Included in this entry are some of the prints I made at the Chateau Orquevaux. Because I didn’t want to “dump” a lot of images all at once, I am showing the black and white images in today’s post and will post the more colorful and complicated prints tomorrow.
I made some work immediately upon arriving at Orquevaux but I wasn’t entirely happy with the results. I think that this was because I immediately started to make work without having thought about my surroundings, the ambiance of the studio as well as the rhythm and process of making new work. After a week, I began to incorporate the theme of “Still Life “into my work. I didn’t do this consciously but it came about as I became accustomed to my surroundings and studio. Every day I saw a bust of Henry IV, taxidermy heads, elaborate furniture, candelabras and statues of Napoleon comfortable placed next to each other. It became very easy to include an “imaginary vase” along with these elements in my still life prints.
I am including the black and white or monochrome images in today’s post and will show the more colorful pieces later. The black and whites introduce the still life theme first but some of the black and white or monochrome pieces were made along with the colorful prints.
The sizes are typical but are a little smaller than usual. This happened because I had to cut down some of the paper for the convenience of travel and some of the pieces of paper, when cut from larger sheets became odd sizes. These new sizes made me think about space differently and perhaps allowed some other types of spatial/compositional relationships and designs in the prints. The largest width is 21” the smallest height is 15”.
The backgrounds became very important in these prints. I enjoyed varying the scale of the cross hatched areas in the background and foreground, creating contradictory but also rich spatial areas. Some of these backgrounds were very tedious to make. That could have accounted for my varying the grid as I made my way across the picture plain. The “pentimento” of older prints, still left on the plate, added to the richness of the surface. I think that this group of prints does show a steady progression of purposeful discovery and exploration. As planned as many of these prints are, I still can become surprised by the unintentional results. One of the backgrounds in these prints reminded me of George Herriman (of Krazy Kat fame)
