Occasionally somebody would blurt out, “I need to go grind my stone.” “We told you the lithography class was going to be a pain in the ass.” Whenever I walked through the litho lab, I’d look over at the presses and work tables, and see someone scowling while they slowly ground their stone. Eventually, I’d see a beautiful print they’d completed weeks later, and if I was lucky, I’d see them peel the paper from their stone. Then they’d get to reprint it and reprint it again.
My friend was a print maker and a ceramicist. Sometimes his lithographic prints defied the thick hard stone they came from because his images looked soft, and penetrated any kind of limestone I could imagine. I’d sat with him without talking in his living room not speakingAnother friend was mostly an intaglio printer. He used found photographic material and created black and white photo-montages which he then exposed to light sensitive film, exposed the films onto a photo-sensitive aluminum plate, and etched it in an acid bath. He also drew directly onto the metal plate to scratch-out, or add details. Eventually, he used the plate to make prints onto thick creamy paper. He had a background in painting too and his prints reflected that. They were beautiful and dense. Sometimes they were political, sometimes they were domestic images filled with melancholy. You’d often find him sitting on a stool at one of the long wood tables in the central print lab. He was usually humped over his plate, preparing it, or manipulating the films he used to expose his plates. His ear buds were usually in and likely listening to Lou Reed or David Bowie. He’d look up and give me a friendly nod if I was just passing through, or if we wanted to talk I’d sit for a bit.
One evening I was in the painting studio on the second floor which I had to myself. During the weeknights you’d often share the space with other folks, but after midnight, or on a Friday and Saturday night, you could count on being alone. Sometimes I’d be in the painting studio, or the photo lab, a friend would be in the printmaking studio, another might be in the sculpture studio, or the ceramics studio. It felt like we owned the art building. The way all students should feel.
I was sitting alone staring at a blank white canvas. I had just finished applying the last coat of gesso an hour earlier, and was waiting for it to dry. My friend walked in and greeted me. While we sat there, he scanned a few of my paintings that were around and then settled on the large blank canvas I was about to work on. “I don’t know how you do it.” “Do what?” I said. “How you’re able to stare at that white surface and just start painting without a specific plan”. I asked him why. “Because I’m really uncomfortable with the immediacy of it, that’s why I make prints. I have a plan and the process takes a long time before the image is printable so I can get comfortable with it.” I understood what he meant and explained that I’m usually too impatient. I’m most comfortable with something I can immediately react to. That’s why I use house paint along with traditional paints. House paint allowed me to inexpensively obliterate areas of paintings I didn’t like, or made me uncomfortable. That conversation was huge for me. I’d never heard anyone else reveal themselves about making art in that way, about our reluctance, and common fear—how the emotional part of the process had the biggest impact on what we made and how we made it.
For Ed and Dave
Songs :: Bottoming Out by Lou Reed, Without You by David Bowie, and the entire Comes a Time and Rust Never Sleeps albums
© C. Davidson