Filed under: 2011 made in, printmaking | Tags: etching, intaglio, photopolymer
These are the results of a workshop I took on photopolymer etching at Warringah Print Studio under the guidance of Janet Ayliffe. They are not as high quality as I’d hoped for but they do lead me to believe that the medium has a lot of potential for my work. Consequently I have invested in some more photopolymer plates to be used when time permits.
Filed under: exhibition | Tags: artist book, censorship, dh lawrence, embroidery, etching, exhibition, feminism, library
A catalog for the exhibition Banned Books in Australia at the Baillieu Library has been released and a second edition with extra academic papers is on its way. Filled with essays by curators David Bennett, Jenny Lee and Richard Pennell on the history and status of censorship in Australia. It also contains my two works included in the show. The show is nearing it’s close and will only be open till Monday. Banned Books details.
The Lady’s Garden
Through the dichotomy of decorative and sublime responses to the landscape notions of constructed femininity as a means of control and censorship are investigated in these books. D.H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterly’s lover has been used to set the framework of the garden to uncover how certain views or vistas are deemed unsafe needing categorisation and control for safe consumption, with true nature suppressed bellow. Informed by a history of female amateur artists and the controls exerted on them, this work plays with form and style to draw together histories of art, censorship, and female repression.
I have invested in a portable hotplate to facilitate hard grounding plates at the studio. Today it was put to use on two plates.
The process is as follows.
Polish and degrease the plate. The plate is cleaned with brasso and then degreased with dilute cloudy ammonia and whiting before rinsing.
The plate is placed on a hotplate and allowed to dry and heat up before a lump of hard ground is smeared over the surface and spread across the surface with a roller to create an even layer.
The layer of ground is golden in colour. The plate is smoked in order to strengthen the ground, increasing its resistance, and to turn it black. The plate is suspended face down and taper candles are burnt underneath, the carbon in the smoke becoming part of the ground.
Unfortunately the wind blows necessitating frequent relighting of tapers and much frustration. The resulting two plates are now ready for drawing.
Other adventures had today include meeting a gallery cat.
And procuring graphite powder for projects.
I’m feeling a strong pull back to the blackness of my uni works. A desire to create rich, velvety,disturbing black masses again. I keep returning in thought to the aims of my etchings at that time and how I might achieve them now, need to devote more time.
Filed under: 2010, made in, book binding, craft, printmaking | Tags: artist book, embroidery, etching
The second copy of my embroidery and etching book The Lady’s Garden. These two books were created for the exhibition Banned Books at the Baillieu Library, details here. I’m in some good company, Eyewitness by Theo Strasser and Peter Lyssiotis is something else.
Filed under: 2010, made in, book binding, craft, printmaking | Tags: artist book, botanical, embroidery, etching, illustration
The results of backyard etching and a long day printing. This book is one of a pair to be shown as part of a group show in a few weeks. Examining definitions of femininity and how these have influenced the censoring of information for the protection of women’s delicate sensibilities. The imagerey is specifically in response to the garden imagery of DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover.
Filed under: printmaking, surrounds | Tags: botanic illustration, copper, etching
Drawing onto copper is one of the most beautiful processes, inevitably leading to disappointment when the plate is printed and the lines no longer sparkle and shimmer. Some drawing towards the book I’m currently working on.
Today I applied a hard ground to two copper plates at home, a first. Spoilt by a beautifully set up work shop at uni it is a joy to discover how to set up an impromptu workshop, spread across kitchen and yard, including the clothes line. These two plates are for a book I’m working on currently.
This print is from the time when my intentions for my work first began to fall into place, a coalescence of subject and technique. Made at the commencement of second year uni it is the earliest work that will appear on this site, a starting point for all that’s followed.
Plates so small you can see the grain of the aquatint. Under exposure mechanically produced, forcing our eyes to adjust. My home amongst the murky depths.
