Someone donated old zinc plates, in various small odd sizes, to the studio at Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis. At the time I was floundering, in a creative funk, with no planned project I was working on. And no ideas as to what to do next. Since I am okay with using drypoint, sandpaper, rotary wheel and burin on zinc, I took them all. “Free Stuff”! Zinc is softer than copper so you cannot iterate as much as I prefer to and you can lose detail if printing too many times during your image making. Mood change: in contrast to the painterly, curved marks, I usually make, with sugar-lift and acquatint, I decided to pursue an abstract, straight edge, rectilinear or geometric image making approach, both in the varying size plate shapes and in the marks I made. The final four plate zinc intaglio piece is called “Sputnik”. Ithas the flavor of the vintage 1960s TV cartoon show “THe Jetsons” who lived in the future with robots and small aircraft instead of automobiles. The lines and images of the piece look mechanical. The plates are different sizes, some donated, some I made by cutting up old plates and keeping the detail I liked as a separate plate. I printed the intaglio in black and white only, as well as with relief color inked stencils. Also I did another color shape experiment by inking up discarded refuse like old yogurt aluminum lids as well as my Covid 19 vaccine adhesive bandage (circular with tab). Can’t get any more direct involvement with the pandemic than that.
This is fantastic!