the million print project

i am underway, but waiting for a few things before i start printing... i had planned to have my nephew Max help me print for a week (so he will be arriving in Chicago next Friday)... there is a problem though, the school policy is that i cannot have a guest working in the printmaking studio! so we can't print while he is here. i'm learning more and more that problems just always happen, no matter how much planning i do in advance, there are always new things that come up. though, that is part of the enjoyment of the process. so the week that Max is here we will make a series of 35 pieces instead (probably a combination of collage, drawing, and painting) and that will be a good precursor to printing a million prints! one of the really good things about us not being allowed to print while he is here is that i have realized that doing all of the work myself from beginning to end is really an important part of this project. so many artists throughout history (starting way back in the Reniassance if not earlier) have had many assistants to do their work, this has become even more commonplace now (at least with many of the most well known artists) with artists having large groups workers that they employ to produce their work. there are many things that can be encountered in an art museum that were not touched by the artist whose name is on the wall. i'm not taking sides on this, i have just realized that doing all of this project myself gives it much more credibility as an idea.

this is a large inking roller that i used to print a test plate ten times last week
the ink
the plate on the press bed just starting to get inked

the plate and the press

the plate... i have decided to only print rectangles instead of letters. originally i was going to cut out letters in the middle of the black rectangles but decided that the letters are a project in themselves, so this will be a million prints of a black rectangle... it may sound too simple, but it is actually quite beautiful to see these prints in person, they all have a really wonderful wood grain as well as various scratches and imperfections that give them a great quality. i will show more after i start printing the real edition.

so this is the plate after printing it ten times. if you look at the upper right hand corner there is a problem with the horizontal line that i cut, it is curvy. that is part of the reason behind making a new plate before i start for real.