Normally if I introduced myself as a printmaker, you would have think I said, I'm from Mars. I mean people just printmaking isn't in the average person's vocabulary. If I said I was a sculptor or a painter ceramicist, they didn't have a concept of what that was, oh, you work in clay or you work with metal or whatever. But when I say printmaker this just blank look,
wood cut art is the oldest form of printmaking, something that became popular in the 15th century in Europe, but dates back farther than that. In Asia. It's a process where the artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood, leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non printing parts. This is random Max knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. Today we're talking with a woodcut artist whose work is featured in the exhibit the floating world at the Joe McCauley gallery at Heartland Community College.
I'm Kathy Crawford, I'm a printmaker. I've been making color reduction woodblock prints for the past 35 years and I'm part of the floating World Exhibition at Heartland Community College. It's a group show of four artists to our Japanese Americans and to our artists that have been influenced by Japanese art,
explain a little bit what a woodcut block print is.
Well, it's a type of relief printmaking and what I do is I ink the would put paper down, run it through a press, I frequently use mylar stencils to begin with, sometimes I ink up the whole block. And then after I've printed the whole edition, usually 10 or 12 prints, I go back and cut away whatever I want to remain those colors. And then I do the next run and my work is very colorful, I use a lot of blended roles. And I feel like why print one color at a time when you can print 10 I love color. In fact, I frequently describe my work is a confluence of color because that's the most important element. But I cut the wood I yanked the wood I print it many many times and the prints in the exhibit were printed. The large one was printed in eight runs through the press that's like eight days of printing. With a lot of other work in between and the milk Alito the smaller print in the exhibit is a new process for me I've only done two milk elite toasts, but it's lithography on wood lithography is normally done on Bavarian limestone or aluminum plate. But sometime in the 70s A Japanese printmaker named dos Zaku developed this Mughal Ito process the Japanese actually call it moto Rico because moko means wood and retail means draw, but sometime when it got transferred to the west, it became Oakley, though I don't know why, but the R became Manal. But same thing, basically.
So this is a multi start process, you have to sculpt essentially by cutting out the wood to create the relief image, right. And then you can manipulate that with the different colors to highlight different parts of what gets printed on there. What drew you to this style of woodcut artwork, were you somebody that started out maybe as in sculpting or something where you were creating something? No, I
started out as a painter. And then I took my first printmaking class at Ohio State University in 1968, and just fell in love with printmaking and I didn't want to paint after that. It was just that's all I wanted to do is printmaking. And then I took my first lithography class. And then all I wanted to do as a photographer, and I did that for 15 years and I went to graduate school at Bradley to become a better lithographer and instead I rediscovered the wood cut. I hadn't made a reduction wood cut for like 10 years or more. And I just fell in love with the process. I said, Oh wow, this is way easier than making a color lithograph print. And now that I work in my home studio I like relief because I can be greener and lithography. There's a lot of dangerous materials involved. You know, you have nitric acid and you have a lot of solvents. And with woodcut printmaking, I can clean up with baby oil even though I'm using oil based ink and so I've no solvents in my studio and I try to be as green as possible.
Is there any particular type of wood that is better for this are not as good for this are easier to quell
my preferences Luan mahogany quarter inch underlay minutes cheapest underlayment you can buy it using construction. I like it because it's easy to cut. And it has a pretty wood grain but it's getting almost impossible. bolt to fine, it's like it's been all used up. So then for a while I had to use birch, I don't like it as much, it's more expensive, not as pretty of a grain, little harder to cut. And now I can't even find a decent piece of birch. I mean, literally, I just go to the box stores every couple of weeks and look through the wood. And there's just never a piece I even want to bring home. So that's been a problem finding decent wood. How much
variance is there once you have the wood cut? So as you are creating the print and applying the paint? Do you apply multiple paints at the same time? Or is it a new layer, I don't
use anything I use oil base or leafing. And ink has a very different consistency. It's more transparent than paint. And I use a lot of transparent base. So I'm I'm working with very transparent colors. And I print lots of layers. In fact, my upcoming show and exhibit A will be called luminous layers because I print in many, many layers in each print.
It's interesting that it's ink because some of the colors are so bright, I don't necessarily think equate those in my brain with ink.
A lot of people look at my work and think it's a painting but it's not a paint painting. In fact, I don't even own a decent paintbrush. I don't use brushes, I don't use they only ink and briars.
So as you're doing this, and you've done it for some time, so you have expertise. But is there a point where there are adjustments that you have to make, you know, you start with the cut, and that's going to present one thing, but once you apply the ink, does it always show up? Pretty much the way you want it the first time.
Now, frequently, I will change my whole blended roll because I don't like what happened, you know, and I'll just remove all the ink and start over. So I kind of make it up as I go along. If I had a fixed idea of exactly what it was gonna look like before I started, I'd be so bored. I probably couldn't finish it because I work on these for weeks and sometimes months. It's a very long, slow process. So it's also a very creative process. So I allow the process to more or less direct me sometimes and I change my idea as I go along. Sometimes I come up with something better than what I originally intended, but it's a creative process and I always tell my students you know you you're not trying to like reproduce a drawing or painting this is its own thing and allow the process to speak to you.
You mentioned a certain style that is Japanese and its origination. Are there certain cultures or certain areas that that use this more than others the style of woodcut printing.
Well, wood cut is the oldest form of printmaking, and basically it's been around since they invented paper, the Chinese invented paper around 2000 BC, and shortly after that people made relief prints. In the early years it was used to promote religion and but it's a simplest and easiest of the four major areas of printmaking, you don't need a printmaking press. If you're working small, you can hand burnish all the other forms of printmaking, with the exception of silk screening require a press. So it's a small, simple, most direct and really the easiest of all the four major areas of printmaking, but all cultures have been making wood cuts for a very long time. But I was definitely influenced by the Uchi ality printmakers of the 19th century. I love their atmosphere, qualities they got in their landscapes and seascapes, and they definitely had an influence in my early work. And I have been lucky enough to travel to Japan twice. And so I've seen a lot of wonderful art there. And I've learned from my travels and my experiences. Now wood cuts are being made all over the world. It's not just a Japanese
thing, specifically with that style that ukiyo e style that does play into the name of the exhibit that you're part of
Yes, floating world. That's where the title came from okie it literally means floating world of everyday life. And so in the 17th and 19th century, you have this growing middle class, who could afford art, you know, before that they couldn't really afford art. And of course, prints are more economical and less expensive than paintings. And so people started collecting these beautiful prints and there was a real market for them. And all that Luqiao a masters were very popular and may not only did landscapes and seascapes some of the more popular ones were of wrestling and actors and theatre. But what influenced me, of course, were the landscapes and seascapes.
Well, that leads me to ask you a little bit about some of the subject matter, you make a number of different artworks under different subjects, but some of them that I have seen, and at least one of them that's in the exhibit the floating world, they tend to be somehow involved with water, either objects in water or underwater, or the surfaces of water, and currently into water. Yeah. What Why? Why are you into water? Is it does the process lend itself to that subject? Is it something that you just think about, like maybe you just would rather be on the beach or something definitely
rather be on the beach than anyplace else on Earth, or under under the water on a beautiful coral reef? I'm a scuba diver. And yes, I'd rather be about 35 to 50 feet under on a beautiful coral reef than just about anyplace else. I'm work in the world, but no water has been something I've been attracted to my entire life, I would seek it out for it to start at powers. And for me, water is a source of replenishment, rejuvenation, and renewed energy. I mean, I, I need to be by water. And my husband learned early in our marriage. I mean, I grew up on Long Island, in Queens, and we literally moved to the beach for like the whole summer. So my husband learned early on in our marriage that he had to dunk me in saltwater at least once a year to keep me happy because I don't like being this far away from an ocean.
Is there something about the texture of this process that I guess equates to to water and waves and layers and the underwater in the water line? Is there something that immediately immediately lends itself
very often I'll pick up a piece of wood and the woodgrain to me will just suggest water because I like water my name somebody else would look at it and and see animals but I look at it. So yeah, water has been a recurring theme throughout my printmaking career. I mean, most of the pieces in my 1987 MFA thesis exhibition, referenced the landscape and water. And I continue to go back to those similar types of things.
Well, it's interesting that you mentioned that and Earlier you said that you like using this process because it's greener. You know, it's something that doesn't create as much pollution. And obviously, that's a major concern for
well, printmaking traditionally uses some really dangerous and nasty chemicals and mean, nitric acid, sulfuric acid, phosphorous acid, just the process of light. And then to clean up people would use kerosene lit the teen just terrible solvents. And I slept around in mineral spirits for the first 15 years of my printmaking career and I just don't want to do that anymore. And when I discovered that, oh my gosh, you can really clean up oil base anything with baby oil. And it smells so good and it feels so good on your hands. And I'll never go back to mineral spirits, that's for sure.
Well, something else I wanted to ask about. Once you finish with the woodcut and you use it and you've created your print, what happens then does it go on a shelf? Do you ever think about revisiting those and doing something
I have in recent years printed from the same block in fact, I have one particular block it started out as a print called Summer So lay and then it became the second edition with shimmer and I printed six editions from this blog just inking up small section and I have all these different registration marks on this one blog. Normally, I kind of use up the wood because I work reductively now some wood cut printmaking printmakers and the traditional Japanese woodcut print makers, they use multiple blocks so they'll have a block for red, yellow, blue, you know, and print them on top of each other, but I prefer working reductively I have all my information on one block. So literally, after I print the first run, I have to know exactly how many prints I want to make because I can't go back and make more later because I'm going to be destroying the block in the process of completing the image. So because I work productively usually the blocks get used up but because now I use so many mylar stencils. I'm not cutting as much wood and so there's more wood left on the block and especially if I just want to do this small print, I can reuse an old block, just find an area that I like and use the texture or whatever and this becomes the water and this becomes the sky. And so I have reused blocks. And when I started making mono prints a few years ago, I got out some old blocks and reuse them. But normally I don't once the additions done the block is kind of done too. I don't, that's not the way I would normally work but when you can't find any decent wood anywhere, to be creative.
Well, Kathy, I appreciate you talking to us about this process. I don't know if it's a process that gets talked about as much as some other things.
Normally if I introduce myself as a printmaker, you would have think I said, I'm from Mars. I mean, people just printmaking isn't in the average person's vocabulary. If I said I was a sculptor, a painter, a jewel or maker or ceramicist, they don't have a concept of what that was, oh, you work in clay or you work with metal or whatever. But when I say printmaker, this just blank look, you know, comes over their face. They're just not teaching it in the schools. Like they should. I mean, I don't know why, but printmaking is just getting over looked and it drives me crazy my computer constantly makes would cut two words would cut his one word. And it's always separating it into wood and cut. And the same thing with mono print. Mono print is one word. I don't like that. AutoCorrect
thanks so much. I look forward to people coming and seeing your work here at the Joe McCauley Gallery, and thanks for agreeing to be a part of it and have your artwork displayed.
Well, thank you, Steve. It's a pleasure to talk with you.
Kathy Crawford is a woodcut artist. She lives in Peoria, Illinois, and her work is featured in the exhibit the floating world at Heartland Community Colleges Joe McCauley gallery running through May 11 of 2023. If you're interested in other interviews about making arts, culture, literature, and more, subscribe to random acts of knowledge on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you found this one. Thanks for listening
