CrumpArt

Being as classes start up again next week, I think it’s time to show the last part of my printmaking project for first semester.

I started with a bunch of torn up prints from first and second year, as well as torn up offcuts of paper discarded by others. While I do admit that not wanting to buy new supplies was part of the motivation, the remaking of work from existing objects was integral to the ideas involved.

Look, paper! 112 sheets of it! Possibly the hardest two days of the entire twelve weeks. Making paper, especially that much of it on your own, is hard, hard, achy, wet work. But worth it.

The circle has always been present in my work, even when I don’t intend it to be. Right now I’m very interested in learning about whirlpool galaxies and black holes in space… it’s not where this work ended up, but the circles certainly made themselves apparent along the way, and it’s something I’ll definitely be exploring more next semester.

In the picture above, you can see the paper is looking a little different… I photographed 224 pages from different books covering topics including science, space, religion, belief, fairytales, creation myths and philosophy, then transferred those images onto both sides of each piece of paper before adding some Rorschach-y type watercolour blots to the mix.

I then printed on both sides of each sheep of paper in the same shades of red, green and blue. The basic idea was to create an overload of information — representing all the parts that go into making something (or all the opposing viewpoints on the same topic), but that cannot necessarily be understood because there’s just too much to take in all at once. One half of the paper was printing using etching and lithographic methods, and the other half was printed using relief techniques. All of the plates printed were recycled from previous work that explored the same issues (bar the lithographic image of course, because when you grind down a stone, the image you made doesn’t exist anymore — I recreated the spiderweb image that I printed last year for that part).

And then, in a return to the beginning of the project, I tore all the bits of paper up again.

It was quite amazing to watch the imagery transform as I wove all the strips of paper back together.

I wove five large sheets of paper (paper? fabric? I don’t know what to call it at this point) from that lot, and still had some to spare for the exchange portfolio pieces I’m working on at the moment. Here’s one of the sheets hanging from my loom. Did I mention I bought a loom? It’s a tapestry loom that came from eBay at the start of the semester. Came in very, very handy for the display of my work.

Of course, the work still wasn’t finished yet. My objective at the beginning of the semester was to make work that referenced imagery specific to ambiguity… if that makes no sense, think of things like the Rorschach inkblots, or clouds, or tangrams. Things that are specifically something, but can become something else depending on the configuration or interpretation.

The plan after the weaving happened was to print a lithographic wash images over all the coloured imagery with a slightly transparent white ink, then stencil out the Rorschach blot shapes and print over it again in blue.

But the printing didn’t work out so well.

The woven paper didn’t like being printed that way at all. It kept sticking badly to the stone, I couldn’t lift it properly, and I admit that I was kind of worried about the rattling effect the different paper levels were having on the press. So I had to come up with a different execution.

Turns out that oil paint is fun. You can paint it on and wipe it back so that whatever is underneath is still visible. I was also able to get a much better ‘cloud’ effect than I would have gotten if I’d done it in any other way. Each piece is double-sided so that the each of the ten ‘official’ Rorschach inkblots is represented, which made for difficulty in the presentation. Our ceilings in the printmaking studios are very high, and it’s not easy to suspend work from them (unless you’re using the stage, which was being used for something else), so that was out. I also liked the idea of an outside/inside/viewing the same thing from different positions and seeing something you wouldn’t otherwise thing. So.

It’s still hanging at the moment, so if you’re anywhere near Franklin St and Swanston St in Melbourne, look up.

If you want to check out the rest of the photos from this project, they’re all in this here Flickr set along with a snippet from my initial proposal.

Soon I’ll post images of the aforementioned swap portfolio that I’ve been working on over the holidays along with a possible angry rant on something that may or may not have happened, but that definitely should not have… Stay tuned!