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This work represents several areas I am currently working on at once. I include them all to show the range that gum printing can express.
One is an architectural Charleston project,
documenting historic preservation homes for the innovative MFA program in Historic Preservation that is just beginning in that area. Traveling back and forth to Charleston to document these homes has been a bonus to
attending school at Clemson, which is about 250 miles away.
More interesting to me are the two other projects, which will be part of my final thesis.
One centers on those small moments in life that are just miraculously beautiful, that become etched in your mind, those moments that make life worth living, represented, for instance, by the hanging moss. These are a counterpoint to the social deconstruction project which will address stereotypes, hidden codes, and oddities of social groups--some humorous, some tragic. As you can imagine, South Carolina is full of fodder for this project, but I could be in some small café in northernmost Minnesota (as I was) and find the same elements, wherever people coexist. In this social deconstruction project I am referencing a comic theme as a way of addressing the humor in these observations. More importantly, I use the comic theme as a way of disarming the viewer with this humorous, “low art” context into looking at the darker realities of life that require change.
To address technical questions, these are all digital images, negatives printed on an Epson 2200 printer according to Sam Wang’s gum over cyanotype article on this website (I am privileged to have Sam as my teacher here at Clemson!). I print out RGB separation negatives. I use the B negative to print a yellow layer first, the G negative to print a magenta layer, and then the R negative to print the last coat of blue.
I size my paper by brush sizing with a gelatin/glyoxal solution. I used not to size, but there would be occasional staining so I went back to this step. It makes my prints more predictable.
My pigment mix consists of a tube of watercolor paint squirted into a 50ml plastic bottle of gum Arabic. These function as my stock color solutions. I use 1 teaspoon of this for every tablespoon
of gum Arabic in my mix.
I use a weak dichromate solution (equivalent to about 8%) in the mix, mixing gum/pigment: dichromate 1:1.
I use a hair dryer to hurry along the process of drying if I need to. All negatives print exactly the same (4 minutes) since I am using the same negative curve for each one (Sam Wang’s, check his article). Development usually proceeds with a short soak of 10 minutes or even less, and then the images are spray-developed with a spray bottle and hung to dry.
I don’t necessarily clear my prints, and if I want to protect them or even out gloss, I spray with Krylon Crystal Clear non-yellowing acrylic polymer.
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