press play print

This post begins a new series, written in no particular order, that describes things that printmakers, quite generally, like. Things we like knowing, using, working with, having around, saying, and learning about.

Things Printmakers Like –

Margins

Margins help determine the value of stamps, shapes of leaves, boundaries of farmland and countries, and the shape of continents. The margin is hard to ignore in a print; it surrounds the image, providing a space without from the work’s content (contained within the margins), but also a space in-between the print's image and the work’s actual physical surroundings. The margin is a well-considered and indispensable space– it is where the printed image meets the world. Some printmakers exploit the margins to create a context unique to the rest of the work, and some prints utilize their margins as a space for punctuation, framing and holding a print’s images.

Printmaking has been defined as a marginalized art media in recent art historical terms, but many printmakers today recognize the power that lies within margins themselves. Margins define the liminal space exactly where the image touches the world surrounding it, and exactly where the world embraces the graphic image. Margins exist at and within both sides of this space, thereby simultaneously defining each space as reliant upon and independent from each other– an important position to be in indeed.