Craftsmanship and Art

 

Whimbrel at 2-Mile Landing. Original Moku Hanga by Ken Januski. Copyright 2021.

I've spent a lot of time over at least the last five years listening to, reading about, and listening to audiobooks about music, particularly classical music. One of  the things that I've particularly noticed is that, at least in the past and I'd guess today as well, musicians learn some basics, for example harmony, sonata form and other forms, etc. The vocabulary for musical notation is astounding. I say all this as a non-musician so I realize that I'd have a slightly different take on this  if  I were a musician. But on the whole I think I'm correct.

Still it stands in stark contrast to my artistic  education and I'd guess the artistic education of  many. I have a lot of art education. 80% I'd guess is  in studio  art, two years at a community college, a year plus as an undergraduate at a very good school on west coast, and graduate studies at the same west coast school and at an Ivy League school on the east coast.  And two graduate degrees in  art. Big Deal! No, not at all. All that education doesn't  necessarily translate  into good art. I only mention it because there was a common theme to those many years of art education as a studio artist: be enthusiastic about what you do and  have at it! That was it, though  it wasn't put in such blunt  terms.

Was I unhappy with this?  No. It's just what I wanted. Particularly I wanted to PAINT, and paint I did, mostly on my own, but also with a few regular studio mates, especially on the west coast.  I don't think either we the students or our teachers expected we'd get a much out of the formal classes. We'd  learn and improve  through  studio practice.

It's only in retrospect, realizing how much theory that there is in music and musical education, that I  wonder about art education. Is there something similar in art? Is it just taught at schools other than the ones I went to? Would I have wanted a different education, one more structured and with a distinct syllabus, if I actually had the opportunity? My guess  is  that no I would not.

There of course is  the old nostrum about reinventing the wheel. Generally it is a very good nostrum. I'm just not sure how well it works  in art. Since I live in Philadelphia I do have to  wonder  about the Pennsylvania Academy of Art. I never took any courses there though I have known people who studied there. But I never talked to them about their training. But  I do have the impression  that at least the painters get a fairly classical education. And at least one  of my old  friends who shared a studio  above mine  and who studied there went on to fame and fortune as a  more or  less contemporary classical  painter. I could tell that we looked at painting quite differently, though I don't think he ever looked down on my own work. And I admired  the technique and ambition of his own work. But we did  seem to come from different worlds.

In any case it just reminds me that people do get different training in the arts and often that training stays with them.

Before I started classes at the west coast school I arrived on campus a few months  early and took  some printmaking courses in the student union.  They were pretty much one on one  and I loved them. I learned enough to do some lithography, etching and a bit of  aquatint, just enough  for me to start experimenting on my own. I loved it. But in a  few months my classes started, I had almost 24 hour access to a painting studio  and I jumped back into painting. The person who  taught  me printmaking at the student union was also a student in printmaking. So I was introduced to both the faculty and her fellow students in printmaking. But there was just something that put me off about taking a course in it. There seemed to be some odor of technique, of tradition, of something or other that just seemed  foreign to the freewheeling  attitude  I had toward art. I never had any subsequent training in printmaking.

So here we are today, where I have been doing more  printmaking  than painting over the last 10 years or more. I started with linoleum block printing, then added some shina wood blocks  in conjunction with lino, then did just western style printing with one or more  shina wood blocks. And now I'm finishing  my fourth year of moku  hanga. My most recent print, about 6x8  inches  is at the top of this post.

This very lengthy introduction  to my newest print stems from the fact that it could look to many like  I have neither general printmaking technique, nor more  specific moku hanga technique. Additionally I realize that almost all of  my moku hanga prints probably seem quite foreign to the spirit of traditional  moku hanga. I have to say I can't  really deny that.

And this I think gets to the title of this post:  Craftsmanship  and Art. When I was getting my education in art crafts, at least as far as I could tell, were starting to be considered by many  in the art world if not as exactly equals then at least on the same fluid, sliding scale. But that's not what I'm talking about. I have no argument with the idea  of  traditional crafts as art. (I don't know enough about non-traditional crafts to have an opinion on them). But some art media I believe have more of a craftsmanship tradition than others, at least today. Printmaking seems to value craft more  than painting.

One of the first things I realized once I started using more  than one block in any type of relief print was that registration was a big consideration. If you use more than one block it generally is with the purpose of  using a different color and you want the second color to register(match up)  with what you've already printed on your printmaking paper from printing the first block. As I didn't have a printing press I used various handmade jigs and devices to help with registration. They helped but there were still problems.

The thing is I didn't really consider them serious problems. For myself I didn't care all that much if things lined up properly. My guess is that if  I went through all of my multiple block prints of any type I'd find that areas of color rarely match up perfectly. It's not a goal of  mine.

Now I have to say, as I'm sure most printmakers will say,  that sounds a lot like sour grapes or something similar. You choose to be happy with less than perfect registration in printing because you're technically incapable  of getting perfect registration! I'd have to agree that I'm technically incapable of  getting perfect registration. But  I also don't believe it's worth the time and effort, at least for me. Just what is gained  and what is lost by perfect registration? For me not much is gained, but a lot might be lost, including the ability for the print to breathe.

But it's very easy to see where at least in printmaking  good registration is just considered part of the craft of printmaking. Since I  didn't have an education in printmaking I'm only guessing that this  is the case. But I'm pretty sure that I'm right.

This is only one element of  what I consider, from an outsider's perspective, to be the craft of printmaking. Another element is consistency in prints in an edition. Especially with  a complicated print involving many colors, many blocks, perhaps intricate carving there are more and more areas where the smallest little slip or lack of concentration will make one print slightly different than another. Printmakers have to decide whether or not  to include small anomalies in an edition,  My guess is that much of the final decision depends on how you've  been trained.

For me this  is  particularly difficult where I've spent a lot of time and effort in the printing, mainly due to it being a complicated print. After all that effort do I really want to toss out more  than 50% of  what I've printed? Of course not and yet expectations are that there be at least some basic similarity between prints in an edition. My guess is that I'm more lenient than many but still I cull a lot from editions.

It's easy to understand this desire to have a consistent edition. And yet here too I find  that the craftsmanship of  printing is perhaps getting in the way a bit of the art of printing.

Moku hanga has a much better method of registration than western hand-printed prints. And yet I suspect that because of this there is a greater expectation of excellent registration in moku  hanga prints. By those standards I fail pretty badly. I suspect moku hanga also has particularly high standards of paint application, even surface, etc., etc. mainly due to the incredible craftsmanship  of  traditional moku hanga. Though I strive for these and don't usually have deliberately uneven surfaces it's not something  I care about all that much. It undoubtedly is part of traditional moku hanga. It's just not something I can bring myself to consider the most important part of the print. I usually won't cull a print because the color application isn't the best.

For me it is the overall experience of the print that is most important. What is it like visually, not technically? For me that means that I'm often quite happy with my prints, especially my moku hanga, even though I'm also disappointed that the registration isn't a bit better, the paint coverage a bit better, etc., etc. For many I imagine  it looks as though I've failed at the craft of printing and it's hard to see beyond that. I can only guess but I expect that this is true. I can understand it. But I'm still quite happy with my prints.

It may be pushing this to suggest something similar in painting and drawing but I'm going to anyway. I love drawing, and painting as well. But I don't at all like drawings that enclose shapes in non-stop, continuous, undifferentiated lines. That may be a technique that was taught in classical academies hundreds of years ago but it is largely lifeless. The varying and incomplete lines of someone like  Rembrandt are far more impressive. They go beyond technique into art, into something that is moving. The art of Rembrandt breathes.

I've gone on at such great length that I'm reluctant to say much more. In some ways I'm just thinking out loud. In the end I guess  I'd use Winslow Homer as an example. He did quality wood engravings in his younger years. He was a master of line. But as he matured he didn't let himself be constrained by line. Instead it became an often invisible structure in his wonderfully free watercolors. Technique has its uses but it can also be the kiss of death for  an artist. My guess is that many artists would be better off knowing when to forget about technique. On the other hand I can't help but think of Odubel Herrera, Pat Burrell and Hunter Pence, all players at one time or another for the local Philadelphia Phillies. I used to scream every time I saw one of them at the plate with their idiosyncratic wild swings. But they still got hits. I hope my prints don't remind anyone of them, especially Pence or Herrera!

  

  

First Moku Hanga Print

Nashville Warbler on Bean Trellis in Winter. Moku  Hanga Print by  Ken Januski.

For quite some time I've debated trying Moku Hanga printmaking. As best I can tell the term itself just refers to Japanese woodblock or  woodblock  printmaking. Most  people will probably be familiar with it through ukiyo-e prints, such as those by Utamaro, Hokusai, Hiroshige et al.

Though I've always liked those prints I suspect I first liked them more for their influence on the art of people  like Edgar Degas than for any other reason. That is no longer the case but it was my first reaction to them. Now my interest is completely different. It is more related to things like the use of  non-toxic materials(since the ink  is water-based not petroleum  based), the fact that it can be done without a printing press, though this has been true  of all my other prints as well, that it has a registration system that most likely is  better than the one I've used in the past, and perhaps most of all it is capable of a rich color, a color that actually is absorbed into the paper, rather than lying  on top of it.

Though I'd read the last statement before, the fact that the color merges with the paper,  you  actually need to see it to understand it. Now I have! It can be seen in the two prints above and below of a Nashville Warbler  on a Bamboo Bean Trellis in Winter,  which we had in our backyard on and off over a two week period a number of winters ago.

These two prints also show at least one of the problems with this type of printmaking:  the background color, in particular, varies greatly between prints. I began printmaking about 5-6 years ago I  think, though  I had had a brief introduction in college. The more I've done it the more I  remember why I shied away from it in college. Printmakers seemed SO interested in technique! At the time that was the last thing that I thought art should  be about. But after my 5+ years of printmaking I realize that technique is an integral part of  it,  at least if you want to make an edition, i.e . more than one more or less consistent print  of the same image. And given all the work involved, at least when I make a print, it seems silly to not have more to show for  it than just one print.

Still I don't like having to worry about technique. It's a necessity, not a virtue, not something I seek out. That said I've seen some moku hanga prints that are extremely rich in color and that is  something that I think is desirable enough to more than compensate for  the technical problems involved. At least I hope so! Time will tell.

Another thing I love in many ukiyo-e prints is the sinuous, graceful line, based most often on the sinuous, graceful line of the original brush paintings on which the prints were based. For  me there at two huge obstacles to doing this myself: first I can't do graceful, sinuous brush paintings, and to do so would  probably take  years  of practice; and second, I'll never  become such an accomplished carver of wood as to translate sinuous lines from paint to carved wood. In ukiyo-e prints this was no problem because the artist and the carver were two different people! And the printer was a third person involved in the process. This helps to explain some of the accomplishments of this type of print. And it also shows the difficulty of doing it today.

There seem to be quite a few contemporary Western printmakers using moku hanga today, each in their own way. From what I can see many skip the part based on graceful, sinuous lines and instead are more interested in rich color fields. I know of some art in this manner that I greatly like. But it's not for me, at least not at the moment. So crude as my lines might be I plan to continue  to use  them in my prints. Only time will tell how I come into my own interpretation of moku hanga.  Above and below you see the first.

Nashville Warbler on Bean Trellis in Winter. Moku  Hanga Print by  Ken Januski

All printmaking seems to require a lot of time in the studio. So I was happy a couple of  times recently to  leave prints and printmaking behind and head outside. Below you see two recent field sketches. As you may be able to tell they are done with a brush pen, something that resembles a Chinese  or Japanese brush but that comes with a reservoir of ink. It may be hard to believe but when I first started using them a year or two it was with the idea of developing the sinuous, graceful line that I talked about above. I find it far more refreshing that a labored pencil sketch,  at least for myself.

Great Blue Heron and Killdeer at Manayunk Canal. Brush Pen Field Sketch  by Ken Januski.

Two Great Blue Heron in Trees Along Manayunk Canal. Brush Pen Field Sketch by Ken Januski.