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Printmaking
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Overview
Original prints have an ancient history that began in eastern Asia in the first few centuries of the last millennium. During the Renaissance, in western Europe, the art of the print flourished in the studios of artists like Rembrandt. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, European and American artists like Daumier, James Abbot McNeil Whistler, Mary Cassatt, and Picasso, and almost the whole School of Paris, developed the art form further.
In the U. S., printmaking activity spread from New York City throughout the country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, laying the foundation for a “print boom” in the 1960’s. It was during this decade that the great print publishing workshops originated. They recruited many of the best contemporary artists in the country, and established a pattern of major artists working in the print medium. Because of these efforts, original prints--while they remained a secondary medium for most artists--reached an aesthetic, critical, historical, and economic status in their own right.
Collaboration is a major factor in the print world, today. Painters and sculptors, as well as printmakers, per se, work in close collaboration with master printers--artists themselves--who have decades of experience in the print shop.
The five major processes are: intaglio, lithography, monotype, relief, and serigraphy. New processes are continually being invented by imaginative artists and master printers, and both photography and the digital revolution have impacted the print shops no less than the painting, sculpture, and trans-media studios. (Flatbed does not produce, in-house, Iris, Giclé, or other digital-output “prints.” )
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Intaglio
Dating from the Middle Ages, "Intaglio" (from the Italian, "to incise") describes a family of printmaking processes, all of which involve a plate (usually metal) which has an image below its surface. This image has been engraved, scratched, or etched with diluted acids. The positive lines or pits are inked, the negative surface area is wiped clean, and the plate is then placed face-up on the press bed, with the damp paper on top of it, cushioned with felt blankets, and rolled between the press's cylinders under great pressure.
Only intaglio presses--which comprise a flat bed that passes between two rollers--are used for intaglio printmaking, which includes engraving, etching, dry-point engraving, aquatint, soft-ground etching, lift-ground etching, photo-etching, and gravure. Intaglio presses may also be used to print relief and monotype prints (which have their image on the surface of a block or plate).
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Lithography
Dating from the nineteenth century, lithography is based on the antipathy between oil and water. Originally developed in Germany on Bavarian limestones, lithography was used first commercially, then as a fine-art process.
Using a black, grease-based, dry or wet medium, the artist renders the image on the flat, clean stone. A separate stone is required for each color desired. The image and stone are treated chemically to make the image area more receptive to oil-based inks, and the non-image areas more water-loving. The stone is then sponged wet, and rolled with the desired color of lithographic ink, in order to print each impression of each color. Additional colors will be similarly prepared on distinct stones, and printed in carefully-registered layers.
In recent decades, textured metal plates are often used in combination with, or in lieu of, the increasingly rare stones. For all original lithographs, a special lithographic press is required. It uses a lubricated scraper bar to impress the image on the paper.
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Monotype
Using thick printmaking inks and solvents, the artist paints directly onto an impermeable surface like Plexiglas. The resulting plate and image is then hand burnished or run through a press, essentially blotting up the single-original image. Multiple layers of monotyping on the same sheet of paper, "ghosts" (weak, second images), and repainted serial images are often printed, although monotypes exclude uniform multiple editions by definition.
The unique advantages of monotype are its instant accessibility to painters, its directness, its speed, its serial nature, and its distinct visual textures.
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Publishing
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Press
Flatbed is a publishing workshop in the tradition of the great U. S. shops such as Universal Limited Art Editions, Gemini G. E. L., Crown Point Press, and Landfall Press.
At our invitation, contemporary artists come to collaborate with our master printers to create limited editions of original etchings, lithographs, and woodcuts. We share ownership of these prints with the artists, and the works are marketed both through Flatbed Gallery and the artists' other galleries.
Most of the artists we publish are painters or sculptors who also enjoy working in print media. As in all of the works made at Flatbed, our published editions are multiple originals. That is, each impression is pulled by hand from a matrix or matrices the artist created in our studios exclusively for this purpose. (All of our prints are multiple originals; none are reproduced from a single original.) Each print is then signed and numbered by the artist, and the Flatbed "chop," or embossment, is applied. The matrices are canceled (defaced or destroyed), in order to insure for our collectors the continued appreciation of the work's monetary value. A signed documentation sheet accompanies each etching, lithograph, or woodcut.
Some of the artists published by Flatbed to date are: Terry Allen, John Alexander, Michael Ray Charles, Ann Conner, Kelly Fearing, Munson Hunt, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Luis Jimenez, Leonard Lehrer, Bert Long, Angele Mason, Melissa Miller, Greg Murr, John Obuck, Linda Ridgway, Dan Rizzie, Margo Sawyer, Laurence Scholder, James Surls, Frank Tolbert2 and Liz Ward.
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Facilities and Equipment
Facilities and Equipment
Flatbed's spacious 4,000 sq. ft. studio is equipped for all traditional processes in intaglio, relief, monotype, collography, and lithography, as well as lens-based and other innovative processes, including photogravure. A private artist's studio is included also.
The intaglio presses are: a 55 in. x 100 in. heavy-duty Takach-Garfield, a 34 in. x 60 in. Takach-Garfield, and a 24 in. x 48 in. French Tool. A 36 in. x 60 in. electric French Tool is on order. The litho presses are a 38 in. x 95 in. electric Griffin and a 31 in. x 60 Griffin; ample litho stones range from 36 in. x 48 in. down.
Serving these presses are over-sized acid baths, a 48 in. x 48 in. x 98 in. aquatint box, a fully-equipped darkroom, a 44 in. x 54 in. Nuarc plate maker, and generous work tables and counters.
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Contract Printing
Flatbed accepts proposals from artists, dealers, and publishers who seek to create--at their expense--an edition of collaborative etchings, lithographs, or woodcuts. Our 4,000 sq. ft. studio is spacious and equipped to accommodate traditional, as well as exploratory print projects. One of our specialties is large-scale prints, which are served by over-sized etching and litho presses and aquatint box. Lens-based processes such as photogravure are also emphasized, as well as positive-plate lithography.
After reviewing the artist's work, we agree on a project and appropriate printmaking process(es), and submit to the publisher an estimate of our fees for the two phases:
- Collaborative image development (during which the artist creates the matrix or matrices; this will be a per-day fee)
- Editioning (during which all the impressions are printed; this will be a per-print price).
Upon signing a contract, the publisher pays one half of the estimated fees in advance, and the other half when the project is finished. In selected cases, Flatbed will also print on contract a matrix or matrices developed elsewhere.
Flatbed also makes its studios available on a limited basis for open-shop intaglio and monotype printmaking by experienced artists. Inquire about day rates for assisted or unassisted work.
For more information about contract printing and its costs, or about open-shop opportunities, contact Katherine Brimberry, co-owner and master printer, at 866/477-9328, or info@flatbedpress.com.
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