Robert Kushner, Lemon I, 2014.
Last January, I was invited to work with master printer Bud Shark in his Hawaii studio in Holualoa on the Big Island. I had worked there with Bud before, but this time we both wanted to something new and different. Basing our project on some of our studio experiments in Lyons, Colorado, and on the on-going explorations that I have been pursuing in my own studio, I arrived with a box full of old papers and a mind full of ideas. Engraved ilustrations from an 1810 book on physiognomy, old postage stamps, pages of a diary found on the street, Japanese woodblock prints, a 19th century dictionary and pages and scraps of ephemera the origins of which are sometimes unknown to me. We made a series of collages combining as diverse an assortment of papers as possible in each image. Then we began monotyping. I drew with lithographic inks on a plexiglass sheet, which was then printed directly on each collage. I could then re draw the original image and drop it on another collage, and then go back and rework the first. In short, it was a flurry of wonderful, artistic activity.
View more monotypes at sharksink.com.