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InPrint Article
Read this article, or see other newsletter articles. March, 2003 Self-Portrait of an Artist Inventing a New Application of the Print Process: Ebby Malmgren [Editor's Note: I've had the opportunity to watch Ebby Malmgren's printing as it has evolved after she initiated this new approach during a period in Taos. As I've been able to watch successive trials, there has been an exciting and dramatic evolution to her work. It is clearly the product of a wide-ranging background and exposure to art techniques: The sum of many lifetime experiences and influences. It was the excitement as well as the skills she brought to the studio that demanded I ask her to describe what it was that brought her to this point. I hope that InPrint readers will find this description as enjoyable and illuminating as I have.] This should probably be sub-titled "How I got here from there and what I do now that I'm here," because I came to most of the things I'm now doing like printmaking late, through the back door and with the wrong book; which means that I am always working just on the edge of what I don't know. That isn't all bad though because I think that's where art happens.
Our Editor returned my preliminary manuscript and asked me for a side story about "my background." I suspect she meant for me to elaborate on my formal qualifications, which I didn't include before because they seem-to me-to have so little to do with printmaking. I have a B.S. in Hospital Dietetics from Iowa State University and an M.A. from St. John's College in Annapolis. I have published poetry in a number of literary journals and anthologies, am one of the editors of PASSAGER-the University of Baltimore literary magazine-and edited a special poetry section for THE STUDIO POTTER IN 2000. But perhaps as Thomas Wolf said, that "each of us is all the sums (s)he has not counted." Or like the poet Marianne Moore: "The thing is to have the vision and not deny it. To care, and show that we do." Soon after I started making prints I realized I missed the 3-D possibilities of clay and it occurred to me that polymer clay (there is keen debate among potters as to whether this is truly "clay") might be a solution. Polymer clay-more familiarly known by its trade names "Sculpey," "Fimo" and "Cernit" -is a malleable product that hardens in the oven. After sampling various kinds I settled on "Premo," a 4th generation Sculpey that is denser, stronger and more expensive than regular Sculpey, even though I purchase it in quantity and wholesale from Clay Factory, Inc. PO Box 460598, Escondido, Ca. (1-877-728-57390) www.clayfactoryinc.com.
Once softened and rolled to the desired thinness polymer can be cut with scissors, an ordinary knife or-for a very thin smooth cut-with a sharp thin piece of metal called a tissue blade, which is available in most art stores. Tearing polymer, much like tearing paper, gives a rough edge. The slabs can then be layered, folded, woven, carved with regular carving tools and stamped or written on with a semi-blunt instrument like a pencil. This is very much the way I work the surfaces of my hand-built clay pieces; and I use many of the same tools and stamps for both. After the polymer has been oven-baked for 25 to 30 minutes at 275º F in a well-ventilated room, it can again be carved with regular carving tools or a sharp knife. Inking, as in all printmaking, is the most difficult and elusive part of the process. Like the little bear's porridge it has to be "just right." Because of the collagraph-like multi-layered nature of the plate the ink for single color printing can be applied to the high points-as in a relief prints-or pressed into the low points with the high points wiped clean for intaglio. Editor's note: Basically the plates are created using the polymer like metal plates except that the lines are not as fine and the depths are exaggerated vertically so much of the ink application and the wiping of the plates needs to be adjusted to accommodate this difference. She's right; and I'd like to be able to say more about how to judge what's right, but as Alice Quinn, a former poetry editor for the New Yorker said about writing, "If I knew where poems are kept, I'd go there."
The depth of the plates, which ranges from 1/4th to 3/4ths inch make inking difficult to judge. For relief prints I spread the ink with a piece of mat board. For intaglio printing I have found that applying the ink with an inexpensive stiff brush (actually a solder brush sold in hardware stores for about 40 cents) works well. In both cases, wiping with soft paper towels seems to work better than the usual phone book pages. For very stiff ink tarlatan is useful. Or for water based inks, cheesecloth instead of tarlatan. In general, it's important to think about inking the vertical as well as the horizontal surfaces. Also, one must attempt to estimate how deeply the plate will emboss and how much ink will be carried over the edge from the higher planes. The plate should be generously inked but wiped to smooth away lines and until the ink no longer looks glossy. Blending Akua-Kolor water based inks directly on the plates before printing works well; and to my surprise, these water-based inks are compatible with oil-based inks.
The paper for polymer plate printing should be wet but not soggy. Allowing twenty minutes to half an hour to soak and 15 minutes between blotting paper seems about right for my work. Rives BFK, Somerset, Hahnemule, Fabriano-in fact any high quality printmaking paper-works well. So do the handmade papers with a strong body. Since I do not have a press I use my 30-year-old slab clay roller (a 24" x 72" bed Brent currently available for about $1500 from Bennett Ceramics, 431 Enterprise St. Ocoee, FL 34761 - 1-800-432-0074) for printing when I am in Annapolis. The number of composition board shims and heavy canvas sheets I put down on the bed control the pressure. When the plate is in place I put the paper on top, then a guard sheet of newsprint, a dense foam mat made by Whelan press, and 3 to 5 inches of soft foam rubber. I top it all with a final canvas blanket to hold everything in place. In Taos, where we spend part of the year, I have a 24" x 72" North Star Super slab roller (also Bennett, about $950), which has a different drive mechanism but works as well as-and in some ways better than-the Brent. Neither clay slab roller can be as finely adjusted as a traditional press, but after a period of trial and error I am able to guess right most of the time. In many ways printing is like firing a kiln because the last step is always a little beyond one's complete control-which seems to fit the kind of work I do both in clay and on paper. I like to feel that all art has its roots in archetypal imagery, that it holds an element of surprise for the artist as well as the viewer, and that we are all working just a little beyond what we know.
My prints are shown at the Carla Massoni Gallery in Chestertown, MD, and in Taos, NM, at Graphic Impressions Gallery and Fafa's Fine Art and Furniture. The Maryland Federation of Art displays both pottery and prints and The Annapolis Pottery and the Harwood Museum Shop in Taos have my pottery. -Ebby Malmgren |
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