Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
This process is lithography.
Most everybody's heard of lithography. But this is the original form.
My name is Cole Rogers. I am the master printer
and artistic director and one of the 2 founders
of Highpoint Center for Printmaking. (mandolin & piano play softly)
¶¶ ¶¶
I'm Carla McGrath, executive director at Highpoint
Center for Printmaking. I'm a cofounder as well.
There are 4 major forms
of traditional printmaking.
One is relief printing, which would come printing
off of a carved wood block
or any raised surfaces. Another form of printmaking
is called intaglio, or a lot of people
know this as etching.
There's also lithography, another process, and screen printing, which
perhaps if you know about prints at all, you've
heard about screen prints.
I think that we're developing
a really good reputation
as a studio that
takes on important works,
large works, complicated works, and in multiple media.
We're very happy to say that the Minneapolis Institute of Art,
the Walker, the Museum of Modern Art,
the Whitney-- there are probably 15 major
museums across the country
that all have our work
in their permanent collections.
¶¶ ¶¶ It's really a lot of fun
to show people the work that we make here. One of the local artists that
we work with is Carolyn Swiszcz.
So this is a combination of screen printing, and also
some lithography was used for
the sidewalk texture. So often with the huge
umbrella printmaking, you can combine
the different techniques and really create
some very interesting work. This is some tape on Mylar,
and it's sort of the mock-up for what the print was to become.
I am Todd Norsten, and I make paintings
and drawings and prints. There's several layers on this.
And you can't print
this all at once. They have to be printed
a few different times so that you can get this
overlap kind of stuff in here,
and then it will give the dimensionality to it.
And that's all Cole's magic. In the history
of painting it was, tape also sort of came about
making hard edge abstractions.
It has become like a brush, or a paint.
For making a straight line, tape is a pretty good way to do it.
So it's kind of like
a picture of a paint material. This was a really fun print
for me to show to other people,
both when we were in
New York and Baltimore at the print fairs.
People would come by and look at this, and I'd have to say,
that's not tape. And people would
look at me and say well, no, it is tape.
The first tape painting that is this color
doesn't have this overlap in it,
and that's really part of what makes that look more,
more like tape.
The overlap becomes
its own kind of shape. So like there's
this shape right here,
this triangle shape, but then there's this
shape within the overlap
that each one of those is
a little bit different too.
Each of these pieces need to be printed separately, so that we get the overlaps,
but they need to be printed quite a few times. We printed most of these layers
at least 7 times as a base
to build up the ink layer. It's really important
in the best collaborations that it's fairly seamless.
It doesn't matter whose idea it is, it's always trying to work
together to make something
that is surprising, exciting, and the best, the best
thing that we can do. (Todd)
Well, and it's important that we're making
something that's an original rather than a reproduction
of something else. So this is the early stage,
and we won't really know
what the exact piece looks like
until we actually start proofing it. (Todd)
I mean, printmaking isn't just
something that is a reproduction
of a painting or a photograph--
it's a unique piece of art.
So when Cole lays all these
separate Mylars on there. it adds up to what the other
one looked like underneath it.
Right. Printmaking is an entity
onto itself like drawing is,
or like painting is, and so it stands
entirely on its own.
¶¶ ¶¶ Okay, so we're getting
ready to coat the screen
with the photographic emulsion. ¶¶
¶¶
(high-pitched squeal) You only get one
chance with that, and then you get to
clean the screen out
if it didn't work correctly. Now that our screen is dry,
it's ready to be exposed.
So we take Todd's drawing, place it on this exposure unit,
and take the dry,
but light-sensitive screen
and put it on top of the drawing.
Now once again, the areas that are open on the drawing
will not block the light. So the light is going
to harden this emulsion.
The areas that the light is blocked in
will stay soft and wash out.
(click!) (electric motor starts)
¶¶ ¶¶
¶¶ ¶¶
This is the very final layer. It's probably the 30th time
that it's been printed on.
And this is a very subtle, just kind of satiny gloss that
will go on top of the tape areas
to make it look like
that satin that you see on a piece of tape.
Okay, Molly.
So these smudges, Todd worked on
very carefully using charcoal,
producing these drawings for us,
which in fact, this is the drawing
that he made from this, and then we ended up printing
it in a very, very light gray
to make it look a little bit more smudgelike.
This is maybe a little bit
too apparent to his eye.
¶¶ ¶¶
All of these should be essentially alike,
and hopefully we've got at least 10 good impressions,
and if we're short, we'll have to see if any
of those can be cleaned up.
But also, Cole's standard for what is good and acceptable
is very different than mine because my standard is like
a little bit less than close enough. He wants them to be
exact and precise,
and I don't have to have it like that. A great print to me is something
that can't be made in drawing,
and it can't be made in painting. I'm very, very glad
to be at this point.
It's been a fun project. (Todd)
He's glad to have me out of his hair--
what's left of his hair! (laughs) He does the hard work,
and I do the lazy work. It's a great team.
Some things work out like that. Pretty much though my job is
to work with people like Todd
and make the best work possible and be the guy that
has to stand behind the work
and say it's the best quality
that I personally can produce.
(electronic music plays) �