November « 2009 « L. Joshua Goodman’s Art Blog

November 25, 2009

Resisting the Urge

Filed under: General Discussion — Tags: Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Aquatint, art, artists, etching, Intaglio, landscape, landscapes, Occum's Razor, pictorial, Sataf, Sataf Spring, spray paint, telling the story — Joshua @ 8:42 pm

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author and aviator (1900-1945)

The Urge to Do Something can be powerful.

But good practitioners of any discipline are skilled at stripping away frivolity. The famous dictum, Occum’s Razor says something like, “Whatever doesn’t support, detracts” (that is not an exact translation, but it is an accurate translation). In Hebrew they say, “kol mosif gorea” which means “additions diminish”.

At the risk of violating the above principles I’ll tell you what brought this to mind. I just pulled a print. It’s the second state of a small plate that I took with me to a hillside not far from where I live. It’s located above the Sataf Spring just outside of Jerusalem. I drew out the landscape, the hills cascading one behind the other and the hungry sky above. I etched and printed it last week, but I felt it needed some atmosphere, some depth, so I did a few things (involving spray paint aquatint) and today I pulled the second state.

I don’t know exactly what to do right now. The decision is to Do Something or to consider it Done. It might actually be finished, but, and this is crucial, maybe it needs more. There is more that CAN be done, but I’m uncertain if there is more that SHOULD be done.

Meanwhile, I’m resisting the Urge.

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November 13, 2009

Turkish Tiles

Filed under: General Discussion — Tags: etching, Floral designs, Intaglio, Moslem, Moslem culture, Multiples, Original Etching, Original Prints, Piano, Piano concepts, Prints, Turkish Tiles — Joshua @ 4:35 pm

In 1972 I went to Israel in search of employment. I stayed in a few run down youth hostels that fortunately were so old that they still had the old flooring from the previous century. Thus, I discovered Turkish Tiles.

izani To see samples of original Turkish tiles, go to; http://www.bazaarturkey.com/tile.htm or http://www.rugart.com.au/about_tiles.htm (image at right: samples from rugart.com)

What I found so fascinating was the nature of the design. Mostly, they were a single pattern that formed a greater whole when placed next to each other in an area like a floor or a wall. I thought how very much like Printmaking this could be.

You may notice that each of the designs in the sample shown (right) are actually four tiles. If you’re quick you can see the four quadrants that form the larger image. Each of those smaller quadrants is a design that is different than the bigger combined image. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

The nature of Printmaking is multiples — printing multiple prints of the same plate. This means that a large finished work could be made from a combination of prints from a small(er) plate. Very efficient.

This concept frees printmakers from the need to think in terms of editions. That is, each “work” is made up of multiples. If one “work” was twelve tiles then an edition of say twelve “works” would be 144 individual impressions.

It’s probably already been done, but if not this would be a first. (I love a sentence like that…please accept my apologies!) I’ve never seen anything like this before, but you never know. Probably somewhere somebody has already come up with this idea. However etchings have heretofore been printed as sets of deliberately limited numbers (to hold value), sold either as a whole edition of individual prints or as single numbered prints (each one an original). But no longer! As of 1972 a single print is a mere building block in the making of a greater work.

In any event I find the idea of Intaglio prints as building a greater whole from multiple prints to be engaging. Of course the decorative floral designs of Moslem culture are not the only designs susceptible to this technique.

Pianos for example can be given this treatment. Or even a Community of Faces (see my website and other posts of this blog for examples).

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Hand and Hammer Progress

Filed under: General Discussion, The Story of "MultiColored Hand and Piano Combino" — Tags: Florence Italy, Il Bisonte, Photo Etching, Photo Incisione — Joshua @ 12:23 pm

Three colors recomined to make a multicolored whole.

I’ve printed a green and a purple version of The Hand. I’ve put them together with the Peach version from three and a half years ago. Here’s what it looks like.

I’ve tried to draw and etch the piano. This is the third time that I’ve attempted this. For technical reasons it hasn’t worked. I’m going to try photoEtching (I like the Italian word, PhotoIncisione). Some places (e.g. Il Bisonte in Florence) are against this decidedly modTech cheat. On the other hand I will try anything when all else fails. Necessity being the Mother of Technology.

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