Picturing HWPOz  

When a press goes Zine  

After a year of contemplating the form of an online magazine to come, the author thinks he has hit on a new concept, one which breaks away from the old frame of reference that was the traditional-magazine-gone-digital to persistent recursive online zines. 

Platform press

The Halfwood Press transformed printmaking for me. Looking back at presses I had known—all the way from the 17^th Century replica of Rembrandt’s press I saw in Amsterdam in 1969 to my own design of the Century Halfwood press in 2004—presses (both intaglio and lithograph) fascinated me. Before I got my first press in 1968, I used to dream about owning a press. Evidently, as I love prints, printmaking and the people who make prints, the press came to be a symbol of my passion for printmaking.

A press is loaded with potential, and what the press produces is comparable to a loaded gun—it can be good or bad, depending on the human or humans behind its intent and its effect. Recently we heard about three-dimensional printing run by computers which someone proved could print a gun that works. At the same time this news came out, I was considering a printing press, the parts of which could be printed out and used to make a press that works.

I might still do this!

The printing press is, in a way, like a platform in the sense that it gives footing to those people who would effect change or, the obverse, to stop change. For thousands of years, ever since the first handprints were made on the walls of caves by prehistoric people, a kind of mechanical reproduction took command of human expression over time and space.

The mobile, today, is the descendant of the handprint, and the uses to which mobiles and other computer-type devices are put have decisive effects on human culture. This used to be the job of printing presses—but not so much any longer. As an artist and teacher, I have watched the changes with interest for fifty years.

When I plugged my Halfwood Press into my computer, I had a breakthrough idea. As a teacher, I could teach at a distance over time and space; as an artist, I could use the press to make my art and apply my craft in its making. A set of instructions that, fed into a 3D printer, produces the parts to a printing press is, I think, an example of recursivity.

Wikipedia gives a definition, with pictures, of recursive:

“Recursion is the process of repeating items in a self-similar way. For instance, when the surfaces of two mirrors are exactly parallel with each other the nested images that occur are a form of infinite recursion. The term has a variety of meanings specific to a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in mathematics and computer science, in which it refers to a method of defining functions in which the function being defined is applied within its own definition. Specifically this defines an infinite number of instances (function values), using a finite expression that for some instances may refer to other instances, but in such a way that no loop or infinite chain of references can occur. The term is also used more generally to describe a process of repeating objects in a self-similar way.”

Halfwood Press Ozine

When I forecast that my hands-on press making days would come to an end within the year 2014, what I wanted to do with the resources remaining for me is create an online magazine in the field of printmaking. I announced my intention to my family, friends and associates. I called it, Printmaking World Online. I came close to paying for the trademark—I was that close!

One person said she didn’t like the title. That gave me pause. I signed up to attend the Southern Graphics Council conference coming up in March, 2014, with the Halfwood Press as the name of our booth. As the date approached (and my debt approached $3,000 for the project), the opportunity to announce my brainchild—a printmaking magazine online—began to beckon me for attention.

When it was necessary to design the paper handouts and business card that reflect the name of our booth, Halfwood Press, I took the picture which I had used in 2004 when Tom Kughler made the first Mini Halfwood Press and it occurred to me that the online magazine should be, simply, Halfwood Press.

Is this recursive?

Is this not an instance of recursivity, I wondered. The picture showed the first Mini, the press that is the prototype of all the small Halfwoods that followed. It lacked something, so for an hour I doctored the photo and added the clock—updating the Legacy Mini Halfwood to the way it is today. Then I added the PressGhost—cutting and pasting in the red and black USB connector. Finally I pasted in the image of the Smartphone with its image of Rembrandt on the screen. The original already had a CD/ROM in it, plus hand tools for traditional plate making. The hand that reaches in from the upper left is pulling a proof from a drypoint of our granddaughter at age 5.

The photo—meant for the business card for my online magazine (re-named “Ozine”) has a great narrative value. I think about making it available online, with hotspots so someone can explore the elements of the photo and learn what they mean to me.

My time is running out here—I am going to work with one of my associates at the Pike Place Market in Seattle. He is spending several days a week to explore the potential of the Busker Etcher—a musician who not only knows how to play for the public but also how to print for the public at the market.

Good subject for Halfwood Press Ozine, init?