Precipitant

viscosity etchings*


Precipitate    /pre-sip-i-tat/

1) Formation of rain - water to the earth
Water is the indicator of life and the coming issue of our time. Yes, oil may be our current obsession, but it is water that sustains life. I return to it time and time again, drawn by its endless variety of form and purpose. The metaphors are layered deep - mist, cooling agent, purifier, transporter, catalyst for life.  Its visual complexity keeps me returning. 



2) Rushing headlong, heedlessly toward a fall

Starfish with a dozen limbs are devouring the Great Barrier Reef.  Ocean microbes create lifeless swathes of water. I am numbed by the speed with which our environment is evolving, the rate at which we are rushing heedlessly headlong toward the inevitable fall.



3) To reduce from a state of solution to solid form

There is an ever vigilant gatekeeper at all entrances to my brain who tries in vain to hold back the onslaught of visual and verbal information I encounter at every turn. It is not my web browser nor the grocery store ad under my feet but the choice of just one box of pasta from the 79 varieties available on the shelf... I constantly precipitate out the nutrients from within the tsunami.



*The viscosity technique is an intaglio process in which the inks are mixed with varying amounts of oil and stiffening agents. They are then rolled onto a copper plate that has been etched at several varying depths. The color range and organic quality is achieved by using a mix of soft and hard rollers to apply the inks on different levels created by the etching process. Depending on the additives in the inks, colors mix or repel. It is this property that allows the multi-colored prints to be made in a single pass through the press.