John Diemer Fundraiser - Ascending & Descending
John Diemer Fundraiser - Ascending & Descending
Thank you for your interest in this pair of prints. I’m glad to be joining Seth Smith (@sethsmithstudio), a fellow artist and parent in his annual effort to raise money for our local elementary school, John Diemer Elementary. I believe in the public school system and the opportunity it creates for kids to grow. In fact, my first experience in printmaking was in an art class in public school. Without that experience who knows if I’d be printmaking today? So I’d like to support our public school children by donating 100% of the sale of these pieces to the John Diemer art department.
A pair of 3 Color Screen Prints
25” x 31” (framed dimensions)
19” x 25” (each individual print)
Each is a unique impression
Handprinted, signed, dated
Framed and ready to hang
A bit on Ascending and Descending.
One thing in printmaking that has always fasinated me is “makeready” or the “test print”. These prints are run through the press to make technical adjustments and get the ink flowing before the “real” art is printed. The resulting prints combine elements of unrelated designs in a haphazard manner to create very abstract and chaotic images. And I love them. (Search the hashtag testprinttuesday on instagram for examples).
This pair of prints is inspired by that process, with less of the chaos. I developed a series of multicolor designs to be screen printed. Then I commissioned Nick Naughton (@nicholasnaughton) to print them with one special request. Make some test prints. Take any opportunity to compose a new image with my elements while they were “on press”. And this pair titled “Ascending” and “Descending” was lovely result.
They are among the simpler, minimal prints he created with only three colors. And I see them as a pair because two of those three design elements/colors are the same in both prints. The stripe element is the only difference between the two. (And what a difference it makes) Perhaps my favorite thing about these two is that they feel familiar, but strange to me. Like something from a dream or another multiversal timeline. My colors and patterns, but composed in a way I wouldn’t think to. And to date they are one of my favorite collaborative pieces.