This past Saturday marked the opening day for our Honoring Martin Luther King Jr. exhibition, featuring archival photographs from Dan Budnik chronicling the Selma-Montgomery March, the March on Washington D.C., and the Voting Rights Act; and Susan Berger’s images of streets throughout the United States named in honor of Martin Luther King.
Copies of Susan’s book, “Life and Soul – American Streets Honoring Martin Luther King” are available, as well as a small number of signed copies of Dan’s book, “Marching to the Freedom Dream.” If you are interested in a copy of either, please send us an email at info@artintersection.com.
This course provides a hands-on introduction to the fascinating 19th century bleach/etch process of Mordançage. Each student will be instructed concerning the history, process, and various techniques in which to produce engaging imagery within the medium. Mordançage produces wonderfully evocative imagery, and the possibilities for experimentation are nearly endless. The knowledge and skills acquired in this class will equip you in the development of self-expression and provide an opportunity for intuitive applications in your own artistic practice. All students must be prepared to experiment, be creative, but most importantly to have fun!
The course is intended for intermediate to advanced photographers only, as each student must possess a foundation in the fundamentals of gelatin silver darkroom printing techniques prior to enrollment. If you are new to darkroom printing or would like a refresher course, check out our 1-on-1 Tutorials.
Though there will be time to make new prints during the workshop, students will benefit from bringing at least 20 finished gelatin silver prints and a large range of negatives to experiment with this process. More details will be provided upon registration.
About Mordançage
Mordançage is a mystifyingly beautiful method of altering gelatin silver prints or negatives with endless opportunities for experimentation and creative application. Mordançage chemistry physically lifts the darkest parts of the photographic emulsion from the rest of the image, allowing it to be manipulated into veils or removed completely. This rare 19th century process was largely forgotten, but fortunately was revived by 20th and 21st century practitioners Jean-Pierre Sudre and Elizabeth Opalenik. Try it yourself and prepare to be amazed at the possibilities this process will introduce to your artistic practice!
Jace Becker
About Jace
Jace Becker earned degrees in photography and anthropology from Montana State University, and is currently a 3rd year MFA candidate in Photography at Arizona State. His work focuses on the cultural landscape, specifically social and self-exploration, issues of identity, vulnerability, and the darker sides of introspection. His area of emphasis is in alternative processes. When he is not hiding from the Arizona sun in his darkroom, he is an avid rock climber, surfer, and lover of sailing.
Get back in the studio and practice your skills! If you have taken a Photogravure workshop at Art Intersection or are proficient in the process, you are invited to participate in an Open Studio day dedicated to photopolymer gravure. Please note, this is not a workshop; while you are encouraged to share knowledge with your studio mates, there will be no formal instruction.
If you are not familiar with the photopolymer gravure process, learn it the day before in our workshop with Karen Hymer! Find out more and register here.
Materials Pricing
The $40 registration fee includes your access to our lab and equipment during the Open Studio. You are welcome to bring all your own materials and pay no additional fee. However, Art Intersection will have 4×5″ SolarPlates available for $8 each, paper and ink available for $5/print, and digital negatives for $5 each – this is a great option for those just starting out with photogravure, or those that don’t want to invest in their own materials yet. These additional items will be accounted for at the end of the day.
Working Group
In addition to the open lab, the day will start at 9am with a Photogravure Working Group meeting. This is an opportunity to meet other photogravure printers, reconnect with friends from workshops, and share some work you’ve done already. This meeting will last no longer than an hour, but may be briefer depending on the discussion. Art Intersection hosts Working Group meetings and Open Studios on a recurring basis.
Photogravure Learn the art of photopolymer gravure printing in this one-day workshop! Using light-sensitive steel-backed Solarplates, participants will create 4 x 5 gravure etching prints from their photographs. This environmentally friendly process translates photographic detail into ink on paper with unparalleled beauty.
No prior experience with printmaking is required. All necessary aspects of printmaking will be discussed including choosing inks, papers, and wiping material. Wiping and inking techniques will be covered. Be prepared to marvel at the way your photograph is transformed through ink on paper!
The making of digital positives will be discussed, but for the workshop itself, please send one color or black and white image file (300 dpi at 10” on the long side) to be made into a digital positive prior to the workshop. An email with details will be provided once you are registered.
All materials for this workshop are included in the registration fee.
Here is a brief outline of the process that will be presented in this workshop:
Starting with your digital photograph, a 4 x 5 transparency positive will be made
The positive is then laid on top of the light sensitive polymer plate and exposed to UV light
Washing the plate in water etches the image onto the plate
Once hardened, the plate is hand inked using water-soluble intaglio inks
The inked plate is then run through an etching press onto dampened paper
You take home 3 photogravure prints of your image
About Karen Hymer For the past five years Karen Hymer, an artist and educator based out of Silver City, New Mexico, has ventured into the world of printmaking – exploring imagery in the form of photopolymer gravures. Her current work explores the effects of time on the human body and various plant life. Hymer’s richly detailed photogravures emphasize the interplay of texture, pattern, light and shadow in muted earth tones. The decontextualized close-ups of the body and decaying plants reveal a poetic beauty in these often-over-looked subjects.
Printing out Paper, or PoP, makes an image by exposing a negative and paper to light without any chemical development. With a printing-out process, you can watch your image come to life during your exposure, rather than having to wait until it is processed! Used originally as a simplified field process without the need of a darkroom, today we use this handmade emulsion to create artful images with subtle and warm tonality.
This workshop begins on Friday night with a lecture and demo, where instructor Siegfried Rempel will discuss the history of collodio-chloride printing and demonstrate two different printing-out methods. Following on Saturday is a day of coating and printing your own hand fabricated, collodio-chloride printing out paper.
The day after the workshop, return to the lab to further refine your mastery of this process! We are hosting a PoP Open Studio on Sunday, March 26 from 9am – 3pm. More information here.
About Collodio-Chloride
The use of Collodion in photography for the production of photographic prints an be found as early as the 1850s, and is most commonly used in the Wet Plate Collodion process to produce tintypes and ambrotypes. The concept of an “emulsion” of silver salts in a collodion binder was introduced by Gaudin in 1853 and by 1861 he was actively producing the “Photogene” collodion emulsion.
The collodio-chloride print has a similar physical appearance to its gelatin counterparts and it can be difficult to tell them apart. In fact, modern gelatin silver darkroom papers evolved from this early printing method! Today, we still practice the collodio-chloride process because of the rich and beautiful tonality it imparts on our images.
Late last month we had the pleasure of hosting a Platinum/Palladium workshop in our Photographic Arts Lab led by San Francisco-based artist Michael T. Puff! A master of this luminous, tonally-rich process, Michael led our eleven participants in making gorgeous prints of their own images.
Platinum/Palladium printing, a photographic process invented in the 19th century, has long been a favorite of alternative process photographers for its highly archival nature and infinite variations of gray tones as highlights shift to shadows. In the process Michael uses, ferric oxalate, palladium, and sodium chloroplatinate are mixed together, hand-brushed onto 100% cotton rag paper, exposed to UV light through a digital negative, and then processed with potassium oxalate and sodium thiosulfate. The end result is a handcrafted print that is estimated to retain its appearance for a thousand years!
Thank you to all of our wonderful participants, and of course to Michael for traveling to us to share his expertise!
Michael instructs the class on mixing the chemicals and coating their paper
The participants mark where the image portion of their digital negatives will be centered on their paper
After exposing a coated piece of paper to UV light, Michael demonstrates developing the print
Participants process their exposed prints
Cyd looks at the class’s finished work at the end of the day
Gorgeous work produced by the students pinned up on the critique board
Michael talks about successes and things to work on with the students
Beautiful work by Lloyd Matthews
Luminous prints by Deb Alberty
A delicate, icy print by our very own Business Manager, Debra Wilson!
