press play print

After my last post related to personal progress on my Father Damien print, I thought I’d post what the final, hand-rendered print looked like (above), in relation to my computer-and-hand-drawn sketch (see post below). Information on my process and my artist’s statement for this piece follow.

Process

I created my line work layer first, drawing the main figures by hand while using images of Father Damien, children reaching upward, & clothing from Damien’s time on Molokai as references.  The landscape lines were designed into the work using vector-based imagery in Adobe Photoshop to trace over an actual photo from Kalaupapa.  This was printed & Xeroxed onto transparency.  Although based on photographs from Kalaupapa, the color & texture layers were hand rendered in black India ink onto transparencies using a paint-and-scratch-out technique similar to maniere noir lithography practice.  All transparencies were transferred to screen via photo-emulsion, exposure, & washout and printed in a variety of translucencies of water-based acrylic inks.  Due to selective memory (I’ve worked with 100% rag vellum & water-based acrylic screenprint ink combination before), I’d forgotten that this vellum stretches slightly in-process.  As a result, I ended up printing on Mylar, then registering my original line work transparency exactly beneath it to individually register each print over the line work transparency.  Most prints had to be hand stretched and taped in several areas to make sure each layer registered correctly.  My final image is displayed in a double-sided Plexiglas frame that sits in a stand, so ambient light can enter through the back of the piece.  Due to this warping from the water-based inks & hand-stretching, slight, rolling waves are evident in the paper and appear to emanate from Damien’s figure like rays of light.  Due to the sacred subject matter, I felt this effect was acceptable.

Artist’s statement

I created We lepers with the simplicity, line work, & translucency of stained glass in mind, referencing the Catholic church.  I was interested in the selfless manner Father Damien embraced the Kalaupapa population of Hansen’s disease patients, acting and becoming one with his community while spreading hope & faith and building facilities throughout the settlement.  Simultaneously, I was interested in how Damien’s comportment in acting on equal terms with this community typified the lack of hygiene around others (he was said to have shared food & anointed wounds while he himself had cuts on his hands from his carpentry work) that ultimately led to his contraction of Hansen’s disease and his death.

A while ago, I posted information about the Damien Portfolio the Honolulu Printmakers will be showing in October at Cathedral Gallery in Honolulu to celebrate the canonization of Father Damien DeVeuster.  I’d been struggling for some time in coming up with an image idea I was excited about in moving forward with my print.

Because I work at a private Catholic high school of the Sacred Hearts order (Father Damien’s order), I was exposed to some additional information about Father Damien during our faculty retreat the week before school started.  A priest that used to teach at Damien Memorial School (Catholic School for boys in Honolulu) came to share with us about Damien’s life.  It was after the priest’s presentation that I found my moment of inspiration.

Father Damien was known for his benevolent works in a colony of Hansen’s disease (leprosy) patients on Kalaupapa on the Hawaiian island of Molokai.  When he first traveled to the colony, it was a place of lawlessness and despair.  Damien helped build the first hospital, cemetery, & church there, and helped design an aquifer system to bring water down the cliff-side that separates this peninsula from the rest of Molokai.  Because of all his carpentry work, Damien’s hands were always cut.  He continually anointed the wounds of the Kalaupapa community and shared food with them, showing little concern for hygiene.  Although it is not known exactly how Hansen’s disease is transmitted, long-term contact with those who have the disease usually typifies contraction.  Damien, ended up contracting Hansen’s disease and is known for embracing his community with writings that referred to them as “We lepers.”

Based specifically on a story this priest told us at our faculty retreat, my first image idea illustrated a simplified image of Damien handing a child the pipe he was known to carry – a gift used to mask the scent of rotting flesh…I thought this story was interesting for the following reason:  according to norms of public conduct & stewardship, most of us might look down on an adult handing a child a pipe, because we assume he is damaging the naive child’s health.  In this case, this act typifies the behavior that most likely caused Damien to contract Hansen’s disease…The path of toxicity is actually opposite that which we originally assumed.  Before he ever contracted the disease, Damien already acted as one with his community (we lepers).  I decided to title the work Peace Pipe (see design below).

Peace Pipe

In the end, I decided it best to avoid the mis-communication and outrage that would inevitably result from the image of Damien passing a pipe to a child.  Most people would probably not know the story that had been related to me, nor do most take the time to read signage.  So, I changed the pipe into a candle to signify a sense of sharing & community, but also the hope Damien’s work gave to the community of Hansen’s disease patients on Kalaupapa.  I changed the title to We lepers.

we lepers

I used to work at a stained glass shop, designing, teaching & fabricating custom work.  Because of the traditional ties between stained glass & the church, I chose to print in an aesthetic that gives a similar feel.  My image is being printed in screenprint, using various amounts of pigment mixed with transparency on a transluscent, 100% rag vellum.  My black outlines resemble the solder lines of stained glass windows, and I’m filling the simplified image areas with hand-rendered & printed textures based on photographs taken at Kalaupapa.  This is just computer-based design, compiled from my drawing & photograph textures; the actual print is in production now.

I was taking apart this wonderful (and crumbling) old book today, and found these amazing illustrations. It’s always a pleasant surprise, what lies between the pages of a good book. Just wanted to share my discovery…

For years now, traditional printmakers have been trying to come to terms with the digital revolution and how to place digitally-generated images from the more commercial sector within the framework of fine-art printmaking.

This posting will not delve into these same overcooked debates; this entry has more to do with my observations as a teacher of BOTH traditional and digital printmaking techniques.

The images shown are of “states” of a cd cover image I created as an example for my digital imaging class, where music, imagery, fonts, and text all had to be cohesive.  “Walk a mile” refers to both the saying (walk a mile in someone else’s shoes) but is also self-referential.  Many of the songs included on the cd are singer-songwriter, blues, and country tunes about walking, running, or traveling.  The waves in the background are formed from many “slippahs” (flip-flops for you Mainland folk), characteristic footwear of Hawaii, while the character is a caricature of me in my teaching regalia.

In both digital and traditional printmaking, there is an inherent experimenting, planning, and layering that takes place.  Unlike media such as painting, individual layers can usually be removed or altered for future variations or editions. Layering is extremely useful in both traditional and digital media for isolating, editing, or deleting single elements of a print, WITHOUT affecting the rest of the image. Layering is inherent to image creation in Adobe creative software; as with traditional printmaking those layers at the top (of the layers pallet) appear over the layers below them. I liken digital layering to having images on transparencies that are piled one over the next; most layers involve just one element floating in space, allowing windows to view layers below.  Layer opacity in both media may also be altered to allow a range of possibilities for viewing the layers below.

Through my experience teaching high school students a variety of art media, I have discovered that this understanding of layering in art helps students transition across the digital – traditional printmaking barriers.  Students that have already learned traditional printmaking have been much more adept at learning digital media because of their former understanding of layering, and vice versa.