Wednesday, April 4, 2018


180404 Fallacy of the Inkubator 

My dream of a printmaking center incubator is based on false assumptions. I projected my vision on a group that doesn’t exist, like searching for a lost tribe in a magical land.
Call the land Emeralda, but recognize it’s imaginary, a figment of my imagination. Repeatedly I am confronted with the reality that my contacts are far from qualified to share startups in the printmaking world.
The printmaking world I envisioned may have had a chance to develop from the UW program, but there was no one among the faculty who desired it. My show of strength and commitment to innovation and new ways of thinking only diminished those around me.
I raised the bar too high, capping off my demonstration with a trip around the world to prove the validity of my great notion. The faculty was cowardly and too comfortably ensconced in mediocrity to care; I only showed their weakness and ignorance.
Ignorance in the sense of “ignore-ance.” So I had to go. To stay was dangerous to my health, actually—like the young, green cucumber thinking to stay young among old pickles in a jar.
So, as Elmer Gates concluded at the end of his life, it had to be that way.
Now I am finding that in the wider community, too, cowardice and benign comfort has dulled the enthusiasm of those around me to the point that no one wants to be part of the growth industries I think are connected to the printmaking world.
No one wants to start a printmaking channel on the Internet or TV. No one wants to share in a halfwood press factory. No one wants to start up a sip ‘n print. Seniors printmaking, young printmakers – all these potentially profitable businesses are possible, but no one wants to discuss it, let alone sustain interest in trying.
There was, generations ago in the pre-1980 period, enthusiasm for taking new routes to success and a handful of people I happened to meet in the art school took those routes. They were lucky and found a growth economy and atmosphere of permissiveness. Their outrageous art work was in harmony with the industries of growth and experimentation and they struck gold.
The academic soil at the UW is depleted. The success of the tech businesses is at a plateau and scattered worldwide. The US’ national mood is one of defeatism and permissiveness.  Our government is moribund.
Where do I go now? I will not withdraw into myself, although it does appear that I am. As Muriel Strode said, “I will not follow where others have gone. I will make my own way, and I will leave a path.”
The fallacy of the tenets of an International Print Center Inkubator is evident, but it is still possible. Pressure may grow to make it real. It may not be here on my avenue, but somewhere.

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