GROUP PORTFOLIO PROJECT

Today we will be discussing a theme-based portfolio project during class.  I have brought in such a portfolio that was developed by Professor Debra Fisher from SUNY Brockport a couple of years ago. The theme was "Walking on Water".  She invited 29 printmakers to respond to that theme and to create an edition of 40 impressions.  Many of you have seen my contribution to the portfolio, but I'll also include it here.  My thinking about walking on water was that in order to do so, I had to get out of the boat.  The print is entitled, Disembark.

So after a show/tell of the Walking on Water portfolio, several theme ideas were put up for consideration: tension, non-portraits, animals, movement, thin-air, music, interpersonal relationships, explosive, personality, and childhood.  The nominating process is now closed, and the theme idea that gets the most votes will be our theme for this exchange portfolio.

Paper size was established at 11" x 14", no minimum image size was set.

Edition size will be 13.  Intaglio or Relief

There are a some interesting possibilities for imagery and processing.  You can vote here so we can all keep track of the tally.  All votes cast by 1:30 on Wednesday.  I'll vote in the case of a tie.

UPDATE:  Tension, act of stretching or straining; state of being stretched or strained; mental or emotional strain; strong intellectual effort; intense suppressed excitement; a strained state of mutual relations; pressure; a state in which a body is stretched or increased in size in one direction with a decrease in size in a certain ratio in a perpendicular direction; a force tending to elongate a body; the condition of a dielectric body when its opposite surfaces are oppositely electrified; potential; a device for stretching or pulling something; a device to hold the proper tension on the material being woven in a loom.

The potentials of this theme are enormous, especially since it defines so effectively the act of printmaking: act of stretching or straining (intaglio and silkscreen); mental or emotional strain (printmaking in general); strong intellectual effort (printmaking in general); intense suppressed excitement (printmaking in general); a strained state of mutual relations (printmaking in general); Pressure......printmaking, printmaking, printmaking.

Printmaking is my medium, my tension.  It holds me captive through its sensual presence and quality, both of which are incomparable: metal plates abraded and etched with marks and textures; inks adjusted for rubbing into and/or rolling onto the matricies; dampened paper to accommodate the subtlest nuances of the relationship between the matrix and the inks once significant pressure is applied.  I love the rituals of moving throughout the printshop to various locations of processing, and the sounds of the press as I turn the wheel to pull an impression.  I love the physicality of printmaking.  It's animated, tactile, fragrant, and real.  It's abundant with the most rewarding of tensions.

So we'll look at some of those possibilities on Monday, your potentials.  Until then, I hope you'll stop by to see my new work on Sunday at Galerie Hertz.  A new body of work: landscapes.  In hindsight, they are my home, my childhood, many of my life-changing experiences.  They represent for me safety and danger at the same time.  They are dense, textured, and magical. Cynthia, my wife, told me this evening that they were about those parts of me that she didn't know because they were parts of me that I didn't tell her, but that she knew nonetheless.