Friday, September 5, 2014

Carnival: Moments of Truth

It's carnival season in Vermont, and county fairs abound, providing such a riot of color, sound and opportunity to have a good time.  Sometimes as you go from booth to booth, nothing seems to go together, though you wouldn't pass on any of it. . . . .which brings up these pieces about which I am perplexed.  Here is your opportunity to be an art critic and tell me whether or not these pieces should be included in the series. or not?



Do you see what's "wrong" with this image?  Well, two things as printmaking goes.  The plate was too heavily inked and when printed, it skidded beyond where it had been placed.  You can see the line made by the double impression about 3inches from the top.  

I tried obliterating the line with pastel, but that made it worse, and as much as I loved the shape of the image, and the depth added by that top 3 inches, I reduced the image to this:

Does it work for you?  I'm still not sure, and hence, no title has been given yet.

The other "mistakes" which are incorporated into the image are the stippled marks over the brown shape of the hill.  That too was the result of the plate skidding across the image.  


Raspberry Sky
15 x 15"
pastel over monoprint

Raspberry Sky is one of the few pieces that lost some of its intensity when drawn over.  Though there is definitely a glow coming from the page, I feel its spontaneity was reduced.  It has a name because it is actually very much like a raspberry, sweet and tart at the same time, so I don't want to pass up on its innate irony, but I do wish I had preserved the mountains as they were.    See print (before pastel) in lower right corner.  




Probably the most worked (over-worked?) piece of the lot, this was one of my very favorite pieces in its monoprint stage, but was lacking "something."  (See above, top row, middle image.)  Was that "something" ever found?  Not sure, but dare I admit to rotating this image twice in its development.  This was also one of the most difficult to photograph, and the picture diminishes its intensity.  To keep or not?


1 comment:

Anna Purtell said...

It makes it more valuable though. My eyes see a sunken ship or submarine with bubbles floating above it. The line 3 inches below the top looks like a reflection from the sun or a symbolic "line of no return." As you can see I'm not well versed in art.. Thank you, that was fun being an amateur critic for you. The pieces are beautiful!