Overly experimental letterpress work is not really something you see too much in the artist world. The letterpress was created as a tool to produce print in a quicker format then writing the same thing over and over by hand. Once we discovered quicker and more productive ways to do the same work the letterpress was somewhat abandoned. Once we had moved on some people looked back and said what else can we do with it. So now we moved from traditional setting newspapers and books to customization, you start to see more design like qualities in the letterpress work and custom images and type as apposed to the standard led fonts that were made for the press. Then it has moved also into using the letters as form, so using letters or symbols combined to make a poster or for aesthetic qualities. People have also started to layer type and using multiple colors to use a mass of type to create crazy posters.
I think this type of experimentation in older processes are important because as we move on to new technologies and processes we loose some of the aesthetic qualities. In experimenting in older methods we can push them in newer ways with newer types of thinking that weren’t thought of at the time that processes was used. We can create new things in old ways with new styles and new outcomes. There is something about a letterpress print you just can’t get with a computer, if it’s the layering or the uneven distribution of ink or even the embossing of the paper it just creates a nice aesthetic that you can’t achieve in any other way. In using this method you are also working within certain restrictions, you can only do so much with it but it’s all about pushing what is possible and what you can create within the abilities of the press.
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nick,
ReplyDeleteyou're generally headed down a good path in working with the pattern idea. would it be better/faster/possible to do the same thing on the smaller press, so you can be pursuing two ideas at once? that way when you are waiting for big prints to dry you can be setting up smaller pattern studies with metal type.
i think your editions are too small right now. you probably should be making 5 or more prints each time so you have plenty of stuff to play around with. it also allows for mistakes that won't destroy your whole process if things don't work out.
also, i don't think i saw any hammerpress work amongst your examples. why is that? brady is probably the heaviest user of pattern and ornament among that top tier of printers across the u.s. his work is really worth looking at. both he and his employee, matt mcnary, graduated from kcai -- brady in printmaking and matt from GD in '05.