At the end of the Spring semester 2007 I was awarded an Undergraduate Research Grant to study Printmaking in South Africa. Part of the proposal was that I would study techniques used there and incorporate these new techniques into my existing vocabulary. In the Community Art Centers people off the street with no formal training are taught printmaking techniques as a way to give them skills in order to earn a living. Since they are very poor, they are not able to afford the expensive materials we are used to in this country. Often times their print matrix is composed from found materials. Their prints are very simple in construction and composition, but exhibit an amazingly strong presence. As a result for the Fall 2008 semester I simplified my own printmaking techniques in an attempt to get the same qualities so brilliantly achieved in the South African Art Community Centers.
This series deals with social issues, primarily global warming. The first print, which is also the simplest in technique is a salute to the the black artists who suffered through Apartheid, and is appropriately titled "Apartheid." The others in order are titled "Over Population," "Melting Polar Caps," and "Chemical Pollution."

Again this semester in printmaking, I am working off from the same set of plates the entire semester, continually trying to explore new possibilities offered by the image. These were pulled after the first trip through the acid baths with no aquatint applied yet. There are three plates, and the chine colle is applied at varying places in the plate printing order. I managed to get this image accepted into the All Student Juried Art Exhibition which gave that little pat on the back we all need now and then.

The study of 3D in Foundations II has been hugely enjoyable to me. It is quite a change after working in 2D for so long. The semester started out with lots of reading, and watching of videos. Finally we have gotten to the point where we are working on projects. This was the first one, and the goal was to take a 3D object, reduce it to 2D, and then return it to 3D. We took a photographic slide of an object, in this case a 52 Chevy pickup. We then projected the image onto paper mounted on a wall and traced the lines. We then took foam core and built a relief model from the drawing. A real brain twister, but hugely fun.

At the end of this past semester I had the opportunity to participate in the "Pele Iron Pour" put on by Cam Choy, head of the sculpture department. These things are way too much fun. Lots of energy, excitement with the preparation of the molds, and tension with the presence of molten iron. We all divided up into four person teams and tooks turns getting a heavy bucketfull of molten iron from the blast furnace, and trying to hit the little bitty pouring hole in the mold. Some teams seemed to have put more on the ground than in the mold. That created immediate excitement as there was a scurry to throw dirt on top of the molten iron so as not to cause injury. I kept myself busy taking pictures (ugh, with a digital camera) and joined them into this collage. If you click on the image you should get a larger version which will allow a better look.

What I posted on these intaglio prints earlier were exploratory monotypes where I was trying to figure out how to do them. These prints are the intaglio version which are much richer and more interesting. It's the only image I worked on the entire semester and I ended up printing 60 prints of it. What I learned from that is there are endless ways to interpret a print. Just because we have reached a print that we like doesn't mean there are many more other interpretations to be discovered. Some perhaps even better than what we first achieved!

Here's the balance of the intaglio prints from this fall semester.

Most of these are the remaining assignments from my Commercial Photography class at UW-L. A couple were taken at the Badlands National Park were I escaped to over Thanksgiving break. The portrait was taken with my latest camera, a Crown Graphic. It was made somewhere around in the early 60's. If you remember the old pictures of the press photographers with their rather largish hand held cameras with the large flash bulb attachment, that's what it is. Basically it's a hand held 4X5 camera, and of course, large format black and white is my passion.

Sorry that it has taken me so long to contribute to my blog. Now that I am retired, it seems I am spending all of my time working on finishing off my degree. I hate to say it, but perhaps that adage "I've never been so busy since I've been retired" is perhaps true. This semester in printmaking is a new turn for me. I've never spent so much time working on a single print. So far it has taken up the entire semester, and promises to do the same for the balance of the semester. This image is based on a photograph taken in Alaska this past summer. It deals with global warming, and what may happen if we don't soon take it seriously. These are all monoprints tht I've used to work out the final design. Now that I have settled on that, I am now starting to experiment with different ways of etching to achieve what I want. Right now I am working on sugar lift. Needless to say since I am just beginning to work with it, nothing works out right. That's why I say it may take the balance of the semester to get this single print done.

This semester at UW-L marks a return to another of my passions - photography. Although Commercial Photography is not exactly my cup of tea, it is a requirement for my photography minor. Fortunately Dr. Grant, our instructor, has allowed those of us on the fine art side of things to be more expressive in our images. These are all shot with a 4X5 film camera, certainly the love of my image makers.

A last trip this summer before the start of class this fall at UW-L found me winging it to the hot and steam Central American country of Nicaragua. Well, as it turns out it was too hot and steamy as I was only able to move around during the cool hours of the early morning and late evening. So, I fled to the highlands in the north of the country where the higher altitude made the heat and humidity bearable. The cities there are small without much to entertain. The interest there is found in the countryside. There the people practice quite a bit of eco-friendly farming, feeding the vast other areas of Nicaragua. There are also several stunning nature preserves to view waterfalls, and otherwordly flora and fauna. Although Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere, its' people are very friendly, open, curious, and honest. They are world renown for their pottery and naieve primitivist paintings.

Alaska, land of the midnight sun, conjures up thoughts of "Indeed, what would the world look like if there were a "Black Sun Shining." I intend to pursue converting these images into prints this fall at the printshop at UW-L.