Incorruptible
After a year off, I recently got back into printmaking. It came about in a kind of circuitous manner. After moving back to Texas I started making postcard collages for fictional tourist traps and destinations in the Lone Star State. One thing led to another. This project led me to collaging in general, which led to me buying a bulk set of blank postcards (because I fell in love with the size and format). I made 100 postcards and decided to call my project finished (thinking about it day and night had started giving me migraines), but I still had a big stack of postcards left over. I decided it might be fun to some linocut designs and print them on the postcards, so I bought a bulk order of carving blocks. They sat untouched on the corner of my desk for a few weeks, not sure what to do with them. I have an issue where it's hard for me to work in the moment, creating singular anythings. I can't just write a story for the sake of writing a story or make a collage for the sake of making a collage. I need a goal in mind, some constraint to drive what I'm doing. Without one, the idea of blocks that could be carved into anything just became too daunting. But at some point I decided I might use them for a zine. I had in mind to make one on my ten favorite musicians, with a carved image of each, but beforehand I decided to get my hands back into practice. I went to the public domain collections of the Met, the Chicago Art Institute, and the Smithsonian and found a bunch of sculptures and sketches that I thought would make interesting images. I started carving away.
The first three I did were the first three that appear in this zine (minus the cover image). Inadvertently I had carved three images that when put back-to-back had a kind of continuum to them: a bust looks forlornly towards the sky, a woman does the same with a shrouded woman turning away from her, another turns to look the same way as the young woman. One thought rang clear in my mind: this was a comic. I mean, I don't know if it's a comic, but those initial images fit the definition of a comic in that they are "sequential art." From there I had my finish line in mind, an idea for what these prints could be a part of, they could be a kind of comic in the vein of Frans Masereel.
In addition, as a writer, I knew I wanted to have some sort of words go along with these images. At the time of writing this, I've been reading a book of Richard Wright's haikus, and I've been keeping a daily journal in the form of three haikus I write each night (I may write about this more later). Honestly, haiku has always been one of my favorite poetic forms, especially renga (which is more-or-less a long string of haikus). I had the idea that this book could be composed of my images and a story told through renga.
The rest kinda speaks for itself. I found a couple of images I liked, carved, and printed them, and from them a rough story emerged. I then went back looking for images to finish the story and correspond to the gaps I had in mind (two of which came from prints I had previously done). Then it was just a matter of putting this thing together.
It's a rough book, both in the wobbly story and in the actual construction, but as my first zine that I'm really putting out into the world, I like it. I hope you do, too.
Artworks Used:
- Amalfi, Cathedral
- Head of a Woman
- Male Torso From a Plaster Cast
- Marble bust of a man
- Model (positive) for casting a metal monster mask
- Saint John the Baptist, with Sketch of Head
- Sketch of Woman's Head
- Study for Bust of the Madonna
- The head of a woman tilted upward and facing left
- Torso of Hercules Resting (Fragment)
- Triceratops Skull
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