Dark Block Print

Here's another blast from the past. Dijanne Cevaal has been talking about her lino-cut class, and it made me think of my long-ago dabbles in the medium (or near-by).

I made this wood block print in my "dark" years. I was a waitress at a resort in Three Lakes, WI in 1990. We worked 10-12 hours a day, every day, all summer. I made $2.90/hour plus tips. We had 2 hours off in the afternoon. The other girls would go water-skiing. I stayed out of the sun and read, wrote letters, or made art. One of the guests was so impressed with my work that he actually bought me a set of printer's inks and a brayer. I had been using plain old acrylic paint spread with a paintbrush. His family valued the arts. I think his daughter played the cello ...

This print came out so remarkably well, I wish I would have used better paper. I used just plain old typing paper. It's starting to turn yellow at the edges--so it much have had a high acid / high lignin content. (That's why paperpacks from the 1980s are turning yellow and getting brittle. They are literally burning themselves up due to the poor chemistry of the paper. That's also why the scrap-bookers are so conscious of archivally safe materials now--which is a good thing!)