The Mid America Print Council Journal

The Mid America Print Council Journal Volume 22, Numbers 1 & 2, 2014 Crossover: Interdisciplinary inquiry within the printed form Members of TABLE of The MAPC Journal To read online or download Advisory Committee: print-your-own MAPC Journal pdfs visit CONTENTS www.midamericaprintcouncil.org Janet Ballweg, Professor of Art The Mid America Print Council Journal Bowling Green State University Volume 22, Numbers 1 & 2, 2014 Bowling Green, Ohio Crossover: Interdisciplinary inquiry within the printed form Shaurya Kumar, Assistant Professor of Art The School of the Art Institute of Chicago Chicago, Illinois Sarah Marshall, Associate Professor of Art University of Alabama LETTERS FROM PRESIDENT THE HYBRIDIZED PRINT Tuscaloosa, Alabama AND CO-EDITORS Ed Bernstein describes his three-dimensional Kevin Haas, Professor of Art Catherine Chauvin, Jennifer Ghormley, print-based constructions, as well as travels Washington State University Anita Jung, Kristine Joy Mallari and observations on the socio-economically Pullman, Washington divided cultures of Brazil.

Design Liaison: CONTRIBUTORS Charles Beneke, Professor of Art THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE ARTIST University of Akron Edward Bernstein, Dean Dass, Ina Kaur, Akron, Ohio Taryn McMahon, Nathan Pietrykowski, Dean Dass pontificates on the authenticity of Conrad Ross, Rachel Singel, Maritza Davila an artist’s work, and searches for where it can be found.

PRINT SYNTHESIS Taryn McMahon explores the notion NEW WORK FROM OUR MEMBERS of ‘interdisciplinarity’, as it relates to the Nathan Pietrykowski traditions and contemporary approaches to Ina Kaur print practice. Rachel Singel Maritza Davila

ON SEEING AND DRAWING, AND THE PRINT MEMBERSHIP FORM Conrad Ross investigates the subject of, “What does the artist see when looking?” New links to Facebook and Instagram.

SPRING companion mailer

Article on Mary Manusos by MAPC Co-editor Anita Jung Jung pays homage to Mary Manusos, who will be honored as the tenth recipient of the MAPC Outstanding Printmaker Award at the 2014 conference in Detroit, MI.

On the Cover Mary Manusos, Yellow on Hands Medium: etching on hand poured paper 32" x 44", 2005 Courtesy of artist

2 3 Letter from the President: Letter from the Co-Editor: Visiting artists to The University of Denver this year range from a The MAPC Journal actively brings together artists from across the ceramicist who works for the International Ceramic Research Center nation to present their explorations and conversations regarding what in Skaelskor, Denmark, to a photographer working with inmates at San printmaking is and what it might become. Discussions that survey Quentin Prison California, to a master printer collaborating with artists printmaking’s potential for cross-disciplinary investigation, the prints in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. This array of investigation in creative allegiance to seeing and drawing, as well as the artistic resolve to create fields provide examples of how the IDEA can take artists far from their and workout conflict while celebrating the hybridity of the print, and the comfort zones, into unexpected communities and beyond original constant addition of artists striving to generate new work embody this intentions. For each artist, how collaboration is part of his or her practice current issue. It’s a pleasure to partake in a project as organic and self- CATHERINE CHAUVIN is unique. While artists are attached to specific areas, their ideas, modes generating as the MAPC Journal. It is truly the organization’s members ANITA JUNG is an associate professor at of working and subject matter are varied, stretching well outside the who come forward with compelling ideas to write about and the editors is an artist and the Professor the University of Denver. After confines of their disciplines. who attempt to frame and pair them into dialogues within the format of Intaglio and Printmedia earning an MFA at Syracuse at the University of Iowa. of a journal. It is precisely this inclusion and collaboration within the University, she trained at the Her work is eclectic and Tamarind Institute and has Inquiry within the printed form happens daily in our studios, and in our membership that is a key component to printmaking’s active engagement, investigates the everyday collaborated with artists such writing and thinking practice. One of my challenges is how to encourage enterprise and innovation. It is my hope that you will find some inspiration occurrence of being a as Gladys Nilsson, Jaune students to develop their own ability to inquire — to develop their own within this issue and I urge you to be an active participant by submitting an human being engaged in Quick-to-See Smith and the world, She freely moves strengths, not only in the studio, but to ask themselves questions, to go article, a review or an image to the next issue. William Wiley in New Mexico, in and out of various art Texas and Anderson Ranch beyond assignments into the self-guided world of a practicing artist. practices. She is organizing Arts Center in Colorado. These a 2014 summer seminar experiences as a collaborative In the Dean Dass article, “The Responsibility of the Artist”, the author investigating art as a form of printer and artist combine in social practice. pursues several lines of inquiry, from “How did we get here?” to his several ways in her artwork and teaching. Catherine uses recommendation, “Be careful”. Simultaneously encouraging and a good artwork to examine what is challenge, Dass probes further; “This imaginative unity is redemptive. Art done to the environment in the wants to touch the world again, it wants the world back, closer, while all name of progress. about us the world continues to recede.”I think my students have some required reading ahead. Letter from the Editor: Letter from the Co-Editor:

The past month has been a celebration of Printmaking all throughout Working in the art materials industry, I see a wide diversity within groups the Denver/Front Range area, with the first inaugural Mo’Print Month of who use different media to create art. At Gamblin (ink manufacturer), I'm Printmaking. Exhibitions, studio tours, lectures and demonstrations have able to talk to oil painters, printmakers, and the many that fall between. filled the calendar, as printmakers have embraced a common love for all I've noticed stark differences between groups of different makers and things printed. thinkers. As printmakers, we're lucky to have a built-in studio community. We have fellow studio mates to bounce ideas off, to ask questions, to I have always found printmaking to have wide latitude in how artists have spread information. I've never seen a message spread faster, and more the ability to translate a diverse array of art disciplines through the print effectively, than in a group of dedicated printmakers. The print medium JENNIFER GHORMLEY process. In school, many hours and critiques were spent pontificating over finds its roots as a source for reaching mass audiences, for being a KRISTINE JOY MALLARI received her MFA in 2006 ‘What is a Print’. Walter Benjamin’s historic article “The work of art in the democratization of news. Hundreds of years later, that tradition is stonger was born and raised in the from the University of age of Mechanical Reproduction”, questions authenticity and the presence than ever. The articles in this issue focus on art as social practice and print desert of west Texas. She Nebraska-Lincoln. She exhibits studied printmaking at the of an aura within an original of a work of art. In this issue of the MAPC media to spread ideas and elicit reactions. internationally through juried University of North Texas exhibitions, exchanges, and Journal, Dean Dass’ article speaks to the notion of authenticity, and brings and moved to Portland, invitations, and hung a solo up some interesting points for thought and discussion. Oregon after graduating in installation I 2012 at Liv Aspen 2011. Joy has done work for Art, in downtown Aspen, Oblation Papers and Press The concept of interdisciplinary inquiry expands on this thought process, Colorado. Jennifer has taught letterpress shop, Flight 64 printmaking classes and beyond the technical component and into conceptual realms. This has co-op printmaking studio and workshops for CU-Boulder, always resonated with me, as I find strict borders and labels a bit stifling the Museum of Contemporary Anderson Ranch Art Center, to the creative exploration of an idea. Taryn McMahon explores the Craft. She is currently the CO, Arrowmont School of Printmaking Product Manager dimensional components of contemporary prints, as images are released Arts and Crafts, TN, Peninsula at Gamblin Artists Colors. School of Art, WI, and Ah- from the confining flat frame on the wall, and free to delve into the viewer’s Haa School for the Arts, CO. physical space. Conrad Ross analyzes the artist’s eye and how our brains Currently, Ms. Ghormley are trained to view and perceive the world around us. Crossing over telecommutes as the Programs Coordinator for the Venice technique and media platforms, as well as academic disciplines makes for Printmaking Studio, in Italy. a richer content and more expansive analysis through the vehicle of visual In order to embrace all of her art form. The nature of interdisciplinary inquiry goes hand-in-hand with creative urges Jennifer creates creative investigation and exploration. artwork under her own name, as well as Jen G Studios.

4 5 CONRAD ROSS was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1931. He received his BFA with high honors at the Fine Arts program at the University of Illinois in Champaign graduating in 1953. He received his MFA Contributors degree in 1959 at the University of Iowa, studying printmaking with Mauricio Lasansky. In 1960 he was awarded a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant in printmaking and purchased an intaglio press. He secured a position in the Art Department at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama where he remained until his retirement in 1997. Conrad established Wycross Press in 1989 and was granted Emeritus status.

MARITZA DÁVILA is Professor of Fine Arts at the Memphis College of Art where she has taught drawing and printmaking since 1982. She has exhibited globally and has works in collections in the U.S., Europe, the Caribbean, and Asia. Her artwork explores ancestry and female cultural identity using metaphors such as house structures, arches, letters from the Spanish alphabet, and religious and family portraits. Dávila has traveled to Spain, Argentina, Scotland, France, Mexico, London, Ireland, and Puerto Rico doing fellowships, lecturing and demonstrations. She has received awards in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and France and collaborated on various art projects. She was also visiting artist at University of Bilbao, Spain in 2011. Dávila is owner of the Atabeira Press studio (atabeira.com).

RACHEL SINGEL is a printmaker, papermaker, and bookbinder who grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia. She received her MFA in Printmaking from the University of Iowa in 2013 and her BA in Studio Art & Art History from the University of Virginia in 2009. Her work is inspired by the beautiful and complex forms she sees in nature.

NATHAN PIETRYKOWSKI is an artist from the rural world of Indiana. In 2007 he enrolled to the University of Southern Indiana where he discovered printmaking. This became the main focus of his undergraduate studies and in 2011 he received a Bachelor of Science in studio art. Currently he is in his thesis year of graduate school at Louisiana State University, gaining experience teaching and EDWARD BERNSTEIN served as Professor of Art at Indiana University, Bloomington and Director developing his creative body of work. of the “Indiana University Summer Program in Printmaking and Artists Books Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, in Venice, Italy until retirement in August 2013. Education includes: MFA printmaking, Indiana 1973; “Atelier 17, 1968; B.F.A, painting Rhode Island School of Design1968; and BA Honors political science 1965, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Bernstein has been awarded two regional NEA grants. Professional appointments include: Oxford University (UK), UC Berkeley, University of Arkansas. He exhibits in major national and international juried and invited exhibitions including TARYN MCMAHON received her BFA from The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, the 2012 Olympics, London; has been a visiting artist in the US, Canada, and Europe; as well as PA, and an MA and MFA from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA. She has received numerous a active international curator. Bernstein has given demonstrations, and chaired printmaking panels awards for her work including the Southern Graphics Council International Graduate Fellowship and for IMPACT conferences and numerous Southern Graphics Council International Conferences; most fully funded residencies at Anderson Ranch Art Center, Snowmass Village, CO; Anchor Graphics, recently in 2013. His retrospective, Almost Illuminated, hung in the Grunwald Gallery at Indiana Chicago, IL; and Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, NY. Her work has been featured in recent University, January 17– February 14, 2014. exhibitions at The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA and Carroll Gallery, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, among others. McMahon currently teaches printmaking and foundations at Kent State University.

DEAN DASS studied art, philosophy and anthropology at the University of Northern Iowa, B.A. 1978. He received his M.F.A. in 1980 from The Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia. INA KAUR is a multi media artist, printmaker who is a native of New Delhi, India. Kaur graduated Since 1985 he has taught drawing, papermaking, printmaking, book arts, and seminars on with her MFA with honors from Purdue University, Indiana USA and received her Studio Arts contemporary art at the University of Virginia. Over the past 15 years Das s has established a Bachelors degrees with Roll of Honor from Punjab University, Chandigarh, India. In her studio collaborative relationship and exchange with artists from Scandinavia. His own works are held in research, Kaur explores a continuum of cross-cultural negotiation through a combination of various wide-ranging public collections — from The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Philadelphia Museum processes including printmaking, drawings, and installations. Her artworks have been showcased of Art, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, The Walker Art Center, The Rare Books Division of the in numerous exhibitions across the US, India, Argentina, China, Finland, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Library of Congress, to the Alvar Aalto Museum in Jyväskylä, Finland, as well as numerous university the Netherlands, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey. Kaur has been a recipient of collections. Dass lectures widely on his work and on issues related to contemporary practice. numerous Travel Grants for Professional Development, Residencies & Excellence Awards. She has taught at Bowling Green State University and is currently Assistant Professor of Art (printmaking and drawing) at The University of Tampa. www.inakaur.com

6 (Above) Rachel Singel, Sky, intaglio, 34 x 44 inches, 2013. Image courtesy of artist. 7 The re-presentation and filtering of the historical record, American political Print Synthesis Woolfalk’s projects through paintings, thought.”4 As an artist who begins with Taryn McMahon installations, performances, and prints, an idea and rigorous research, Hargrave conceptually calls attention to the leaves room for the outcome of her subjectivity of modes of presentation investigations to be determined by the and ties into the idea that representation, inquiry itself. One thread throughout her no matter how rigorous, will always tell practice is involvement and participation fragmented and subjective accounts of from viewers and collaborators. In her “Ultimately this argument undermines people and places. In Woolfalk’s practice, recent project “For and in consideration Interdisciplinarity requires looking to the opposition of disciplinarity and of daily tasks, this project is conceptually print functions as a tool for codification and Katie Hargrave, For and in consideration of the great love of the great love I bear: Does a tree have the unknown and imagining the future interdisciplinarity. If disciplinarity and relevant to the current generation of translation. In 2011, she worked at Anchor I bear: Does a tree have standing?,mixed media, 2012. standing?” Hargrave gave away acorns and of a discipline. An interdisciplinary scholar interdisciplinarity exist at opposite sides interdisciplinary artists approaching Graphics to produce a lithograph “A Rosetta Image courtesy of artist. silkscreened flags to viewers. Participants borrows methodologies from outside of of a binary opposition, the terms lose print from a conceptual point of view. Stone of Empathic Movement and Biology”, were encouraged to plant their acorn and one’s own area to open up new lines of meaning; the structure collapses upon Likewise, Bruce Nauman’s “Body Pressure” which systematizes the movements and sculpture, print media, and drawing. This care for it, but to eventually relinquish inquiry never before imagined. Colloquially, itself. Instead, these notions can be seen as from 1974 employs offset lithography themes from her larger project “The Institute hybridization makes sense both formally ownership of the resulting tree to itself. interdisciplinarity has become a catchall sliding along a continuum. Disciplinary and in a participatory performance with the of Empathy." Installation artist Crystal and conceptually in the context of the This project grew out of Hargrave’s research that includes mixed media prints and interdisciplinary studies should permeate audience in the context of conceptual art. Wagner uses everyday plastic and paper vast intertwined network of ecology. It is of the Tree that Owns Itself in Athens, non-traditional prints that, while engaging, and infuse one another, operating in a These cross-disciplinary works resonate materials to create environments that interesting that Wagner not only brings Georgia, and asks important questions remain within the established disciplines of complementary relationship.” with the current movement toward all- bridge the natural world and synthetic together drawing, sculpture, and print in about ownership and the interactions printmaking and art. Increasingly, however, encompassing multi-media performances, built spaces, thereby highlighting issues of her practice, or even that she physically of people and non-human living things. interdisciplinary artists are using printed The purpose of interdisciplinarity, then, installations, and participatory projects that brings them together in installations The installation also contains a larger media in artworks that reach far outside is not to break down or render immaterial employ printmaking as a tool for synthesis, "It is this indirection, such as “Deluge”, but that she redefines handmade flag and a rubbing from the of printmaking and art altogether, and a discipline such as printmaking, but to codification, and recording. how the processes overlap conceptually plaque at the site of the Tree that Owns intersect with ecology, anthropology, contribute to its continued relevance and this displacement, and methodologically. Drawing has the Itself. Hargrave simultaneously uses print theater, and more. position it within the larger context of the The following contemporary artists make which is that feeling of being porous and perpetually to record and disseminate, pulling viewers major issues of our time. use of the logic and ideas inherent to in the process of becoming, and Wagner in to her stories of history and demanding The history of printmaking as a technology printmaking, including multiplicity, seriality, hallmark of the borrows that visual language in her their participation in a collaborative and its function to disseminate images Part of this task is to look back at artworks and recording, as jumping off points for their printmaker’s art…" installations, which feel like a drawing construction of future stories. and ideas has long prompted artists to that have not traditionally been considered own investigations in video, performance, or gesture in space. Likewise, Wagner’s speak of its cultural implications and under the umbrella of printmaking, and science, and art. Saya Woolfalk, Crystal ecology, technology, and industry. installations locate printmaking Charles Beneke also employs on-site democratic potential. But the true lifeblood to examine them under the lens of print Wagner, Katie Hargrave, Charles Beneke, This envisioning of a future ecology in as a process of accumulating multiples research to realize his print media of printmaking rests in its potential for media. Ruth Weisberg’s essays “The Syntax and Marie Lorenz share interests in ecology, which the natural world can no longer and repeated actions in a given location. installations. His ongoing project “Warmer” cross-disciplinary investigation that is of the Print” and “Printmaking in the the interactions of humans with the natural exist separately from the synthetic often deals with climate change and his recent simultaneously rooted within its own Expanded Field” called for printmaking world, and the borrowing of methodologies takes the form of sprawling print media The slippery art practice of Katie Hargrave travel to Greenland. Beneke connects rich history, yet outside the scope of its to be defined not as a set of techniques, from a wide cross section of disciplines. installations, making visible the unbounded seamlessly integrates new media, social the geographically distant locations of traditional technical and methodological but as a discipline with its own distinct Print media is often only one part, albeit a connectivity implicit in the study of practice, and printed material. Hargrave Greenland and his home in northeast Ohio boundaries. William Condee, Professor history and conceptual problems. Under significant one, of much larger investigations ecology. Wagner’s futuristic landscapes creates “artworks that ideally allow the in this multi-platform project involving of Interdisciplinary Arts at Ohio University, this working definition, the core of by these artists. hybridize not only elements of the natural audience to see themselves as shapers video, prints, and installation. Given the argues for a relationship in which discipline printmaking can be described conceptually world and built environments, but also of systems as broad as the environment, recent state of ecological duress—climate based scholarship and interdisciplinary rather than technically through process. Saya Woolfalk moves fluidly between research are seen as interdependent Artworks that deal with multiples, performance, video, installation, and print and complementary: seriality, recording, printed ephemera, media in creating her immersive projects. and dissemination can then be analyzed Positioning herself as an ethnographer under the methodology of printmaking. studying the fictional “No Place”, she has Weisberg asserts, “…the intrinsic feature worked with anthropologist Rachel Lears common to all printmaking processes as well as diverse participants to realize her [is] the pressing of a matrix against a projects. Exploring the multi-layered stories receptive surface. Whether the image and inhabitants of “No Place” through is mechanically or chemically produced a myriad of media in long-term projects on the matrix, it is always once removed provides a deep and ever evolving view from the final work of art.” In that context, of the world she has created. The diversity are the stained nappy liners in Mary of her practice and the formal results— Kelly’s “Post-Partum Document” (1973-79) performances, installations, prints, and prints? As a collection of mixed media paintings — refer back to the hybrid nature objects containing printed ephemera, of the inhabitants of “No Place” and the imprints of domestic objects, and records cultural blending of a globalized world.

Crystal Wagner, Deluge, cut paper, screen print, Mylar, (Right) Charles Beneke, Accumulation, installation in table cloth, chicken wire, 2013. Image courtesy of artist. two parts. Part II: Evidence, screenprint, monoprint, laser and hand cut paper, 2013. Image courtesy of artist. 8 On Seeing, Drawing change, ecological disasters, energy an authority to the images. methodologies. The artworks that result consumption, natural resource extraction, Weisberg, referring to the process of place printmaking at the forefront of a and genetic modification — it is no printing a matrix, states that “It is this contemporary art world in which artists and the Print surprise that artists are using printmaking indirection, this displacement, which is increasingly eschew labels to cross Conrad Ross to forefront this issue in our minds. that hallmark of the printmaker’s art…” disciplines — not just within art mediums The interdisciplinary focus of Beneke’s Lorenz’ journeys, as repeatable yet but intersecting with film, performance, work emphasizes the overwhelming distinct actions, marked by indirection activism, and ecology. Print acts as a nature of the problems he addresses. and displacement, can be seen as a kind synthesizer for artists to pull together Printmaking for Beneke seems to be a of print as well. disparate samples, recombine them, way of imbuing the work with industrial and yield exciting new results. and technological processes that convey Print artists are deeply invested in Unlike the eye of a bird that maintains a is exercising his freedom of vision. 20th century. They put seeing to work in a sense of disconnect between thoughts their own medium, but also often use fixed focus, the human eye moves about as Other concepts of learned seeing can be an artistic context while investigating and and action. The presence of wallpaper, it as a tool of translation between a it makes an inquiry, examining what it sees. gleaned from an examination of sight and explaining drawing as the human endeavor knitted materials, and tarpaper point range of visual languages and working And so the draughtsman’s eye is in constant seeing utilized by the draughtsman, such it is. They often de-mythicize the notion of to the idea that our everyday routines movement as effort to make a drawing as establishing a given point on a working the artist as being magically inspired; yet do are innocuous on an individual level but unfolds. The same holds true for the surface, outlining contours, constructing not deny the artist’s creativity and originality. become insidious when we see them as printmaker. What goes on in that process and reconstructing linear and tonal form. Saya Woolfalk, A Rosetta Stone of Empathic Movement and Biology, 4 color lithograph on Revere Suede 100% an accumulation of destructive behavior. is of course led by mind, the mind of the There are further inquiries into seeing and Nicolaides, a teacher at the Art Students black cotton paper, 22 ¼ x 28 inches, 2011. c. Saya Woolfalk, Image courtesy of artist and Anchor Graphics. draughtsman or the mind of the printmaker. understanding what is seen, processes of League in New York in the heyday of Marie Lorenz explores travel and the eye, that illuminate drawing practices, abstract expressionism in the 40’s, explored research on a much more local scale. Artists of all time have used information and which can be applied as well to the print. ways of training the mind to see the forms She began her ongoing project gathered from these fast eye movements before one. He emphasized studied contour “The Tide and Current Taxi” in 2005. that have played such a strong part in ”It appears that the drawing, which some have attributed to his This cross-disciplinary project overlaps guiding their work. They make use of work as a camouflage artist during World with social practice, everyday life, gestural movement, as well as the related right brain perceives War I. He also emphasized quick impulsive mapping and exploration, and printed activity neuroscience investigators call –processes visual gesture drawing and what he called material in unexpected ways. Lorenz visual updating, a process designated “weight drawings” concerning tone. invites participants to propose trips to simply by the word ‘gesture‘ for the information–in the explore NYC waterways in boats that she artist who lays and reacts to marks laid way one needs to see “The Natural Way to Draw,” the book designs and builds. The documentation onto paper. Since the 19th century scientists in order to draw, and published from notes made by his students of these theme-based trips manifest investigating the eye’s processes have come and attributed to Nicolaides, was written in myriad ways including digital to call those eye movements saccades. that the left brain three years after his death by student photography, collections of photos and These eye movements, these jerky perceives in ways that Mamie Harmon, and has had extensive stories on her website, and collagraphs movements, are the fastest movements use by artists since it came out in 1941. of objects she finds on beaches. This produced in the human body. The process seem to interfere with Nicolaides was a student of John Sloan, raises an interesting question prevalent substantiates and lends credence as drawing.” a leading figure in the Ashcan School of in art today: does the primary experience printmaker and draughtsman refer to realist artists, and George Bridgeman who of the artist’s process in conducting gesture in their work. ‘Gesture’ is no longer, That there are simple concepts underlying taught anatomy at the Art Students League. research and making become the in this context, a mystery term spinning these scannings has been articulated in artwork itself, or are the records of the magic for the artist, but an everyman/ ”Perceptual Drawing, A handbook for the Viktor Lowenfeld was especially noted experience, i.e. the resultant objects, the everyday process, a natural process. Practitioner” where twelve perceptual in Art Education circles because of his focus? In Lorenz’s work, they become concepts in addition to gesture are isolated work with the visual-haptic personality. complementary and symbiotic. Like the The mind of a bird, however, sets its vision and explained. Many art teachers have He established the stages of artistic work of Woolfalk, Wagner, Hargrave, on a fixed point; whereas, the human upheld these simple truths about drawing development from the scribbling of and Beneke, Lorenz’s cross-platform mind by its nature must constantly move, and learned seeing. Much in opposition children to what he called “dawning work gives the sense that a full picture responding to what is seen. Understanding to the notion that chance, luck, talent realism” of the adolescent. His “Creative of an event can never be assured, but this process routed through the brain helps or even that the subconscious needs and Mental Growth” which came out in that the closest approximation can us sharpen our knowledge of seeing and be invoked in order to extract meaning 1947 delineated two personalities, those only come from exploring an idea from drawing. The artist/printmaker working in from seeing, from what is seen or for that who respond to what they see optically a diverse range of perspectives and states by proofing, is applying that “jerky” matter what is imagined. and those who respond to their subjective media. Lorenz approaches printing as vision of seeing to an emerging image. body feelings. Lowenfeld received a an act of recording and remembering For example; when the printmaker in So what does the artist see when looking? doctorate in education from the University events and objects. The work itself is the developing an image, substitutes relief Kimon Nicolaides and Victor Lowenfeld of Vienna as well as graduating from the accumulation of these disparate for intaglio in a part of a developing image, were early investigators of this process as Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. A position parts, which taken collectively, give or litho for silkscreen, the artist/printmaker well as Betty Edwards more recently in the as the Director of Education in the Blind

10 11 can aid seeing and thus perception. A practice from its bedrock base, drawing. the practice of trial proofing. Pulling a short history of perceptual drawing from Now the draughtsman can add to what proof involves seeing, reconciling one’s the work of Nicolaides, Lowenfeld and the neurologist knows about seeing. inner vision to the reality before one. Edwards brings us into the 21st century, Additionally, the neurologist’s endeavor where work is being done to establish a can be seen as an aid to the artists’ inquiry When the nature of seeing as found in cannon for drawing, to establish a path (whether printmaker or draughtsman), the practice of drawing is applied to the through which the discipline of practice by substantiating the artist’s vision as practice of printmaking, perhaps then the could again be opened to a meritocracy something learned, away from the notion artist will not only see more clearly, but of art practitioners. Such endeavors would of the artists’ effort being one that is produce images truer to the sponsor a visually literate and perceptive miraculously bestowed or honed printmaker’s vision. audience, and good art teachers could on conceptual idealism. lead us into this idyllic future. Many outsiders, people independent Though drawing is the more immediate of the art establishment, would like to practice of transposing vision and improve their awareness of what appears imagination into image, printmaking to be a simple process, seeing and requires that additional discipline of drawing what you see. The process can sustaining and updating found in the find immediate application to not only “jerky” mechanism of gesture in using what one sees, but to what is imagined.

To be sure, in the Contemporary Art World Conrad Ross, Lawrence Kitchen 60's, charcoal, 17 x 23 inches. Image courtesy of artist. perceptual drawing has taken a back seat. Some recent movements such as Pop Art and especially the Op Art of the 1960’s and 70‘s have considered those concepts stemming from the practice of perceptual drawing in a somewhat more friendly, albeit lukewarm, fashion. But much of Conceptual Art and certainly the Outsider Art of the 1980’s and 90’s seem to not need what perceptual drawing offered. There was often outright scorn for the skills and effects that the practice might obtain, couched in the often heard expression, “skillful, but so what!” Perceptual concepts of drawing have not found favor in recent times, though there still are practitioners of the practice. This recent history has downplayed drawing-what-you-see concealing, if not ignoring those essential concepts underlying perceptual drawing, Conrad Ross, Auburn Studio 70's, charcoal, 22 x 16 inches, date unknown. Image courtesy of the artist. concepts that could rightfully prove useful to whatever “new” art movements the future might hold. Thus, the so- Institute also shaped his experiences. All verbal and analytical and (two), the visual called “traditional values” associated this transpired in Vienna before he fled and perceptual. Edwards based her efforts with perceptual drawing, which indeed Europe and came to America, where he on the discoveries in neurology of the permeate the notion of drawing itself, took a job at the Hampton Institute in two hemispheres of the brain having have become downplayed in the lexicon Virginia. In 1946 he become a Professor different functions. and training of the artist. of Education at Penn State University. Neurologists have since discovered The ideas often occupying the In 1979 Betty Edwards introduced the crossovers and “work-arounds” as the contemporary artist, of expressive thought novice to ideas of creativity in her book brain’s hemispheres establish reality and critical thinking, whether political, “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.” through perception. Edwards who taught analytical, social or process oriented By switching off verbal and analytical art in high school in Venice, California have often come to color the very idea thought, she claims, one’s drawing would and at California State University, Long of the concept of drawing itself. One improve. She differentiated sharply two Beach has since modified her views to might wonder if these interests have ways the brain perceives reality: (one), the allow that an analytical mode of inquiry not detached and derailed the artists’

12 Horizonte, Brazil’s fifth largest city of2.3 printed on specially treated fabric, The Hybridized Print million is located in the mountains 250 miles collaged onto a panel, and framed by Ed Bernstein Northwest of Rio de Janeiro. I taught a painted chain-link fencing welded over special class in printmaking from September the panel onto a steel frame. Through to January, and found myself drawn to the combination of photography, digital researching the socio-economic divisions printmaking, and sculptural elements, in the community. “Tapacaria” illustrates these socio- economic issues in Brazil. Though Brazil is experiencing unprecedented economic growth and “Scorched Earth Policy” also reflects my wealth, a large discrepancy still exists experiences and observations living in I am interested in the interface between In 2008, I curated an exhibition with as moth wings from Indiana University’s between the rich, the growing middle Brazil. Belo Horizonte is the capitol of the technology and tradition, in terms of Italian colleague Franco Vecchiet called Biology Department, manipulating them in class, and the poor. This conflict results State of Minas Gerais (General Mines), both aesthetics and technique. These No Danger for the 2008 SGCI Conference Photoshop, and digitally printing them on in considerable urban violent crime. As a one of the richest States in Brazil for its elements complement one another in shown at the airport in Richmond, Virginia. fabric. They were then sewn onto welded consequence, most middle class Brazilians natural resources. Iron ore is ubiquitous, form, content, and inspiration. Throughout Over 65 international print artists were stainless steel wire armatures to become a live in gated communities, bordered by and many open pit mines produce tons my art making career, my prints have asked to construct three dimensional three dimensional “print”. While working on high walls, often electrified and topped of iron ore that fill monster ships going been created primarily from my own prints related to flying, using the idea of these soaring sculptures, I photographed with razor wire or glass shards. In the largest to China. With this in mind, red clay photography and constructed sculptures. no danger as an antidote to our often the bare metal framework to create other cities, the poorest and even some working seemed the logical matrix for this piece, This informs the work on a technical level, negative and fearful associations with prints using trace monotype, etching, and class people live in large, densely packed combined with a digitally printed decal. while conceptually much of it is closely flying and airborne objects. Inspired by digital printmaking on paper. In 2010, I was urban communities called favelas. Many aligned with print media’s long tradition the high flying exhibit, I embarked on a invited to be a Visiting Scholar and Artist are located on hillsides, which makes them In conclusion, my work in many ways of confronting socio political issues. series of fabricated three-dimensional in the Escola de Belas Artes, Universidade vulnerable to dangerous mudslides in the reflects printmaking’s current direction, Edward Bernstein, Scorched Earth Policy,color In collaborations with artists from other flying creatures that represent the good, Federal de Minas Gerais in the city of rainy season. During my stay, I began a both thematically and technically. Its inkjet print and ceramic, 15 x 10", 2014. Image disciplines, musicians, and scientists, bad, fanciful, hopeful, hubristic, and Belo Horizonte. I received a Fellowship series of mixed-media works including content carries on the democratic nature courtesy of artist. I have created work that pushes spiritual aspects of human nature that from the Brazilian Government and travel a collaborative artist’s book with my wife, of the print and its history of often beyond the boundaries of what we call reside in all of us. My technical process funds from the Indiana University New Wendy Bernstein, based in part on life in focusing on socio-political agendas, “traditional” print. began with photographing objects such Frontiers Exploratory Travel Fund. Belo the favelas and on the walls and gates from Goya and Posada to Barbara Kruger protecting the middle class. and Swoon. Printmaking readily overlaps with other art media and is often a tool Edward Bernstein, Icarus, digital print on fabric, stainless steel, 33 x 45 x 14 inches, 2009. Image courtesy of artist. In early October 2012, we returned to in the collaborative process to realize Brazil to document 3 major Belo Horizonte the work, be it time based, installation, favelas and took hundreds of photographs performance or object derived. One can that I would later use as source material for argue that printmaking is now the most “Tapecaria” (Tapestry). As a side note, important art form since it pervades it was disheartening to see that preparations everything visual in our culture. By for the upcoming 2014 World Cup and exhibiting my prints, drawings and three- 2016 Summer Olympics are intensifying dimensional pieces together, I strive to the economic divide, as Brazil uses its demonstrate a conversation between resources to accommodate and impress the these media. My retrospective, Almost international visitors to these major events. Illuminated, at the Grunwald Gallery at Indiana University, January 17–February “Tapacaria” consists of over 350 manipulated 14, 2014 illustrates many of these ideas, photographic images from the favelas, techniques, and conceptual elements. interspersed with details of ferns from the exotic botanical garden at Inhotim Art Park located in the countryside, 90 minutes from the city. Visitors consist primarily of middle class and wealthy Brazilians, plus international tourists interested in world- class contemporary art and exotic nature. Its lavishly cultivated setting sharply contrasts the favelas’ own unique beauty and urban character. The manipulated photographs are digitally

15 The Responsibility There must be something lacking in our So we have looked into the exotic. In theory we find real problems. And in subject. Or the lack of authenticity can We also looked into the margins of our practice it is even more complicated. Some of the Artist be used as an accusation. I think it is own society, and at those marginalized of those terms defining Romanticism Dean Dass a particularly devastating accusation. within it. Women and people of color now seem a bit embarrassing. We all will I am very interested in these questions. continue to be among those marginalized. become a shaman like Joseph Beuys? Authenticity is one of the primary themes So artists whose content is about feminism We are the exemplars and the voice of the of our Print Seminar at Virginia. We just or race have a kind of de facto authenticity people? I do admire Beuys like no other, completed a collaborative book project, built into their project? Artists whose work but…we need a new Romanticism. Clearly, edition of 20, entitled “Kale!” where we emerged out of the former Soviet Union a relational aesthetic is the latest attempt tried to look critically at this new figure also have a certain cache in recent years. to overcome these dilemmas. Or, speaking of authenticity. Somehow, despite that We’ve also seen art made by schizophrenics as a printmaker, a relational aesthetic is we all now eat kale, the problems of the and other kinds of patients put forward a new attempt to unite the democratic world just continue. While ultimately I as something important, influential, and multiple to a socially redemptive purpose. think the question concerning authenticity real. Folk art, outsider art, and in general Here we find the socialist vision of is a theological question, looking a bit self-taught art – all these categories we’ve Käthe Kollwitz coupled with the utopian narrowly we shall see how print discourse seen become major influences. Now we hopes of the ‘60s era publication The has a particularly keen opportunity to speak of outsiderism. Henry Darger is one Whole Earth Catalog. Today printmakers A dorno opens his Aesthetic Theory, The mirror and the echo, both as with the broadside and the community work on these kinds of questions. The of the most influential artists of our time. seem to edition letterpress books and published posthumously in 1970, with formal strategies as well as themes; the supported agriculture (CSA), appears issues surrounding the history of printed The Museum of American Folk Art is built broadsides and grow kale from their CSAs the following sentence: “Today it goes exploration of variant as an inherent a particularly interesting phenomenon, images will provide particular and useful around Darger’s contribution; he is the interchangeably and with equal emphasis without saying that nothing concerning property of the medium; the self-conscious and provides more evidence for what I approaches to understanding both that centerpiece there. I think this phenomenon on each. The academic printshop with its art goes without saying, much less without print or printed book; the heightened am suggesting. We should speak of the history as well as the opportunities inherent is part of the same search, part of the same compost and community garden located thinking. Everything about art has become awareness of failure/the mistake as an evolution of the democratic multiple. in the very concept printed images. longing. In all of these cases we are merely just outside is becoming ubiquitous. problematic: its inner life, its relation to organizing principle; the author in the continuing to make otherness a kind society, even its right to exist.” That’s the distance; Google Image Search as a It may be that the printed image and But first, how did we get here? Was it of exoticism. We can do better. But if our work simply refers to climate first sentence! It’s not easy to talk about art. surprisingly valid research tool; the its history have something special to Duchamp’s urinal? Is it Thomas Kinkaid? change, poverty or injustice of any kind, various social media as new sites for contribute, but we need to be rigorous. How did we get here? We’re at a crime does that mean our work is about those But don’t we want to make work that we the “edition”; in all of these ways we Since the early ‘80s we talked about Authenticity is a difficult concept. scene. The first question is: what happened. topics? It does not follow. Or we might say believe in? Is not our creative work very find opportunities for printed images innovative printmaking and new directions Everyone looks for it. I would even say When we speak of the democratic multiple, our work is (merely) symbolically effective. important to us, even vital? Don’t we to participate openly and generously in in printmaking, only to discover Hercules that one of the premises of modernism in of representing the people; when we talk We are in the midst of a phenomenon want to work for the greater good? contemporary art. Contemporary art is Seghers was already there in the year 1540. art is a search for authenticity. Generally about an interest in the margins and in the whereby artists can refer to anything or any It may not be so easy. We know already a kind of meta-discipline, open One of the current euphemisms in place we look somewhere else. Authenticity is exotic or alien; we are starting to identify topic; this is the meta-discipline that is that already. What if these are really apparently to all other disciplines. Or is the hybrid print. Be careful. always elsewhere. Van Gogh dressed up the chief characteristics of the Romantic art. To refer to a topic is not that same as complicated questions? we might say any number of disciplines as a peasant and went out and painted persona. We are all still trying to channel actually working in the field or otherwise have collapsed into each other. Sculpture, Since authenticity has been put forward peasants. He thought that by doing so, William Blake. We could do worse. Identity is outflanked. Identity is deep ecology, gardening, landscape as a topic for discussion, we can only and by subsequently making drawings complicated, compromised, or merely architecture and printmaking now appear, assume a problem. Authenticity is missing; and paintings that were raw and rough, It is the subjectivity of the subject as such a social construction. Then authenticity for instance, to be closely related or even it’s hard to find. How do we know (like peasants?!) his life and work would that then comes to define authenticity. is called into question. interchangeable fields of research. The when we have found it? Where did the embody those same values — rootedness “The one true voice” that comes from the “The work of art return of letterpress, in its close association question originate? and a strong connection to the earth and inside; it is both visionary and redemptive. to life. He wrote these very sentences in his We all believe this. But that means art offers an answer to letters to his brother Theo. So authenticity is a calling; it’s part of the genius theory the question what has something to do with the creation of of art. But art is an academic discipline. meaning. In the savage, the primitive, There are great tensions here. Again, happens to the senses, the natural — all these terms should be Singerman’s Art Subjects proves to in quotes — van Gogh tried to escape be the salient text; this text, required the sensuous, the body, from a tired and worn out civilization. reading for all graduate programs, tells in an age of abstract Later, we see artists looking to Africa for the story of conflict and discovery as inspiration. Generally, we find European studio art practice struggles to become and instrumental artists looking to their colonies for renewal. an academic discipline. Again, we reason, the age of the So colonialism is bound up tightly with this find opportunities and problems. The search for renewal and authenticity. There opportunity is to continue to participate commodity form” is a paradox here isn’t there? It is one of in the prophetic tradition. the signs of a decadent and exhausted people that they will look always elsewhere for authenticity. Said Nietzsche.

17 doing that research. Let’s do that research. praxis (practice, set of procedures) that is That might really be collaboration. The unresolved antagonisms of reality better than the prevailing praxis of society, reappear in art in the guise of immanent dominated as it is by brutal self-interest. But this is a tricky business and I am not (innate) problems of artistic form. (Adorno) (utility, instrumental reason) This is what convinced art does any of this very directly. art criticizes. [Art] gives the lie to the notion Or that the most important aspect of art This is what makes the formal resolution that production for production’s sake is is what it accomplishes directly. As social of conflict so inherently satisfying. The necessary, by opting for a mode of praxis action, for instance, as community, on formal resolution of conflict is inherently beyond labor [or utility]. Art’s promesse that level of effectiveness, art lies well satisfying. This suggests that the du bonheur, (promise of happiness) then, below that of history. In its wisdom, responsibility of the artist is to make has an even more emphatically critical however, art lies well above history. Paul sure there is a lot of conflict in their work, meaning: it not only expresses the idea that de Man’s comment here suggests a kind then, to make sure to formally resolve the current praxis denies (meaning, fulfillment) of limit to art and also suggests what art conflict. I think that is something one can happiness, but also carries the connotation can accomplish, and I want to develop say in a critique: your work needs more that (meaning, fulfillment) happiness is that insight. conflict. (See Adorno’s dissonance.) something beyond praxis (Adorno).

“The work of art offers an answer to the So we are already on the inside doing the Art proposes an alternative. question what happens to the senses, the work that art does. sensuous, the body, in an age of abstract and instrumental reason, the age of the In her essay “A New Type of Intellectual: commodity form,” the age of irony, the The Dissident” Julia Kristeva defines the age of brutal self-interest; that is to say, our intellectual as one caught up in the very age. “The work of art presents a unity of a power structures one would change. That sensuous body [and critical thought.] Art also clearly posits the artist on the inside. has that kind of concrete, material logic.” (Terry Eagleton) So artworks are “It is the task of the intellectual, who has a kind of body. inherited those “unproductive” elements of our modern technocratic society which This imaginative unity is redemptive. used to be called the “humanities”, not Art wants to touch the world again, it just to produce this right to speak and wants the world back, closer, while behave in an individual way in our culture, all about us the world continues to but to assert its political value.” recede. This imaginative unity is of the “You will have to understand that I am world, not in flight from the world. In its speaking the language of exile…Our orientation toward the world the artwork is present age is one of exile.” essentially engaged and is already social practice. The artwork undermines utility Kristeva underscores the important posture and instrumentality even as it employs of art’s turning away and refusing to play elements of those vocabularies. Art the worldly game. This has long been employs those vocabularies in subversive a component of artistic behavior. Art is ways. (Adorno) That is to say, like a plenipotentiary (full expression of in non-utilitarian ways. the power and authority) of a type of

18 19 New Work from our Members

Ina Kaur, Constant Shift, installation of Handmade paper with cotton thread, size variable, 2013. Image courtesy of artist. Rachel Singel, Sky, intaglio, 34 x 44 inches, 2013. Image courtesy of artist.

Rachel Singel, Eye Socket, intaglio, gouache, 36 x 44 inches, 2013. Image courtesy of artist.

Maritza Davila, En busqueda de lo ancestral, collagraph, 48 x 23 inches, 2013. Image courtesy of artist. Rachel Singel, Patina, intaglio, gouache, 26 x 34 inches, 2013. Image courtesy of artist. Nathan Pietrykowski, Recurring Dream 1 and 2, digital animagion collage with lithograph, watercolor, monoprint, 2013. Image courtesy of artist.

Rachel Singel, Seed Pod, intaglio, gouache, 36 x 44 inches, 2013. Nathan Pietrykowski, Tripping while getting mugged, lithograph, watercolor, Ina Kaur, Constant transformation (change), hemp, electric wire, cotton thread, size variable, 2010. Image courtesy of artist. monoprint, 2013. Image courtesy of artist. Image courtesy of artist. Become a Member of Officers of the Mid America Print Council Mid America Print Council Catherine Chauvin, President University of Denver • The Mid America Print Council is a community of printmakers, Christopher Cannon, Vice-President papermakers, book artists, art historians, curators, collectors, facebook.com/ MidAmericaPrintCouncil College of DuPage and anyone who loves works on and of paper. • Check your address label for the date after your name – that’s Jean Dibble, 2nd Vice-President the instagram.com/ Notre Dame University last year that you paid dues. A sincere thank you to renewing mid_america_print_council members for their past support of the Mid America Print Council and a warm welcome to newcomers. Don’t miss our Jewel Noll, Secretary issues of The Mid America Print Council Journal. Hosco Press, Inc., Head Printer • Please join us for another year! Send in your membership form and dues now. Joseph D'Uva, Treasurer

Youngstown State University Your MAPC Membership includes: • A subscription to The Mid America Print Council Journal, Nichole Maury, Membership Chairperson published biannually. Western Michigan University • Discount subscription rates for MAPC members to Contemporary Impressions, the journal of the American Print Katie Christensen, Member-at-large Alliance, and discounts for subscribers to post work on the Wyoming Arts Council APA’s new Internet Gallery at: www.printalliance.org • Calls for participation in MAPC Members Exhibitions. Thomas Lucas, Member-at-large • Eligibility to attend MAPC Biennial Conferences. Chicago State University • Monthly MAPC Newsletters and weekly columns on our website Johntimothy Pizzuto, Member-at-large to keep you in touch with our membership and the current University of South Dakota goings-on in the print world. • The MAPC Blog and use of the MAPC Listerv.

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Printed on paper with 30% recycled Rachel Singel, Venetian Void, intaglio, 44 x 60 inches, 2013. Image courtesy of the artist. content using soy based inks.