Recarved the paschimottanasana plate. Printed over impressions from the tile pattern I carved a few weeks ago. The problem with projects like this is that once I start, it’s hard to stop. Not a bad problem to have.
I’m hooked on carving these plates now. I was just reading somewhere that linocut prints are looked down upon in the printmaking world. It was on the MOMA website:
“Prejudice grew up against linoleum block printing, as suitable only for children, amateurs and the uncultured. The linocut’s popularity also fell with the rise of commercial collaboration between printmaker and publisher, which encouraged more technically complex media.” -M. B. Cohn, From Grove Art Online
While that’s interesting, don’t overestimate its importance. Medium doesn’t matter at all per se, it’s what you do with it. Louise Hamlin told me she knew an artist who made potato prints that were as good as anything she’d ever seen.
Potato prints!
Whatever, I don’t have a press and this is what speaks to me right now. Who knows where any of it is going?
I was thinking today about what feeds this process, what elements might add to it. I keep thinking about the detritus of modern civilization, but it seems so contrived. I don’t want to make the pictorial equivalent of mass market fiction, but I don’t want to be edgy, abstract, or conceptual just because…
There has to be a reason, a point. The work has to bubble up from within. It needs to happen because it’s necessary, the inevitable result of…
Nevermind. Just get back to work.
Deborah Santoro 