not very ambitious yet. Today it hailed outside for about 20 minutes so I put my brush down and stood outside to marvel in the sounds and sight of the weather. It was cold, noisy, and enchanting. There is something I do love about dramatic weather.

See you again in awhile.


As an afterthought I decided to add this close-up so you could see more of the detail in the etching. Click on the image to see it up close.

Studio Visit

For 12 years I worked solely making etchings and selling them at art fairs and to galleries. My first love of making art is inseparable from my love of etchings and I am lucky to have a connection to that world through my friend Gene Flores. The beautiful press pictured above belongs to Gene and on Saturday John and I visited his new studio where we christened the new space with good mojo and wine toasts.

This photograph shows a copper plate etched with the drawing Gene put on it and on the right is a print pulled from the plate. It is a very old and laborious technique that is challenging and when done well, thrilling to admire. Gene does it well.

I love this funky corner of his new studio where he has drawn a huge music speaker into service as a table leg. Typical. You gotta have the music and you gotta have a table leg.

Gene is pulling prints out to share with us from the stacks that he has produced over the last 15 years or so. He is tremendously prolific in spite of his teaching schedule at Portland Community College and his responsibilities as the Gallery Director there.

This is a shot of a great idea for storage and framing. He has stapled carpet onto the walls and floor area of cubbyholes that hold his framed work. Above that is a platform that is covered with the same carpeting where he frames the pictures, washes glass, etc. Very efficient.

This shot shows the same storage area from a different angle. It is roughly in the center of the picture. To the left is vertical storage where he keeps booth standards and hand carts, etc. The studio is located in a building with easy access to his vehicle so that loading up for art fairs will be easy to do. Our cherished friend Joan is on the left side of the picture and she helps Gene at the fairs just as John helps me. I could not do it without my side kick and I'll bet Gene would say the same about the help he gets from Joan.

This archaic piece of machinery is a guillotine that is used for cutting heavy slabs of metal. It is heavier than it looks and a good friend to the printmaker. I used to sneak into the metal department at the School of Arts and Crafts to use their guillotine; the head of the department would look daggers at me for the liability I represented. Few printmakers are lucky enough to have their own metal shear.

Following the studio tour we shared a magnificent meal that Gene spent the day preparing; Chili Colorado, Chili Verde, refried beans, spanish rice, green salad, tortillas, homemade apple empanadas and homemade ice cream. Cooked entirely by Gene; is that not awesome? One other time he cooked for us he followed up another memorable meal with Tres Leches Cake (my favorite) which is a real production to create. I bow down to the genius of the good cook. It is the most useful of all the arts (sez me).

Sorry I didn't get good pictures of the main dishes. Here are the tortillas and the dessert. Mmmmmm, perfection.

It is New Year's Day today and I am tying up loose ends in preparation for a return to the studio. If past experience serves me, it will be a slow re-entry after nearly 2 weeks excess. I didn't make resolutions this year but instead wrote down words to consider. I will share them with you.

• Fearless Exploration
• Confident Re-Invention
• Utilize Your Time Wisely
• Greet Change
• Respect Strangers
• Help Everyone

I guess in a way they are resolutions; to keep pushing beyond old boundaries and to utilize my hours well. To keep improving. To reach out to others so that we can all be our best together. To recognize that if each of us uses our energies for good changes in the world, the entire world will change. And even if the world does not change, that the world we experience changes when we become porous and loving.

Themes and Symbols

One of my art teachers once said that there were only a few themes in art and life; birth, death, metamorphosis, love and a few others that I’ve forgotten. Some artists are drawn to one particular theme and some to another; by deep awareness we each discover the themes that to us are recurring and meaningful.

I dream a lot at night. In a majority of these dreams I am flying, dancing on air, leaping over buildings, having great joy in my body. Floating. Traveling. I am always me; never a bird or Wonder Woman, but I can always fly and while it is thrilling and dangerous I have trust that I will not fall. So it is an act of courage, this flying as well as an act of showing off, for in most of these dreams I think I am doing something special and that people are watching with approval. I suppose that is the child in me that still delights in pleasing others and basking in the limelight.

One of the recurring themes in my paintings is of a lone woman in the act of flight. I have portrayed this activity in various ways. The painting I just finished is one of these in which I am traveling with intention; I have my little boat and I am charting a course for myself by watching for signs and heeding my intuition. This is how I see my life nowadays. I am wide awake and charting a course of my own choosing. I am no longer young and confused.


This painting is on canvas, mixed-media; acrylic, alkyd, encaustic, and collage. After I finished it I remembered an etching I did of a similar subject about 27 years ago. I searched my drawers and found the etching (a drypoint, really, with aquatint etched in) and I will share it. Someone recently called my "style" magic realism. I dont like labels in art as each painting is so individual an exploration, but I think this one is suitable because it recalls one of my favorite authors, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who has always been referred to as a magic realist. The etching now strikes me as the work of a very young artist but I think it is interesting how it fortells the painting I just completed.

I think I may have done this etching in 1977 or 78 and it was only the second one I'd done at that time. I wanted to write a story then of a woman who danced into a rainbow and create a handmade book of etchings to illustrate the story but I never got beyond the first two illustrations. After that I learned how to make etchings in color with multiple plates and turned to a more painterly style.

To sum up: life themes. What is your recurring dream? Or daydream. What do you doodle while you talk on the phone? Where does your mind go while you are pulling weeds or washing dishes? These are the seeds that your imagination can turn into art, be it storytelling, song or pictoral. Save them up and nurture them. You have a story that only you can tell. It is a powerful thing and it will change you and the world.