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Pulling the Print |
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Making Paper Choices |
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A Washington Printmakers Gallery Lecture/Demonstration and Brown Bag Lunch Rembrandt, in his restless experimentation with his etched images, printed on a wide range of western and oriental papers. He seemed to find Japanese paper particularly suitable for drypoint and also resorted to Japanese papers (which are rarely stark white) to reduce the contrast between the paper and the black of his ink. Whistler, working three centuries later, was also partial to oriental paper for drypoint. In addition, he prized antique paper, which he obtained by buying up old books and using the end papers for printing. Clearly, printmakers have a special relationship with their paper. While most of us are content to shop at the local office superstore for the cheapest paper which works in our printers, printmakers linger lovingly over texture, color, pliability, permanence, and that most important of qualities, the way the paper "takes" their ink. Not long ago, a group of contemporary printmakers gathered at Washington Printmakers Gallery to discuss their paper choices. They were participants in the gallery’s Thursday lecture series: The Printmakers Art – Lecture and Brown Bag Lunch.
On this particular Thursday, five printmakers and Washington Printmakers Gallery former director, Pamela Hoyle, shared their enthusiasm for paper. Hoyle opened with a brief history of papermaking, an art invented in China in the year 105 AD by Ts’ai Lun and kept a closely guarded secret for centuries. Papermaking had nevertheless reached Japanese by the 7th century, and by the 11the century the secret had spread, by means of conquest and caravan routes, through the Arab world to Spain. The subsequent spread of papermaking throughout western Europe facilitated the development of the print as an art form. It also made possible the revolution in communications to which we are heirs every time we buy a book or stand in line to buy those cheap reams of paper for our home and office computers.
After Hoyle’s introduction, five printmakers passed around samples of their papers, discussing the reasons for their choice of a particular surface. Jenny Freestone displayed her etched copper plate for Long Branch, Winter along with examples of that etching printed on various papers. Describing the image itself as "very sparse and bare," Freestone showed how the image was transformed when printed on variously colored handmade Asian tissue paper. When using Asian papers, Freestone typically prints the image onto the tissue while at the same time adhering that tissue to a heavier sheet of western paper, a process called chine collé. Martha Oatway also employed chine collé in her monotype, #12 from her Forest Series. In this print, the top layer (on which the ink was printed) is Natural Mulberry, a Japanese paper in which flecks of mulberry are visible; BFK Rives is the lower, supporting layer of paper. BFK Rives, made in France, is the workhorse of many American print studios. Oatway, like many other printmakers, values the paper for its ability to stand up under multiple passes through the etching press. Terry Svat demonstrated how her print, Portals of Venice, exploits many possible combinations of ink and paper. In this print, where a single linocut image is repeated over and over, she took great care to match ink to paper. She found that metallic inks, for instance, adhere particularly well to Arches Cover Black, the dark of the paper providing a mysterious background for the shimmering ink. For other repetitions of the linocut she used Arches Cover White, and for still others she employed Chiri Light Speckle, a delicate paper on which the ink becomes nearly transparent. While Svat printed these images beside and beneath one another in a richly textured grid, Pauline Jakobsberg, in Changing Tides, layered her papers on top of one another. Using a non-acid etching process, she printed an antique photo of a woman’s face on the uppermost surface. For this layer she chose Kochi, a textured paper whose worn and frayed surface seemed appropriate for the faded image. For her bottom layer Jakobsberg used Okawara, treating it with varnish until it was almost transparent. Between the Okawara and Kochi, the artist sandwiched a layer of hand-made paper, which she created out of fragments of earlier prints; bits and pieces of the recycled images are still discernable in places. Jakobsberg spoke of the ways that her layering of image and papers acts as a metaphor for the family legacies which are her subject. Margaret Adams Parker described her use of paper as "more direct." She favors Sekishu, one of the oldest Japanese print papers, for her woodcuts. The thin paper has a delicate silken sheen but is tough enough to stand up to the uneven and sometimes intense pressure that she exerts in hand printing. (These same characteristics make Sekishu a paper of choice among book and paper conservators.) The process of printing also renders the paper semi-transparent, allowing Parker to monitor the progress of the printing from the back of the paper. And the paper is pliable enough to adhere firmly to the inked block, allowing her to lift the paper a section at a time and re-ink the block. In this way, she is able to achieve the intense blacks in an image such as Käthe Kollwitz. This noontime discussion of paper coincided with a gallery exhibition that was mounted in honor of long-time paper supplier Guy Kuhn. For over 25 years, Guy has delivered fine art papers to area artists and institutions. During those years he has not only made a wide range of beautiful western and Japanese papers easily available, he has also readily shared his knowledge about paper and printmaking. Gallery member Lee Newman compares Kuhn’s influence to that of Père Tanguy, paint supplier to the French impressionists. Judith Kahn notes appreciatively that Guy Kuhn has been one of the few constants in her life as an artist.
As part of this tribute, many gallery artists wrote descriptions of their paper to hang besides their prints, some of them adding a special appreciation for Kuhn. Not surprisingly, BFK Rives was the paper of choice. Judith Kahn and Yolanda Frederikse employed the paper for lithography and Nina Muys for collagravure; Nuong Van-Dinh Tran commented on its suitability for monotype; and Deron deCesare noted how the soft surface of the paper is particularly suited to pick up the details and soft velvety black of his drypoints. (One wonders what use Rembrandt and Whistler might have made of this paper.)
French-made Arches Cover, another standard in the print studio, was also a favorite. Both Barbara Bickley Stephens and Carolyn Pomponio pointed out how the paper is receptive to multiple layers of transparent ink, and Bickley Stephens remarked on the way she is able to manipulate and emboss the surface. Marian Osher, printing on Arches Black, was pleased with the way the texture of the paper receives her Caran d'Ache crayon transfer.
The paper show is no longer on exhibition at Washington Printmakers Gallery, but a paper display from the show remains on view. 3 by 5-inch sections of actual prints are mounted on a board for visitors to touch. Beneath each rectangle is a text where the artist describes the paper used for the print. Non-printmakers may never feel this same connection to their paper, but those who saw this show may perhaps think twice about paper the next time they make a purchase at the office supply store. They might also keep in mind the opportunity, offered at noon on the 2nd Thursday of each month, to learn first hand about the craft of fine printmaking. |
