Woodcut Artist's Diary

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

9901041205

I've been almost petrified for the past hour--afraid to go ahead, and afraid not to.
I've been going through a folder of paper scraps. Long, narrow strips of Japanese handmade papers, thin as anything. I envision these laminated together to make heavier papers for my Baren List portoflio prints.
In the past I would merely have made the drive to the art supply store, bought ten sheets of paper and proceeded to print. Why not now?
It's not interesting. It's like watching an old movie for the hundredth time. I'd rather do almost anything else than repeat this no-win proposition. My habits are too deeply ingrained.

9809291850

"Wish you were in a print studio instead of here?" she asked, watching me as I cut into my pancake.
"No, I was just thinking--looking at these people--I can imagine them wearing printers' aprons, all inky and the air stinky with lithotine. I can imagine that one--up there at the computer controls--with a leather roller held straight up. I rather like being here." She looked up at the mezzanine level at the woman who was using the three display screens.
Then I froze. I stared at my plate, at the piece of pancake I was just about to eat. It hit me--the perfect element I had been looking for for my Baren-List Portfolio print!"
"What are you doing?" she asked, as I carefully slid the piece onto a napkin. "What's wrong?"
"Never mind. It's okay," I replied, still imagining the effect of the brown arch and large flowery shapes against the yellows and browns of the first block I already had cut in pine.
"No, tell me. I won't be able to eat my breakfast if you don't tell me what you found in that--" she said, pointing with her fork, "--that piece. What's wrong?"
"There's nothing wrong with it, really. I'll tell you later, I promise." We both began to laugh. The people next to us looked our way. "Crazy Americans," I heard one say. I could hardly wait to scan it in.

(The artist's first impression of his pancake design)

9809281622

All day I'd been avoiding him--the Publisher. I went once to the Web site of the IFPDA just to be sure he wasn't hanging around. Then I pulled the push pins out of the color photo they made over Emeralda Region I got from the LandSat folks, put it on my scanner and made a file. I hope this works!

9707250629

"Now," the curator said, opening to doors to her slide cabinets, "This is where the moments really come in handy!" I was amazed to see half the cabinet was actually a light table--a glass-top affair with balanced fluorescent lights under ground glass. All over the top, in neat squares that looked like a map of city blocks were slides of my prints. There were two of each one.
"There are two shots," she said, as if reading my mind. One is for your archive, the other is for duplicating." Then she returned to the moment subject, and resumed her enthusiastic tone. She reminded me of that bird-watcher we saw on TV whose excitement over birds was infectious, even over the television.
"Your last moment's number is given to a slide. It doesn't matter if it's the print's final moment--I just use the last one 'cause it's convenient." She explained that, later, any search for moments of that number, or within range of that number, would narrow any search.
Then she surprised me with the time zones: the PDT meant that only artists' moments--their Living Prints--were likely to come near each other. "Proximity then becomes everything," she said. I remember she said that, and I thought I understood. Now, I'm not sure what she was talking about.

9705151307

Confucius told me, while we had lunch in a small square just outside the doors of the Intiman, "Great wise people are the most perfect models of the five virtues that man must practice towards others. The compass and the angle bracket are used for tracing circles and perfect squares."
I wondered, much later when it became apparent that calendars and similar timepieces measured something apart from circles and squares, if the advice would be the same. I appreciated what he said. He went on to say the five virtues were on the good side of the only two ways to conduct oneself--virtue and vice. Then I wondered if there was a way between virtue and reality that equated being between the two ways. "Absolutely," he smiled. Then, our lunch over, I returned to my cell.

9704301045

"Was your father an artist?"
"No."
"A teacher?"
"In a way. He was a farmer. He taught responsibility to natural law, you could say."
"A farmer?"
"Yes. So was his father. Grandpa and grandma had a flower farm." She was quiet. "Now my father's a craftsman and designer, like me."
"Why didn't you farm?"
"The endeavor was getting to be businesslike. It became tied to technology and government. My dad was spending a lot of time on non-farm work. We learned a lot, but we argued a lot, too. I came hate farming. I felt farmers were losers in some kind of war they didn't start. You felt like a victim, not a steward of the earth's offerings. Your labor became worth less. I loved art. I was encouraged by teachers to be an artist, to teach."
"A true believer, I bet."
"One of the most," I added.
"Where'd the art come from?"
"What art?" I asked, forgetting for a second what it meant. "Oh, I got 'A's in art all the time in school. When people asked me where I learned how to draw, I'd always say, 'From my mother. Her mother--Grandma Naomie--and her mother, Jennie Davis. Her painting Redwing hung in our house for as long as I can recall."
"So instead of inheriting the farm, you inherited--what is it you call it--'HSIC'?"
"That's right. 'Human Structural Intellectual Capital.'" Man, I love the games she plays--the games THEY play.

Printer's Notes
The printer performs many tasks to keep prints alive,
crafting and designing solutions to problems
the artist, curator and publisher propose.

Curator's Log
The curator is seldom seen but is
always seeing to it that the living prints'
records are correct and rules followed.

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.

	Printer's Notes	The printer performs many tasks to keep prints alive, crafting and designing solutions to problems the artist, curator and publisher propose.
	Curator's Log	The curator is seldom seen but is always seeing to it that the living prints' records are correct and rules followed.
	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.