Pete Going Out III- Limited Edition 13 of 13 Print

If you've looked the first two prints in this set of four, you've already read the following spiel, but, as Terry Gross says, if you just joining us ... Back in the late '80s, when there were still print shops, my wife had one, and I used to run the press sometimes. We printed thermograph business cards for print shops in the city, so we had to work all night and deliver them the next morning. When I wasn't running the press I was upstairs in my studio, drawing and painting. Some people think that's why my work is often dark, because I was a nocturnal artist during those years. Like a vampire, I slept by day and worked by night. We had worked in commercial print shops on the road, and a lot of what I learned there gave me a head start when I got into the art of printmaking. Anyway, Pete did the proofreading and filing, and before he kicked the habit he used to pass through the shop and go out the door for a smoke. While the press was running, I would sometimes grab a piece of card stock and do a quick sketch as he went out. Just an exercise, practicing my sketching skills. I don't throw anything away, so ten years later when I was teaching myself this new technique of relief printmaking I dug up those sketches and made a series of four little linocuts from them, experimenting with different colors and discovering how to cut highlights from the ground block. Actually, this technique is not new. Picasso and his printer Arnera invented it in 1959, but as far as I can tell no one but me has used it since. And as Picasso himself said, "Good artists copy, great artists steal," a line he stole from T.S. Eliot. Eliot added, "The mature poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn," and I hope that's what I've done with the "Criswell linocut." The discovery I mentioned above - the cutting of highlights - is one the ways I've extended this technique beyond Picasso's. For the whole story check out .html. I had just discovered that trick when I made this third print of the series, "Pete Going Out III," a 2-color linocut, image 4 x 2.5 inches, sheet 6 x 5 inches. There are three left from the edition of 10.