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Maryland Printmakers
Maryland Printmaker Ray Esposito
Visits the Print Club of Albany
by Ray Esposito
(Archived article from March 2001 - click here for current articles)
Ghost I, monotype 13 x 13, by Ray Esposito
Let me say that I was treated very well. The hotel was very nice and I had dinner Monday evening before the meeting with five members of the board who were all very gracious. As a long time member of the Print Club of Albany (PCA) I was particularly excited to meet some of the people with whom I had only written, emailed or spoke to on the telephone.
As a sidelight, the driving time from Princess Anne, Maryland to Albany, New York was just 6 1/2 hours. It would have taken far longer to fly.
The evening began at 7:15. They dispensed with the usual business meeting to give me more time, which was appreciated. I had brought along a number of my monotypes/monoprints and those of printmakers represented in our gallery and others from my collection. I passed out some of my bookmarks and told them that now they could not say they did not have any original hand pulled monotypes in their collections. The PCA is made up of about 50% collectors and 50% artists, not all of whom are printmakers. It is one of the oldest print clubs in the country dating back to 1930 and some of this country's greatest printmakers have been members and/or have contributed to making the annual presentation print.
The problem I had to overcome was threefold. First, to convince everyone that monotypes were in fact prints. Second, to convince them that they should include monotypes in their shows and competitions. Third, to get them to add monotypes/monoprints to the club's collection.
My talk was broken down into four sections. First I showed them books such as Julia's Ayres book on Monotype, The Complete Printmaker - which, BTW, should be in every printmakers library, Singular Impression by JoAnn Moser, the only complete history of the monotype and a few written documents showing that some of the best minds in the business think of monotypes as prints. Second, I told them I had e-mailed some of the best-known individuals in printmaking, including Bill Fisher, Steve Goddard and others and all were rather astounded that anyone or any organization would not consider monotypes as prints.
With all that heavyweight input behind me and in their heads it was time to turn to the practical side. I used many of the monotypes I brought to illustrate exactly how monotypes and monoprints were created and made the most of the fact that not all monotypes were produced by a single pass through the press and that some take days and many passes.
What I thought would be the most difficult question to overcome but what turned out not to be so difficult was one posed over dinner. The club's main objection to monotypes was that they were not multiples. That a print must be a multable - must be capable of editioning - to be accepted as a print.
What overcame that problem was to illustrate that monotype can be editioned. I used the prints of Yolanda Frederikse and my own which we produced for the annual Washington Printmakers calendar. Both Yolanda and I specialize in monotype. Yolanda's are sensational. In order to participate in the calendar we had to do an edition of 150. I also used an etching of which I had two prints from the same edition to show the differences and the similarities. I showed how an etcher uses the incised lined to guide the ink and the monotypist uses the ghost in the same way. The two etchings were wiped very differently and the shading was very obvious. I illustrated that this was no different than the monotypist using the ghost and that the difference in re-inking the plate was not dissimilar to an etcher wiping the plate differently. I got them to agree that each etching pulled, regardless of how much alike they may appear are actually different because of the wear on the plate, applying of ink, wiping of ink and press pressure made each etching different. This is why we can say EACH is an original hand pulled print.
To illustrate further I showed them three copies of the same monotype by Yolanda. In answer to the question that they were able to see very apparent differences in her prints whereas in an etching they are much more subtle, I asked the question - would you prefer to have on your wall a print that looks almost exactly like the one on your neighbors wall or would you like to have a Frederikse in which each collector knows their monotype was truly unique? They liked the idea of having Yolanda's although this in no way distracts from the excellent etchings I was showing. I also showed them three of my monoprints. They did not believe me when I told them that they were exactly the same prints with the underlying matrix exactly the same but the inking was different. I then explained Variable Editions.
Anyway, that is about it. I think it was this last part about editioning monotypes and VE monoprints that made the difference. They asked a lot of questions and we all parted friends. They have agreed to include monotypes in the future and a few even thought they would be adding monotypes to their collections. It was a fun evening and I am glad I took up the challenge.
To find out more about about Ray Esposito click here. To contact Ray e-mail brassring@brassring.org at the Jim and Beth Philion Center for Graphic and Print Arts