Several of you mentioned the organic “body part” references in the abstract images I posted this weekend. That made me think about the late Jerry Rudquist, a local artist and professor at MacAllister College in St. Paul. Jerry had a huge influence on my artwork. If you’re not into “duck and dog” paintings, Jerry was, for years, the dean of Minnesota fine artists. The image posted here is a hand printed lithograph. It’s an artist’s proof, which I was given because I printed the edition. That’s right, add another to my list of shot lived careers.

Lithography, as it’s root implies, is printing from the surface of a stone. Most modern printing uses this technology which is based on the physics of the attraction and repulsion of grease and water. Invented by Sennenfelder in 1798 it uses flat slabs of limestone, ground to a very fine texture to reproduce the image. Modern commercial printers use metal or rubber plates now, but fine art printers are still printing editions using the old technique.

I specialized in printmaking in college and applied to the Tamarind Institute in New Mexico, to train to be a Master Printmaker. I didn’t get in, so I found a small studio to work in Minneapolis. This was right after I returned from Idaho. I think. This winter I took this pic of the press at the Carleton art studio. It’s the same press I learned on. If you look closely you can see some stones on the shelves on the right side of the photo. Printing an edition of lithographs on a press like that is a real workout. But great fun, because it’s a two person job and I often worked with my professor, Dean Warnholtz, who was just plain fun to be around. Because he was as crazy as I was.

Yesterday, Beck called me at work to tell me there was a rose breasted grossbeak on the bird feeder. haven’t seen one of those for awhile. I saw it later in the evening as well. I hope they decide to move into the nieghborhood. What a cool looking bird!