Interview with Abigail Anderson

It is not often that I come across a new technique and a fresh point of view in printmaking. If anywhere, the SGC and MAPC conferences are great events to attend if have been lacking inspiration lately. Abigail Anderson's artwork caught my eye at the last MAPC Conference and I just had to share it with you. It's been an interview long promised, so I hope you will be as inspired as I was when I met her.

Abigail Woods Anderson is a Minneapolis- based artist and educator. She received her BA from St Olaf College in 1999 and currently works with the Walker Art Center's department of education and community programs. Abigail is also an instructor and member of the artist cooperative at Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA) and made her curatorial debut there at the Lerner Binder Gallery this spring (a multidisciplinary exhibition What Follows What Came Before).

I was drawn to her work because of the detail that she was able to get with photopolymerplates and her hand drawn negatives. Here is what Abigail had to say about her technique: "What's striking about letterpress is that it is at once anachronistic and in vogue. Artists working in letterpress have a vast array of technologies (two millenia) at their disposal. What sets my technique apart from most contemporary letterpress practitioners is my preference for handmade, rather than digitally derived, negatievs to generate photopolymer plates. I thrive off the direct mark-making and problem solving ingenuity of DIY processes and analog materials. Occasinally, specific projects necessitate the facsimile quality that a computer affords, but usually my process is more akin to drawing and painting."

Degrees, detail

Abigail was great in sharing how she makes her negatives. Her basic technique is to paint a solid surface of India Ink with a foam brish on acetate and let it dry. Then you can use the scratching tool of your choice (x-acto knife, etching needle, sandpaper, wire brush, etc.) After you make the drawing you can expose your plate the way you normally would. I'd suggest making a couple of trial plates to get the exposure right.

Now, here is an image of one of Abigails negatives. You can see how much detail and fine lines she has. That is what was so mind blowing to me. I asked her what the trick is to keep the fine lines from washing away after exposure. Her reply was to keep the highly detailed areas close together, and then have the rest of the area open. If there was one little mark in the middle of a large open area, then it would wash away, but having the lines so close together keeps them "safe".

I asked Abigail to share some more of herself and her work with us:

How/when did you start letterpress?

I confess- I had no idea what letterpress meant when I signed up for a workshop at the MCBA in 2008. My first instructor was Allison Chapman and my first projects were entirely engrossing and overly ambitious. So I was compelled to continue coursework at MCBA by taking classes in advanced letterpress and polymer plate making. I knew I had the letterpress obsession once I noticed myself laying awake at night concocting letterpress projects. So, to satiate this creative impulse, I joined MCBA's Artist Cooperative which consists of artists making independently driven work in the book arts disciplines- papermaking, printmaking and book binding. In exchange for monthly dues, we get a host of benefits, not least which is access to MCBA's studio space and equipment.

Re-Embroidered II, letterpress, 7"x7", print above, detail below

For someone who has not seen your work, how would you explain it?

I think my artwork has a certain "telescoping inward" quality. While subjects vary, my prints and paintings consistently are small scale and highly detailed. The notion of making visual riddles- compositions held together by some kind of tension or enigma- has held my attention recently.

Strange Loop is a good example. I developed a resource about this painting that is a hybrid of an artist statement and statement of influence. Artist voice/Artist Choice was a project proposed and supported by my colleagues at the Walker, mnartists.org and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. It invites artists to discuss their own work in relation to resources held by the Walker and/or Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Shelf Fungus, letterpress & chine colle, 4"x2.5"

Do you work in any other media than polymerplates?

While I only discovered letterpress about three years ago, I discovered love for printmaking about 12 years ago in a college intaglio class. But graduating college meant saying farewell to a sophisticated studio. I scaled back to art forms that could be accomplished in a small apartment. For several years I worked in pencil, pen and ink, watercolor, and gouache. Now that I am invested in printmaking, those direct media still interest me but are on the back burner. Within the medium of letterpress, I use primarily polymer plate, but occasionally employ metal type.

Where do you get your inspiration from for themes and colors? Do you always work with nature themes?

I often work with nature themes, but over the years my approach has edged a bit more towards abstraction. Recently I completed two works relating to mathematical principles. {2, 3, 5, 7, ... 2203, 2207} and {2, 3, 5, 7, ... 1789, 1801} are meditations on the prime number sequence. These prints reference the work of mathematicians Stanislaw Ulam and Charles Sacks.

Nulla Dies Sine Linea, letterpress, detail above and print below

Any great plans for the future?

To be fair, this is less of a plan and more of an ambition, but I'd like to edition an artist book about water bears. Also (totally unrelated) this summer I've got what I'm calling my "Gutenberg gig". On Spetember 24-25 I will be demonstrating the use of a Gutenberg replica press at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival.

Other exciting things? This summer I have an experimental outdoors project called Open Phenology (science of how and when living things change over the seasons). I engage the public every friday in a meandering walk and conversation during which we identify species, hypothesize about our observations and share knowledge. Then I use a blog to keep records of our phenological observations (with a good dose of musings and non-authoritative content). Open Phenology is my contribution to the Walker Art Center's Open Field and Field Office. It's part of my bigger fascination with citizen science and the perils and powers of inviting non-scientists to be collaborators in scientific pursuits.

I fell in love with your prints, do you have any for sale?

My art is available at the Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis.

Minuend, letterpress, 8.5"x5", detail above and print below

Thanks so much for sharing Abigail!

Modifying Photopolymerplates with Acrylic Media

The moving day is inching closer by the hour. Moving trucks are rolling in first thing on Monday, and I have been organizing our house and the studio for weeks now. I have a couple of last minute things to complete before we head out. A couple of people are coming over tomorrow for a last minute photopolymer class and there are 6 huge panels that need to be finished up for a church commission. I have been taking some progress photos, and will post those after this moving madness is over.

Until then, I am pleased to feature a great article by Australian print-maker Annie Day. She has been a practicing artist since 1974, and is a passionate advocate of safer, healthier and more environmentally friendly printmaking techniques. A short plug- Annie and her sister Robin Ezra are teaching an exciting class in Florence, Italy, this summer. The 60 hour class covers the following safer printmaking techniques: waterless lithography, drypoint, monotype and collography. The class will be held at the world famous printmaking studio, Il Bisonte, where artists such as Picasso, Annigoni and Moore have worked. The workshop is suitable for any level of experience- you can find more information about it at their website here. I would love to go and take this class, the setting is ideal. (Maybe next year, since I'll be living a lot closer!)


Modifying Photopolymerplates with Acrylic Media by Annie Day

Less than perfect polymerplates can be readily rectified by modifying the plate surface using acrylic media. A small section of the plate can be transformed, as in the example "Chamellia"; of for a more complete overhaul, the original plate may be covered in gesso and reworked.

Camellia before and after

The original plate was overexposed resulting in a loss of contrast between foreground and background (see before). This was easily recovered however, by adding pastel primer to the plate in the areas where more ink was required, resulting in a darker final print with better contrast (see after).

Method

-Wash the plate first, this will help the acrylic media to form a good bond with the surface. Clean the ink off the plate with vegetable oil, then using soft brush or cleaning mitt and a little detergent with water gently work the surface until all ink and greasiness is removed, rinse and dry with towel. Surface is now ready to apply acrylic media.

-Use various acrylic media: gesso, pastel primer, acrylic varnish, PVC glue, and gel medium for example. Art suppliers carry a huge range of these mediums and you may already have a few types.

-Carborundum or ground pumice mixed with or sprinkled onto gesso or PVC glue will give a finish with "tooth" for darker areas similar to the pastel primer used above in Chamellia.

- The medium can be painted, applied with palette knife or other implement and drawn into to create lines and textures.

- The surface can be built up by gluing a variety of low relief textural materials- such as paper or fabric using PVC glue, seal the surface with watered gesso or varnish.

-Once the desired finish is achieved, dry the plate thoroughly with a hairdryer or airdry over night at room temperature. To speed up the process use an oven at very low temperature, 50-60 Celsius, no higher or the plate may dry out too much and crack. The plate must be completely dry before inking to avoid paper sticking during printing.

- Apply ink with a short stiff brush, wipe with a small flat piece of tarlatan and finish with paper wipe. Buy cheap flat bristle brushes and cut bristles with scissors.

Plate being modified with pastel primer and gesso

Clear pastel primer was added for darker areas, and gesso thinned with water painted over the leaves.

Cicada

The sky in the print to the right was lightened using gloss varnish on the plate.
This print after was created after a visit to the Northern Territory, Australia, it tells the story of the great Rainbow serpent, Boulong, who lived in a deep waterhole, at Nitmiluk- named after the song of the cicadas.

Wash the plate with a soft brush or cleaning mitt in water to clean thoroughly. Gloss varnish, thinned with water, applied to sky areas to lighten. Keep the print nearby while you work and refer to areas that need change.

Fossil Fish

Before and after

Plate showing tissue glued to the surface with some thinned gesso and gloss varnish added over the paper. The fossil fish, Clibming Galaxis- live today in small pockets around the world. The fish has been in existence for millions of years. They are found in tiny streams leading to Manly Dam near my home.

The fish plate was too dark. I covered the background in PVC glue and attached tissue paper. A thin coat of gesso and thinned gloss medium were applied to the plate. In retrospect, the paper layer might have been more succesful if I had used crushed or textured paper and added gesso applied with palette knife for more interesting textural effects.

Notes:
- Art Spectrum Colourfix pastel primer was originally designed for coating surfaces in preparation for pastel drawing, but is a great medium for our puroses as it holds ink where the artist needs darker areas to print.

-Try experimenting with various acrylic media and pasting paper and textiles etc. The plate becomes a collagraph when you add media to the surface.

- Sometimes it is difficult to find where you need to apply the medium. Outline areas you are modifying in ballpoint pen. It makes it easier to see and will not show up in the final print.