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So is print inferior?

27/6/2013

4 Comments

 
It had never struck me that print might be considered an inferior art form - for all I know, it might be a well-known opinion if you've been through art school? - but I was reading back through Laura Boswell's studio diary blog the other day (still haven't made it back very far) and came across her regretting this but accepting the bias as just the way things are seen.  Oh.  And then I remembered back to college where I first took printmaking.  I was in a ceramics class when the tutor of the sculpture class was saying to our tutor that theirs were the only two fine art subjects (being taught at the college).  I wasn't impressed (it was the 'exclusive-us' tone of the comment) but put it down, at the time, to the tutor who was speaking likely having a bit of a thing for the other one.  However, maybe it was genuinely how he saw things?

And then there's the hierarchy of print methods.  Laura again - she is a lino and a woodblock printer, and suggests that some people out there consider her chosen trade akin to potato printing at infant school.  That one struck home - there is no doubt that the public can tend to say, dismissively, 'lino?  oh yes, I remember doing that at school'.  End of subject, really.  Within the printmaking world it's mostly thought of as a learner skill, I think, although the excellence of top practitioners would surely be recognised.  

Then collagraph - I cannot credit the person who said this because I was browsing and didn't take note of her name, but she said that in her (school art?) world, the very word collagraph encouraged others to downgrade their opinion of a work of art accordingly - and she knew that 'proper' artists came up with alternative names for collagraph, just to avoid the perceived stigma.  Which is a little bit lowering but presumably just one opinion from a good wide range.  Luckily there would seem to be enough excellent printmakers out there to champion every print method, from monotype to linocut to collagraph (not to mention all the rest) and, in spite of many colleges and universities shrinking or dispensing altogether with their printmaking facilities, print seems to be retaining plenty of popularity elsewhere.    
Picture
A painterly monotype by Kevin Fletcher
Picture
A linocut by Laura Boswell
Picture
A collagraph by Brenda Hartill
4 Comments
laura link
16/8/2014 11:20:14 am

Hi
Really thrilled to come across 'myself' here in your very interesting blog. Thank you. While I still get the 'oh I did that at school' said dismissively for lino, I occasionally come across a Japanese person who watches me doing Japanese Woodblock. They say 'Oh I did that at school, but I never worked hard enough to become an artist like you' - so much more charming and a real appreciation of the time/practice needed.

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Karen
16/8/2014 03:17:56 pm

Hi Laura
How gratifying - it's always good to be appreciated, and especially by people with some understanding of what's involved. I've always felt faintly deprived that I had no inkling that printmaking existed when I was growing up - no 'I did that at school' for me. It's delighted me ever since I did find it, though, and I can't imagine I'll ever leave linocut behind.
On a more excited note, I'm looking forward to taking your Japanese woodblock course in Kendal this week.

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Bouchra
7/2/2015 07:06:43 am

We are actually doing a print-based project at my art school at the moment, making a body of work in response to The Crow poems by Ted Hughes. Completely fascinating. We have covered experimental monoprint, coloured monoprints, dry point etching, lino, and collograph. Collograph completely surprised me, I wish I could post some pictures of what I've done, but it's an amazing technique and produces prints that you could never draw! And the more you 'work' the plate, the better the prints as the plate ages and ink really works its way into the crevices and textures. My local university (Brighton, UK) provides a 'Fine Art - Printmaking' degree, so I assume the attitude towards printing has changed.

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Karen
7/2/2015 08:23:47 am

I agree with you - collagraph is amazing, and at the moment I can't put it down. I'm taking a very simple approach at the moment - I just enjoy the richness of the surface, which for me is just shellac on plain mountboard, into which I've cut with a scalpel. It's so very different to my other love, lino, though combinations of the two increase the possibilities. I've taken weekend courses with Peter Wray (I can't find a link for him, but his name in google brings up plenty of images) and Ruth Thomas (http://www.ruththomas.net/) - very different collagraph artists. Ruth uses many 'nature' products (spiders, for instance) while Peter Wray puts anything and everything on to his plates (built up on very thin ply), often scorching parts of the surface, and then uses different inks to produce viscosity prints. It seems to me that collagraph can be so many things.

As to 'is print inferior?', you're right and it's certainly accepted by most as a fine art (different, rather than lesser), but the attitude will persist, I'm sure, amongst some fine art purists.

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    Hi there

    I make prints and book arts, though nowhere near as often as I'd like - no good reason, just an inability to get on with things.  I occasionally go on about landscape (with which I am mildly obsessed) and various of its elements, and I like to pass comment on exhibitions I visit.

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