Re: Giclee vs other names

I stick with "pigment ink print on archival watercolor paper" which,
while pedestrian, precisely describes what I do.

Something about the word "giclee" makes me think of tomcats marking
territory. Perhaps I had insufficient French language training.

And on series numbering - this is a discussion that I've watched as it
raged in many other forums. The whole notion of edition numbering
smells of dishonesty in photographic printing and inkjet - most editions
are many, many times larger than will ever be printed. I guess that's
what I find dishonest.

My approach now is to do rigorously tracked editions in the largest and
preferred format, but VERY small editions (usually in the range of under
20.) (Hey, keeps the creative pressure going!) Outside of that
preferred format and size, I do un-numbered editions - in cases where an
image is still obsessing me, I sign it "A/P" and in other cases, I
simply sign.

A huge part of me rebels against editioning because it is a strategy
specifically about raising the prices; there's still some 1960's
socialist in me that wants to democratize art.

Ed

Murray Leshner wrote:

> OK...I'll just hope for the best that some consistency
> evolves. Call them 'pigment' if they are
> pigment-based, call them what they are if not (dye?),
> hope that anything you purchase from an artist was
> made properly (I've heard some sad stories of people
> trying to save money (or just not knowing any better)
> and print on 20# bond, etc.
>
> It seems that the increasing ease of access to the
> process opens up many areas for unknowing or uncaring
> error like assuming particular predicted endurance of
> a print technology but using what ever paper and ink
> one feels like...I guess this is true with any
> process, but it seems all too easy for a naive print
> to be made on 20 pound bond paper and the cockled,
> blurry result called a giclee. I saw this recently at
> an artist's collective project, and I guess it was a
> good thing that several artists were unhappy with the
> results before trying to sell them.
>
> It amazes me how much variation some 'pros' allow from
> one batch of prints to another (say, when printing 10
> at a time. Retaining the ink, paper and Photoshop data
> didn't accomplish the uniformity alleged. All this is
> really only relevant to a buyer/collector I guess,
> where consistency and quality is implied and
> expected.
>
> If each one comes out differently (intentionally, as
> in toning to taste), you could call them 'original
> prints', analogous to uniquely inked or hand-colored
> intaglio prints.
>
>
> Interestingly, the concept of a 'lower numbered' print
> having more value persists among some buyers, so we
> sometimes discuss the origin of this and what print
> forms it's irrelevant to.
>
> Murray
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Received on Tue Dec 13 21:34:41 2005