My short history of printmaking.

My grandfather on my daddy's side of the family died well-before I was born, so I never knew much about him other than his name was Mose and that he was an engraver for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. This has always fascinated me, as he was the only person in my family that was remotely connected with the arts as a profession.

I took a printmaking class in college. Since printmaking was closely aligned with drawing, and at the time I was not closely aligned with drawing, I did not pursue printmaking other than the occasional monoprint, lithograph or woodcut here and there. I still have all my woodcut and etching tools, and I thought I had my lino cut tools, but they may be in Nashville. I have a vague recollection of seeing the lino blades in the little green Speedball box sitting in the drawer of my nightstand last time I was visiting.

So in making the one-of-a-kind, mass-produced journals and notepads I made yesterday and today, it dawned on me that maybe block printing might be the way to go. And then I got even more excited because although the idea of block printing abstract work does not appeal to me one iota, (Scratch that; suddenly it appealed to me very much)— what does appeal to me is doing a bunch of text-based works. Perfect! Yes, perfect. I have a bunch of text-based work I've done over the years, but since on the surface* it's pretty much the polar opposite of abstract work, I've only exhibited them a couple of times. I can't really explain my new found enthusiasm succinctly in a blog post, but I'm very excited about doing some block printing.

* Regarding text-based work being polar opposite abstract work: I find it amusing that my first foray into one-of-a-kind, mass-produced items would be a journal. The slightly amusing part is that my abstract work references my day-to- day life, but obviously using the language of painting and some personal iconography, instead of flat-out words and language-based images. So, really, my text-based work is not opposite of my abstract work at all. So how funny I would choose the outside of a journal as an image. Or maybe it's an inside joke and you had to be here. I am so funny today.