Mezzotint Artist's Diary

The artist provides the vision and imagery of the living print, laboring after the compelling image.

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"Welcome to the Cyanotype Cafe," she said, beaming, a mischevious smile. I was speechless. "C'mon," she urged, "What'll it be?"
All I could think to say was, "Uh, well, what's the regular?"
"Fresh-mixed solution in a pen. Here," she said, handing me a fat pen that resembled a fountain-pen, "would you like to try?" She waved me over to the side and then said, "Did you bring a card?"
"No," I said.
"You can get cards, paper, whatever you like, right over there." On my left was a row of automatic dispensers for telecards, postcards and pre-stamped stationary. All Water-resistant for cyanotype they claimed. I chose a postcard machine and inserted my EarthSafe Affinity SmartCard and in a moment my card dropped into a holder at the bottom. At a little triangle-shaped table in the corner I sipped fruit juice and drew on the card.
I noticed that when the cyanotype drawing ink came out, it was the color of papaya, then it slowly turned green and finally an ashen-blue as the sun's warm light played over it. I don't remember how long I was there, but I recall thinking of new ideas as I drew and wrote a few lines to a friend in Portugal. Then I went to the water wash as I had seen others do. And I waited.

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When she came through the door she didn't look at me. As usual. She always looked first at what I was doing--my hands or whatever was laying around the studio that I was using. Her face showed surprised then she brightened. "Lead foil tape," she said. "I haven't seen that since the Multicom days," and she came over. "Care if I look?" I said no, I didn't mind.

I had cut a profile of the hand-shape from mylar and registered it to the back. I put a half-inch strip from the roll of tape, one length at a time to fill in the dog-shape. She watched awhile. Then she said, "I bet they don't even make that stuff any more. That's a roll from that batch Stephen bought, isn't it?" I said yes. "It belongs in a museum," she said, "be sure to wash the lead off your hands before you eat.”

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What the publisher proposed to me that day was disturbing on one hand but exciting on the other. It seems he's impatient for me to settle on which print to edition--to publish the way publishers are used to it. Then he told me he anticipated a shortfall in his available capital that might last almost to tax-time next year. Unless the holidays held some surprises.

I hate when people rely on the winter holidays to liven the art market. Anyway then he hit me with this weird proposal. He had another guy on line and he said he--a Canadian--would be interested in just two of the prints. He was going on what he'd seen in Living Prints On-line and he liked them. Well enough, the publisher said, to buy two. Sight-unseen, in a sense.

I guess he meant he would trust me to decide which two. He also said he didn't want them to appear on-line until he had them in his hands. He also wanted a 75% return of his money if he wanted to send them back, and he was willing to limit that to 30 days. A weird idea, and it scares me and interests me at the same time. Then we got into some what-if’s and why-for’s and I got lost.

Then the publisher asked me if I'd be willing to print the two myself. Dang--I was afraid it would come back to this! Some holiday! But then, I suppose the printer isn't keen on gettng up to speed again on her holiday, either.

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What I learned was that an artwork is like a computer program--it has functionality, and it is a work on different levels and it is appreciated on different levels. It cannot be created by one person; like a computer program, it may seem like it could--in the mind of the visionary--but it cannot. Just as it must be experienced in many places, many times, it must be a shared work by many people doing many things that bring it about in those many places and times. I was lucky to go to Perfect Press and be able to work on four on the cutting edge.

But I couldn't keep it up for more than two weeks! I've lost two pounds, and by the end I was so fatigued I could barely drag myself out of bed in the morning, I was so tired. And that was without any partying or late-night socializing! Dang!

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When the curator burst through the door and saw me sweeping the floor she was taken aback, I think. "Well," she said, "Got you cleaning up on your last day?" and she smiled warmly--something she hardly ever did. "I'm glad you're here. There are some questions I need to ask--about the trial proofs, I mean."

I said, "Sure," and, I leaned the broom against a wall. We went over to the proofs. Some were still under the stretching pads, which left blank spaces in the wall where I liked to see them all together as--to my mind--a huge, wall-sized sheet of stamps.

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When I told the printer I wanted to print all blue, she wrinkled her nose and looked away. Then she looked back at me and said, disbelieving, "All blue?" I nodded.

"You said it would be black. Are you sure you don't want to just mix in some blue?"

"We can do that on number 18," I told her. She was right to wonder at the change. And why blue? Was it because I'm sad about Fred? With a small sigh to let me know she was not real thrilled about this change, but she went over to the inking counter and started opening a can.

"Prussian Blue, right?" she asked me, her eyes softened and her questioning tone changed to confirmation. "Por supuesto," I answered, "that's just like the cyanotypes, si?"

"Claro," she said, and smiled at me her Etruscan smile.

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I don't understand how it happened! How could my diary have been overwritten? I hate when this happens! She's supposed to print the last six proofs today and tomorrow. She won't like it if I interrupt her schedule. Already she's pouting because she had to prepare six more sheets of cyanotype papers, and I think she's getting wise to the fact the blue prints probably won't be published.

She puts everything down in her B.O.S.S.. If she has enough notes--and hasn't already erased them--maybe I can reconstruct what happened over the last week and put my diary back in order.

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What he wanted to talk about at lunch was the manner of which he wanted to "style" (as he called it) the presentation. He said the prints would all be framed. I was staggered at the prices he was thinking of. I knew the frames alone would run three-thousand.

"No reasonable offer will be refused," he had said. Suppose people offered less than the frames' value? I was worried, but he said this was a go-for-broke situation. But he was sure that would not be the result. "If that IS the way it is today we're going to get out of art, that's what!" he said as we left the restaurant.

NOTE: Sometime between June 10 and July 6, the artist accidentally over-wrote his diary, and all his notes were lost. He never printed them or backed them up. The Web was his only copy.

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It took numerous tries to get the composition the way I wanted it. I scanned the Ektagraphic version to create a digital version, and then pushed the images here and there, squeezed, stretched, used the digital painting tools to brush and soften, mirror, flip--and so on and so forth.

Then I laser-printed a 9-by-12, thinking to use the full size of the copper plate. It seemed too huge, so again I squeezed, stretched and rearranged the composition until I felt like it was the right size. Then I just stared at it for a long time.

After cleaning off the residues of oxide and litho crayon from the plate, I was ready to glue the print on the copper and begin stippling."

Before the project, the artist wrote:

960608: "The idea of making a mezzotint on-line has been with me for a long time. I decided one day to stop thinking about it and just do it! I realized I had let technicalities hold me up--those old traps: For one thing, I didn't have a mezzotint rocker, and I didn't have a NEW copper plate. Plus, I had no press on which to print. These are mere technicalities.

"Thanks to Davidson Galleries, I decided to forge ahead, focusing on my desire to make a mezzotint despite the inadequacies of my studio. I happened to have a plate on which I had started another project. For a rocker, I substituted an electric Dremel engraving tool (the kind hardware stores sell). I know of several intaglio printing studios in Seattle where I can make arrangements later, when the time comes to pull trial proofs.

"So, here we go! Having written this I began the drawing and composition. To read more of my story, and those of the others', select them from below.

	Curator's Log	The curator is seldom seen but is always seeing to it that the living prints' records are correct and rules followed.
	Printer's Notes	The printer performs many tasks to keep prints alive, crafting and designing solutions to problems the artist, curator and publisher propose.
	Publisher's Journal	The publisher produces the bases for living prints by supporting all the players and keeping communications clear and on course.
	Professor's Papers	The professor explains the living print, the history of printmaking, and keeps the academic community informed.

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