A close friend of mine was also a print maker and, after a few years of learning the craft, he moved outside the realm of using just ink for making impressions in paper. On a snowy afternoon, Mike walked into the studio with a bag full of something. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was in for a real treat...

I woke up extremely early one wintery morning, I think it was a Saturday–probably around six, and headed down to the new student union to get breakfast. The wind whipped through my coat and brought a deep chill to my chin. The whole town was still. I walked across campus to the studio. All I remember hearing were a few cars down on main street. No students, no professors. Just the cold wind and snow.

The studio lights were off. I flicked them on, opened my locker, and pulled out all my printmaking materials. I replaced the empty space in my locker with my hat, scarf, and gloves–the best place to put items you don’t want to get stained with ink. I walked into my studio space, set down my sponges, wax pencils, rubber gloves, small art box, and sketch book. I had already etched my piece of limestone, all I had to do today was get it printed.

The sponge was a little grungy for being used for a few semesters, but it still worked fine. I plugged the sink, turned the hot water on, and dropped the sponge in. I looked over at the ink canisters and noticed they were all out of order. I could see the smudges on the outsides of some of the round tin canisters were not cleaned off and still wet from the day before. As the sink filled up I checked all the inks and gave the outsides a once-over with a paper towel. Then I picked the color I was printing that day and set it on the mixing counter.

It was close to noon when I pulled the first impression off my 500-pound stone. It would make no sense to stop for lunch. The stone was just getting worked in. A few more impressions on newsprint should help the ink and water set in perfectly. There were five or six of my colleagues working in the studio by now. The radio was cranked, playing a mixtape with some Primus on it.

I pulled the last impression in the early afternoon. It took half an hour to clean up. I stopped back by my room to clean up and then headed over for a late lunch. The union was bustling with last nights party crowd eating their intrepretation of brunch. I saw a table with some of my artist friends and sat down next to Mike.

been printin?

He could tell by the ink under my nails.

yep. you goin’ today?

yeah. got a 3:30 to 5 spot. got time to help out? i’m gonna try somethin new.

yeh. i got some design work to do and then i’ll head over and meet you.

cool.

Mike walked in as I was replacing some empty ink canisters and refilling the paper towels. He had a big smile on his face. If you knew Mike you’d say he was quiet and kept mostly to himself. But today he seemed more alive, more interested, more into whatever he was going to do. And then there was that bag in his hand.

He put the bag onto his studio desk, stuffed his hat into his coat sleeve, and hung his coat on the edge of a plywood divider. I grabbed his paper, unbanded it, put his initials in pencil in the corners, and dropped three sheets into the soaking sink. He went over to the blanket rack and pulled two of the thickest blankets off the dowel hangers and dropped them on the press bed.

He asked for two of his sheets of paper. I gave him the first one and he stuck it to the press bed. I held the other sheet as he opened the bag and took out small handfulls of grass, leaves, twigs, and dirt and placed it onto the wet paper. He then pulled out a jelly packet and a half eaten waffle. We looked at each other and laughed about the jelly packet. We knew what we were thinking. Instead, he peeled back the jelly cover and plopped jelly pieces onto the paper. The waffle piece went last. Mike organized each of the items into an organic shape and then I set the second sheet of paper over it, making a strange nature-like sandwich.

Mike aligned and set both the thick blankets over the paper. I grabbed a large tinpan and set it on top of the blankets. Mike adjusted the press pressure as I spread some grease onto the tinpan. He pulled the press arm over and cranked the press bed through the roller. There was alot of cracking and squishing noises. We both got a little paranoid thinking the crack was the press and not one of the items going through the thousand or so pounds of pressure.

I pulled the tinpan off and Mike peeled back the blankets. The first thing we noticed was the embossing in the bottom blanket, but it had a high memory and pushed itself out. Then we saw the purplish color of the jelly bleeding through the paper. I hung the blankets back up. Mike slowly peeled back the top sheet of paper. We said nothing for what seemed like a few minutes. The effect on both sheets of paper was amazing.

The impression of the grass into the paper was incredible. The weight of the press had actually burst the plant cells and printed a green halo around each blade. The inside color of the blades was lighter than the outside, making a green sunburst. The jelly, under high pressure, had mixed with the blades of grass in a few areas. It also mixed with the dirt, which was now more like a wet dust. The range of tones across the paper from the pressure and different density of materials seemed so natural. The result was much more beautiful than we anticipated.

As time went on, we experimented and learned how each material would act on paper under high pressure. We printed eggs, bacon, and sausage. Then tried a number of fruit peels–banana, orange, apple, and a few grapes. We tried some really wet cereal once. This technique continued throughout the year.

Some of the prints, through their aging process, started to stink. A few of the prints turned brown and tan as the materials died. It was a strange feeling to print something alive and watch it decompose on paper.

Mike, thanks for the experience.