Art is Art

Letterpress Adventure (Part 2)

Ce n'est pas une Chaise. 
This is not a chair.
This is letterpress...

It was quite overwhelming to have so many options of typefaces and infinite possibilities for content. I didn't want to use an abstract arrangement of letters so I decided to play around with the phrase Ce n'est pas une Chaise as an homage to Magritte's Ceci n'est pas une pipe (1928-29). And a nod to my favorite subject matter.

{above} The Chaise layer was printed first with the paper dampened. I set the type for the Ce n'est pas une layer and overprinted it the next day when the paper was dry. 

The majority of the type at the Center for Book Arts is metal, but there are several drawers full of random old wooden type including some 480pt display type. I was intrigued by the large broken "A" and the worn surfaces of the wood type.

These compositions were not set using a grid or layout, but arranged directly on the press bed and held in position by magnets. The above composition was a happy accident.  I had no idea how the layers would overlap. The first layer was a ghost, or second printing without re-inking, and the overprinted layer was done the next day.

All prints in this series were printed in Pantone process black on Johannot paper (sized 11x14").

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Letterpress Adventure (Part I)

{top} One of the four Vandercook presses in the shop {bottom} type, ink, and the press rollers

I took an experimental letterpress workshop at The Center for Book Arts in New York City this past weekend. We started off with a visit to the Print and Photograph Collection at the main branch of the New York Public Library to look at their collection of DaDa and related publications with works by Kurt Schwitters, El Lissitzky, and H.N. Werkman.

{top} How to properly put away type {bottom} detail of wooden type furniture and type cases

After an introduction to the extensive printshop and a crash course on using the Vandercook proofing presses, we had a discussion and demonstration of some of the techniques used by Schwitters and Werkman to create their avant garde type compositions. Then we had the rest of the workshop to experiment.

{top} Vandercook details {bottom} galleys, metal type, and a colorful array of type cases

I felt like a proverbial kid in a candy store with the choice of hundreds of typefaces (including some beautiful 480pt wooden display type). After making my selections and cutting down a stack of paper, I happily got to work...

Playing with ampersands...

Ampersand variations, 8 x 12" each  {click to enlarge}

Friday Inspiration: Laughing Jackass

 

A recent treasure I found in my ephemeral wanderings...

About face

 

Sometimes my work stares back at me...

Etched

A pair of recent etchings. Each plate has a dozen line drawings of faces based on Renaissance portraits. I was distilling the complex paintings into essential lines and layering them until the density obscured the individual faces.

The top etching is the final edition, while the bottom etching was the result of a printing error. I had printed half a dozen editions with the plates transposed. So I decided to run the print through again with the plates in the right order. The result is a slightly offset double print-- fraternal rather than identical images.

A detail of  the linework (left) and the double printing (right)

Untitled
Etching and drypoint on copper
plate size 3x4" each
paper size 11x10" on Canson Edition Cream
Edition of 20 with 2 artists proofs*

*Double print resulted in 5 unique editions

copyright Kate Castelli 2012

Friday Inspiration: timbres d'art

Albrecht Dürer, Self Portrait at 22, 1493

Leonardo Da Vinci, Portrait of  Isabella D'Este, 1500

Amedeo Modigliani, Femme Aux Yeux Bleus (Woman with Blue Eyes), 1918

The last time I was in Paris I found these stamps at the Marche aux Timbres et Cartes-Postales, the stamp and vintage postcard market made famous by Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in 1963's Charade. The vendor gave them to me for next to nothing, they are not rare or valuable, but I fell in love with the tiny little renderings of the paintings. Each stamp measures a mere 1.625 x 2.125" (or 4 x 5 cm) and has the most exquisite level of detail and a full palette. 


I've always loved Dürer's Self Portrait at 22, in which he is holding a thistle. It was the first painting I saw at the Louvre that really made me stop and pause. It was tucked away in a quiet gallery which I found by accident the first time and found by memory a couple years later when I went back.