VISITS to professional artists in their studios
I plan to visit professional artists in their studios. Id like to use these visits to inform me from a visual perspective on other artists working spaces, plus ask questions & hear about their experience of being a professional artist. I will use key questions during the interview, however each visit will be very different & I will allow each one to develop naturally.
JOHN McGOWAN
I’ve been in touch John McGowan, a local printmaker, now retired from teaching art, he’s been making detailed & expressive prints for over 50 years. He’s agreed I can visit him in his studio and I’m both excited and nervous as this will be a new experience for me.
We’ve chatted by email and I’ve asked specifically to see ‘West Street’. Originally printed in 2003, revisited it in 2013.
I’m keen to ask about his inspiration for this print and learn how his ideas develop. And why did he revisit this print & produce something so different from the same design. On John’s website he talks about the influence of artist John Piper, he mentions Piper’s ‘key line’ and I must ask what this means.
Visit – 23 July 18 Northborough, Peterborough
What a fascinating experience! John was very generous with his time and chatted openly about how he first started printing through to life today as a professional artist & his studio practice.
John talked of how West Street 2003 came about and the eye-opening experience at the Graal Press in Roslin, Midlothian with Carol Robertson. He says he asked question after question as each new step fueled his curiosity further. The quantity of proofs they pulled as part of their ongoing investigation and experimentation was vast!
And then West Street 2013. John says the more he looked at the original print the more he became dissatisfied with parts of it, to the point he went back to it to change, tweak and reprint. He points out things such as the curtains in the 2003 version, better without in the 2013 print. A sunny day versus a rainy one. Personally I prefer the original sunny colour palette, however the seriousness of the buildings themselves would seem more appropriate to a more serious palette and taking in to account the tweaks I think the print is improved as a result. Without doubt there is a more complete and complex feel to the latter version.
Through necessity as well as lack of experience, my prints are much simpler and I’ve never worked on a print with comparatively so much experimentation or gone back to something many years later. To date prints for OCA projects and assignments need to be completed and dried within approximately 6 weeks, however I will be looking at the work of T-L over a two year period, which will allow for a more in depth investigation and potentially much more time spent on any prints I make in response.
Very interesting was the varied selection of Lascaux Tusches, introduced to John by Carol Robertson. I’m a little familiar with Tusche washes after reading about their uses in Lithography but fascinating to see them and their resulting use in screenprinting. As John explained and showed me, the opportunity they offer for extensive mark making is fantastic, introducing texture and tone variations to an otherwise smooth plastic surface.
We discussed proofing papers too, something I haven’t considered greatly yet. I tend to use basic cartridge or copier paper, mainly because its cheap and readily available, however I know I need to think more about this going forward.
The conversation we had over a 2hr timeframe encompassed much more than the outline Ive written here. Just to see inside a professional artists studio, to see ongoing projects on the bench and have a conversation about how someone else approaches things has been extremely useful.
Other things I take away from this visit…… MiniSun LED Light Pads. The amount of time spent creating a print can vary from just a few weeks to several years, it takes as long as it takes. Cripps Library.
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ANITA KLEIN
I’ve approached printmaker Anita Klein for a studio visit. I admire her bold approach documenting every day life. Like most women I imagine, I can relate closely to many of the events she explores in her prints, it makes me feel closer to both her & the experience it reminds me of. She says that although she’s celebrating intimate family life through her pictures she’s also hoping others will use the pieces as a reminder to celebrate the ‘everyday’ and cherish what they have. Recent pictures of stained glass on Instagram have also held my attention & I’m keen to ask about these.
Visit – 11 August 18 studio near London Bridge, London SE1
Anita is a warm and confident person and I felt privileged as we sat and chatted in her Southwark Studio… whilst I tried not to show how nervous I felt.
I’d done some research before I’d headed to London and a common theme had quickly emerged from the many interviews & bio’s published online. Anita’s work isn’t fashionable, it appears simple but is actually rich in subtleties and complexity, many of us can relate to the pictures she makes which in turn is the appeal that has us hanging her work on our walls. We connect to her prints & paintings either through personal experience of our own or at the very least as a life-event we understand.
I’ve taken a great deal from the 2 hours we chatted together. Food for thought ….. stay a student for as long as possible; being a student has someone looking at your work & providing experienced feedback, that doesn’t happen after education. Learn to handle rejection; it happens to all artists regardless of their notoriety or success. Step back from a print for a prolonged period of time before coming back to it & reassessing how successful or otherwise it might be; it can look very different after some objectivity is achieved through time.
We talked about selling work and building reputations and she says over her working life she has seen a dramatic decline of the high street gallery. Like the average UK high street, galleries are not fairing well. She maintains a more fortunate position now, after much hard work over the years, with Eames Fine Art running her website and keeping up her profile as one key example. We agreed that for quality exposure it is ideal to enter as many exhibitions as possible, such as the RA Summer Exhibition and other open exhibitions like The Discerning Eye, the National Original Print Exhibition, but learn how to handle inevitable rejections, it doesn’t mean work isn’t of high standard, more often as not it means the work just didn’t fit the required profile of that particular event.
We talked about the integrity of the creative process and I’m really beginning to feel that I’m making work to requirement rather than following my natural inclinations. Not a bad thing, it pushes me much further than I’m likely to push myself but I do feel I should redress the balance between the student & artist.
I didn’t remember to ask about the stained glass work but Anita kindly invited me to email any questions at any time so I may well take up her generous offer.
OCA Printmaking 2 