ps200627 Seen from where I have been:
A press and the modem artist
Having been far, I added some impressions to my ongoing
education. I learned a press is more than meets the eye, that it’s a
generator of dreams and anticipation when seen by an artist, craftsperson and
designer who makes printing plates for enjoyment and elucidation.
Upon Seeing an ugly press
Ten days ago, I thought about going where no one has been, and as I glanced
over the Facebook groups dedicated to prints, printmaking and presses I
thought:
“What ugly presses!”
Where did I get the notion that printing presses should be beautiful?
Two examples of ugliness in presses – one
assembled from junk and one of such large and heavy proportions that they are
unaffordable.
It is because I have been where no other printmakers have been. I’ve been
around the world, for example, in one contiguous journey. Before that I have been
in many schools, workshops, and museums – plus I’ve been in machine shops to
realize my dream of a perfect press. I’ve in the Rembrandt Museum and I’ve seen
a facsimile of the old master’s press.
Having done this, and added these impressions to my ongoing education, I
learned that a press is more than meets the eye, that it’s a generator of
dreams and anticipation when taken by an artist, craftsperson and designer who
makes printing plates for enjoyment.
It is clear to me that the press should be a progenitor of beautiful prints.
Add to this the digital age where communicating the image of the print
virtually is reasonably simple and an added pleasure; and the combination is
harmonious.
A beautiful press makes beautiful prints; and it can make a beautiful life
for the one who has the fortune to have a beautiful, functional press such as
this.
Bill Ritchie’s award-winning designs, the Halfwood
press and the Wee Woodie Rembrandt Press
The designs of the Halfwood Press and the Wee Woodie Rembrandt Press come
from my having been where no one has gone.
From the days I transitioned from farmer to professor I gained a deep and
wide range of views from which to see printing presses.
The most important view is that a press is an instrument, not a tool,
not merely equipage. Similar to what a pipe wrench is to a plumber and an
explorer is to a dentist, one is a mechanical thing in the hands of a mechanic
while the other – the delicate, fine instrument in the hands of a highly
skilled and knowledgeable person in oral health – is an instrument.
A musician does not refer to his or her violin or piano, or voice, as a tool
but as an instrument. Over centuries, such musical instruments have been
refined so that they combine physical characteristics to achieve both visual
and utility perfection in the musician’s art, craft and design; and so, it is,
too, with the printmaker.
The second most important of these views, these printmaking worldviews I’ve
gained, is that the press is the ancestor of all sciences, technology,
engineering, and mathematics that are the cornerstones of the STEM movement in
education.
Without print, these would be moribund, never leaving the confines of their
discoverers, inventors, imaginers and creators. It’s this view that justifies
printmaking experiences for young people (and old people looking for
continuous, contiguous learning experiences).
The idea that art should be implanted in the acronym STEM to make STEAM is
a good idea. It’s that which Allan Bloom said in his book, Closing of the American Mind is what makes artists valuable to
problem-solving enterprises:
“The artist is the most interesting
of all phenomena, for he represents creativity, the definition of man. His
unconscious is full of monsters and dreams. It provides the pictures to
consciousness, which takes them as given and as "world," and
rationalizes them. Rationality is only the activity of providing good reasons
for what has no reason or is unreasonable. We do what we do out of a fate that
is our individuality, but we have to explain and communicate. This latter is
the function of consciousness; and when it has been provided with a rich store
by the unconscious, its activity is fruitful, and the illusion of its sufficiency
is even salutary. But when it has chopped up and chewed over its inheritance,
as mathematical physics has now done, there are not enough nourishing plants
left whole. Consciousness now requires replenishment. Thus, Nietzsche opened up
the great terrain explored by modern artists, psychologists, and
anthropologists, searching for refreshment for our exhausted culture in the
depths of the darkest unconscious or darkest Africa.”[1]
[Note: in one iteration, I mis-typed modern and typed modem, to yield modem artists. Ha
ha! Or, that I may have used a scanner to get this text, and the scanner saw
the r next to the n and resulted in an m (em)]
This overly-long paragraph boils down to the need that there be an artist
among the five solvers-of-problems facing Earth’s human and other
life-sustaining ability.
Not just any artist, however. The painter works alone, for example, but the
artist who calls himself or herself a printmaker is more suitable for the teamwork
and collaboration than artists who work in solitary and are disinclined to
collaborate.
The press that is designed for collaboration is a perfect press and should
be in the hands of young people in STEAM education programs. A structure for
collaboration is an insurance policy for hope.
I want to use my assets to make this so. The press is that structure,
thanks to the modem artist, an artist who sees a modem as a perfect press.
[1]
Bloom, Allan. Closing of the American Mind. Touchstone Books, Simon &
Schuster. NY. 1987. P. 206
