Graphics: Of Rabbit Glue & Beauty

The tyranny of oils is over. For the collector, the opportunity to buy graphic art, numbered and signed by the artist, presents an economical way to own original art. For the artist who has caught onto the million ways of making graphics with new materials, the horizon is even wider.

A show at Manhattan’s Associated American Artists print gallery reveals how diverse are the means of graphic art. Called “The Plate, the Block, the Stone and the Print,” the show contrasts the medium with the result—often as dramatic as the difference between rabbit glue (that’s one new art material) and beauty. The apparently blank expression of a plate can, when variously inked and pressed on paper, become more radiant than a rainbow.

Handwriting on Sponges. The three traditional methods of making graphic-arts plates are: scoring smooth copper with a burin for intaglio engraving, carving in wood with a gouge for relief printing, and drawing on stone with grease crayon for lithography. Now, graphic artists print from almost anything almost any way. Sid Hammer, 38, produces his blocks by melting vinyl, as plain as kitchen flooring, with a hot incising iron. “My graphics,” says he, “have the sensation of handwriting on a sponge.” The handwriting ends up on the wall for less than $100. In Hawaii recently, an art student produced an edition of 16-ft.-long prints off incised Masonite. He wanted to illustrate the history of Oahu on a large scale. Graphics no longer are limited by the size of presses.

Some new graphics treat paper itself like a sculptor’s bas-relief. Colombian-born Omar Rayo, 36, makes an inkless intaglio, such as From My Zoo, by building up patterned layers of cardboard coated with rabbit glue and gesso, then pressing wet paper under hundreds of pounds of pressure to emboss a white-on-white print. Boris Margo, 62, similarly makes a “cellocut” by carving into celluloid, coating it with copper, and stamping it into uninked paper.

Gingerbread on Pie Tins. Warrington Colescott, 43, etches on copper plates to which he glues other small, thin copper plates, collage style. When printed, the little plates emboss themselves more deeply into the paper than the ground plate, giving a perspective effect. “My favorite tool is a pair of airplane mechanic’s shears,” says Colescott, as he places cutouts on plates like gingerbread men on a pie tin, paradoxically creating foreground by millimeters more depth.

Michael Ponce de Leon, 42, shows most dramatically how far the print-makers have gone past the conventional idea of pressing paper to a plane surface. To make his Terminus, he printed seven colors off a metal plate slathered with key chains, pebbles, even a straw place mat. He runs wet paper through his hydraulic press, which is capable of 10,000 Ibs. pressure, gets an elaborate multicolor abstract.