Week Five-Response to Article

The article I chose was linked from printresting to another art blog type page called ashes and milk. Here is the article: http://www.ashesandmilk.com/blog/paper/bryan-nash-gill/

It is about a printer named Bryan Nash Gill who makes relief prints from tree specimens that have been cut down to expose the inner rings. He works over the surface meticulously until it is perfect then hand rolls the ink on. After this he uses handmade washi paper and his very own fingertips to work over the entire surface of the tree stump. each crack and groove must be run over so that the ink will transfer properly. I think the combination of such a natural print and such a directly personal process makes it incredibly unique and interesting. one might think that it seems so easy to just find a stump, sand it up and print away but the laborious process is actually more difficult than it seems. I think the relationship created between the tree itself and the printer in itself is what makes the prints so powerful to take in and the literal translation of natural beauty onto a print carries such a simple purity that it gives the work a very interesting perspective and deeper intention.

Cannonball press exhibit

My reaction to this exhibit was something along the lines of WOW! DAMN! or better yet HOT DAMN! The discipline of woodcut fascinates me and the works in this exhibit were no different. The larger works amazed me at how clean and detailed they were, and I often found myself laughing at the subject matter. I felt that the press was making contemporary works about the freakish world of carnival and circus performance. I didn't have much of a chance to fully explore each print but the ones I was able to take in all seemed to follow this theme of oddity and bizarre persons and productions. The statement matched this subject matter with an odd twist on baking/cooking that also produced some laughs. The entire body of work seemed to deal greatly with rejecting the seriousness of "fine art" and appealed to me in the same way an underground musician or poet would. The general goal of the show seemed to be to make people think about what art really is and how this "serious buisness" of art can be easily rejected without losing the integrity of quality work.