PRINTS

Forgive my bad photos, these are just a few of the prints I did in my Advanced Graphic Arts Workshop last semester. I don't feel a connection to printmaking, especially to etching. It's hard to feel a connection with the material when just touching it with the natural oils of your hands can cause a blemish. I find myself more attached to my work when it feels like work, when there is something physical about it. Paint I can push around after sawing, nailing and stretching the canvas, I have to stand on my toes to reach the top of the painting and stoop down to my knees to get the bottom, my back starts to ache and my neck gets sore from craning and tilting my head, my feet throb from standing. Clay is just the same, I scoop huge handfuls of sludge, measure dry clay bases, then after standing around watching out for mice (the clay pugging machine is in the basement of the oldest building at Hunter) I have to catch freshly mixed and condensed clay, then lug it from the clay mixing room to my shelf in the studio. It's laborious. And that's just the beginning. My hands cramp on the wheel, while my eyes go in and out of focus from concentrating on the spin too long, I stretch my body as I roll clay into slabs, squeeze it in my hands, making it smooth or rough, I hold it into place. Most of all my hands feel aged from the clay, worn down from the grit and dry from its moisture sucking power. It seems like a battle and honestly, dramatizing per usual, most of the time, it feels like war.