Laura Boswell ARE – Printmaker

Balancing Act

Sometimes I feel like my working life is a bit like treading on a skateboard at the top of a flight of stairs – an ever accelerating rush which, should I try to stop, will end very badly indeed. Of course that’s not really the case, but there are some similarities and I do spend time thinking, since my feet are on the board for better or worse, how to develop my balance.

This year I messed up. I let the teaching aspect of my work take over. Don’t get me wrong, especially all of you reading this who have come on my courses or spent a day in my studio, I see teaching as essential to my work and not just as money earned. It is a chance to learn more myself: to push my thinking and get involved in the experiments of others. I just need to plan better and to accept that I can’t say yes all the time to teaching, even when that means saying no to assured money. This isn’t easy for any self employed artist!

Sometimes you have to stop and look at the balance of things. It’s not going to win any art prizes, but there is a lot to be said for a big bit of paper, some felt pens and a plan. I’m not talking about a spread sheet here, though if I knew more about my computer I would probably embrace it. More a ‘this is what I did this year and these were the outcomes’ leading to ‘this is what I want more of, this less and here’s how I capitalise on the bits that have worked’. I also include a mad section for advancing myself (here’s where the skateboard actually leaves the stairs for an airborne trajectory with me gracefully poised atop). That section could involve some daring cold calls, project pitches or simply dropping something that is bogging me down. The mad stuff I space out so as not to traumatise myself too much and I accept that nearly all of it will end in rejection tempered by the warm glow of having had the nerve to try.

I’m not nearly brave enough to drop everything for a meditative six months in my studio thinking about my next step (and I do know an artist who did just that), actually forget brave: I just couldn’t resist fiddling with something after ten minutes of sitting still. But I do plan and, as I hurtle forward, I realise that it’s getting increasingly important that I plan well: it’s the only way I’m going to keep my balance on the damn skateboard…

Sticks and Stones

As an artist I have had to learn that there needs to be a separation between the highly personal process of making my prints and not taking personally any comments made about them by their viewers. I quickly realised that I was going to get very hurt and upset if I took every passing comment, and there have been some stunners, to heart.

Part of being a working artist is putting work in front of people. I do a lot of demonstrations and fairs and spend a great deal of my time talking to strangers about my art. Early on I made a decision that I had to impose a filter on comments. The first thing I remember is that my work is not me: it’s a product of my thoughts and skills and it is my choice that it is up for examination. Anything said about it is not a personal attack. The second thing I remember is that viewers are not, on the whole, experts in my field of printmaking and almost certainly not on the works of Laura Boswell: their perspective is fresh and shouldn’t be judged by my standards of insight.

I am selling a product, the viewers are my clients and I endeavour to treat everyone with care and respect. However, I will only take seriously adverse criticism that comes with a decent back up argument. ‘That’s rubbish’, ‘Why?’, ‘Because it is’ is the sort of circular argument best saved to have with a small child at bedtime and deserves about as much attention. Serious criticism is very different, if disagreeable, and I learn a great deal from people prepared to share their views intelligently. Then there’s the foolish passing comments made by the thoughtless and let’s agree now, anyone who hasn’t bothered to think that the artist standing beside them could be hurt by their words, hasn’t thought at all. Should we then care what they say? Better to have a giggle over ‘she should be doing something more grown up than lino’ than weep (I eat out on that one, my personal favourite so far).

The flip side of this is that I try to do exactly the same with praise, but in a far less serious way. People are on the whole very kind and accordingly say kind things about my work. I try never to get too pleased with myself over the general comments. It’s the specifics I treasure because they come from people who, like the serious critics, have really looked and thought about my work. It is very easy to bask and I try to moderate my basking tendencies just as I try to toughen my skin. I’m not perfect on either count, but I’m a lot better for having given it all some thought.

One for you Dear Reader

I have given over this week to recovering and unpacking from Art in Action, my biggest art event of the year. That’s four days in a (very big) tent with eight other printmakers, twenty four thousand or so visitors, ten to twelve complete copies of my Japanese woodblock print demonstrated and explained for every day of the show, questions answered, deals struck and pictures sold. All I really planned for today was to lie face down within reach of cake, but I have had a few thoughts about the benefits of doing such a show beyond the obvious financial and business ones…

printmaker at work...
printmaker at work…

Spending time with other printmakers is always great. I’d say we’re a sociable and sharing lot; I so seldom come across a printer who is secretive about their techniques. Maybe we can afford to be in such a process-led environment where skills are won over years of practice and each printmaker worth their salt finds a unique path and method? Either way, a show is a great way of meeting up with other printers and comparing notes, ideas and materials as well as a few wry grins at some of the comments (hand cut, hand pulled prints so seldom come ‘the same, but a bit narrower and in blue’).

Printmaker party apart, a huge benefit for me was to meet up with some of you people who follow me here or on Facebook. This kind of support is so enormously important to artists who, on average, spend more time with the spiders in our studios than we do with other humans. I find what I do to sometimes be so odd and tenuous (squashing ink into paper in the hope someone will buy the result does not a business plan make…) that I get a bit wobbly. To find that all this tapping on the computer keys, posted photos from my phone and comments on Facebook leads to real people who are genuinely interested: interested enough to comment, like, or fight through the crowded tent at a festival to say hello and be supportive is half the battle of my confidence.

So, for all of you out there, a big thank you for taking the trouble, in cyberspace or on land – you’re all supporters of the arts in the best possible sense of the phrase and I really appreciate it.

Something for Nothing

I find it fascinating that artists are so often expected to supply their skills for free. I have just received a mail offering an ‘opportunity’ for me to design a corporate logo. There’s a long list of expectations: high quality, clear design, visually strong in colour and monochrome etc. In short, all the things you would expect from a corporate client. The sting is at the end of the tail: ‘we have no budget for this work, but would welcome designs from artists looking to have their work published’.

I’d like to say that this was an exceptionally cheeky effort, but sadly it’s all too common. We live in a society all too ready to ask if art is a ‘proper job’ while undermining our attempts to earn the money to make it so. I wonder why it is that the idea of ‘being published’ or ‘good for your CV’ is seen as a substitute for cash. I’ve tried it with my plumber and funnily enough he wouldn’t service the boiler on that basis. Perhaps artists are expected to live on the rarefied air of creativity alone, but I for one need filthy commerce to buy a ham sandwich now and again.

It’s easy starting out to see any work of any kind as a fantastic opportunity and to go for this kind of job. The trick is to do the maths: if I’m not getting paid then I make it a rule that I get at least the value of my work and time back in concrete benefit and that doesn’t mean a vague promise about publishing or a line on my CV. I would urge you to do the same if you are in a dilemma about a freebie. You should bear in mind that being up front about the benefit to you with the client is good business practice and a decent client will respect you for it. It also helps all artists by helping to reinforce the fact that we’re not mugs and our skills have a market value. Leave the peanut payers to the monkeys with the poster paints.

That’s not to rule out doing things for love. One of the nicest things about having a skill, be it printmaking, heart surgery or repairing shoes, is that sometimes you can just give it away and make someone else’s day. The watch word there is love. That has to be earned and I’m a long way off loving the company after a free logo…

The Big Sleep

All my adult life I’ve been bad at taking a break. That’s a break to rest, not a break to do alternative work. I’m pretty good at displacement: I’m writing this very blog at the time when I should be checking everything is ready to open my doors for the last day of my Open Studio. I realise that I sound immensely smug, but I’d like to suggest that soldiering on is weakness on my part, not strength, and that a relentless attention to work is nothing to be proud about.

Self employment as a creative is tough. In a world where there is no holiday pay, pension or sick pay, it is very easy to feel that most waking time should be spent either creating new work, doing paid work or seeking work. It’s easy to agree to taking on too much in case people suddenly decide to stop buying, learning or commissioning. Then there’s the personal need to move forward, experiment and develop which drives all artists (we are only as good as our last project after all). Add in the pressure of competition. I’m sure we’ve all had the ‘I stayed up all night to finish my project’ ‘All night? You were lucky! I worked 72 hours straight for mine’ conversation. Finally there is the subtle niggle of ‘what do artists do all day?’ (thanks for that snappy title BBC4) from those who just can’t see that putting ink on paper is really proper work.

Frankly I’m not sure you even have time to read this blog.

Recently I have been so busy that I’ve scared myself a little: mistakes creep in, things get missed, items lost and my goodwill and enthusiasm seeps sadly away. It’s not fair on my students, my clients and most of all my family. Nobody wants to work with a scatterbrain, even if the scattering is more to do with tiredness than charming creative eccentricity. The morning I found myself applying deodorant to my toothbrush I decided enough was enough and started booking in rest days among the work days. I’ve also decided that if I really can’t stop, I will have a power nap. Not sure where the power comes in, but the cat and I are working on it together during busy periods. I don’t feel guilty: I’m being professional and, believe me, the alternative isn’t big and it isn’t clever…

The Big Picture

I remember the first time I encountered a bad food. I must have been about seven and went to a new friend’s house for tea. When our plates were put down I honestly thought that her mum was joking. I sat there wondering why nobody was laughing and when the real food was coming. All my life my mum had fed me beautifully cooked meals that I took so for granted that it never occurred to me that somebody could actually do that to a plate of food and still call it edible…

I think we artists often treat our skills and work with the same lack of appreciation that I gave to my lovely mum’s fabulous food. I’m sure there are hair-tossing superstars out there who are only too aware of their own genius, but most of us are all too ready to beat ourselves up about the details while missing the fact that we’re doing a really good job overall.

A friend of mine asked me last weekend if I ever gave myself a pat on the back for my printmaking skills. I was genuinely floored by this and asked her if she ever told herself she was great at creating indigo textiles. Stupid question: of course we don’t; we’re too busy worrying over little technical hitches and glitches for that. This was also brought home to me by looking at some of Ian Philips’ lino prints with him. I love Ian’s work: it’s fluid and beautiful and a joy to see. He on the other hand was busily telling me that it wasn’t quite right and there was a slight registration error etc, etc. Now I should have seen all that, for sure I would have seen it had the print been mine, but I didn’t. Not a thing. I was just blown away by the image and I’m an experienced printmaker working in lino. If I didn’t see the problems, who else will?

It's 11pm and I've just finished printing 'Wombwell Farm', my best selling print to date. At the time I was just worried that the foreground was too dark...
It’s 11.15pm and I’ve just finished printing ‘Wombwell Farm’, my best selling print to date. At the time I was just worried that the foreground was too dark and it wouldn’t sell…

So perhaps it’s time to give myself a break. I’ve just finished putting my exhibition up for my Open Studios over the next three weeks. I’ve worried and bothered and dusted and persuaded the big spiders to move under the plan chest for a while. I’ve dithered endlessly over which prints to show and which not. In the midst of all this angst perhaps I should also find time to remember that I’m being visited by members of the art loving public, friends and family and that they are not the printing Gestapo and will never see the prints with my hyper critical eye.

It’s good to have high standards and I do pride myself on trying to do my best, but perhaps I should stop looking at the trees and enjoy the wood for a bit. I’d advise anyone else in the same boat to try it – perhaps we’ll even relax enough to cut ourselves some slack!

Oil and Water Mix

The difference between oil and water based inks for lino printing.

Usually I try and keep things short, sweet and not too technical. This blog breaks the rules and is more of a report to compare oil and water based inks for lino. Not your bag? No problem: I’ve seen my friend’s eyes glaze as I feverishly discuss this kind of thing with a fellow printer. Do what they do – go have a coffee and leave me to rattle on!

Up until a couple of months ago, I have always used oil based lino inks for my reduction lino printing. I’m not one to be unduly anxious about chemicals. Personally I have never had any ill effects from splashing about with white spirit and cobalt driers. I don’t actually drink or inhale the stuff and, while it’s not exactly what Estee Lauder would have recommended, my skin is fine.

St Ives in water based inks showing my painterly approach
St Ives in water based inks showing my painterly approach

Now I am having a serious flirtation with water based inks. This has to do with the long cold winter. Frankly, the attraction of shivering my way down to the studio and smashing the ice on my water bucket every morning wore very thin, very quickly and along with that, I grew deeply tired of rolling out inks so seized with the cold that they were almost impossible to handle.

Water based ink doesn’t suffer the same problems, if anything, it is disconcertingly fluid. There are a few other differences too so in the interests of anyone who hasn’t yet decided which inks are for them, here’s what I found.

I use Zerkall paper for oil based ink. It’s a good quality good-natured paper, readily available in different shades of white and an affordable choice. I found it tended to cockle with the repeated application of water based ink and even seemed to stretch a bit at times. For water based ink I now use Fabriano Rosaspina which is a much heavier weight printing paper with a soft absorbent surface and almost card-like feel. This works very well with water based ink. On my Albion press it has a slightly embossed appearance that I really like.

The Fens in oil based inks: more defined roller marks and a glossier surface (hard to show here, but trust me!)
The Fens in oil based inks: more defined roller marks and a glossier surface (hard to show here, but trust me!)

I use Intaglio’s oil based relief ink which works well for me. In going over to water, I chose Graphic Chemical inks. These are closest in texture to oil based ink and are available in large tins as well as tubes. I was also given a set of Schmincke inks to trial for the company. These inks are much more slippery and fluid than Graphic Chemical and I tend to mix both sorts which works fine (this is just me being pragmatic as I have both sorts to hand). The beauty of both these inks, as opposed to some of the other water based ones available, is that they are cleaned off with a wet rag. I have no plumbing in the studio (only my bucket in the style of Jane Eyre) so cannot be washing with soap. Nor can I risk getting the lino too wet as I always block my lino up to the right height by sticking it to MDF. Anyone who has ever seen MDF get wet will appreciate that it swells with water faster than chick lit in a hotel swimming pool.

When it comes to mixing the water based inks, I find that I need to test them on paper to get a true feel for their colour which can look different on the glass as opposed to on the print; the colour on paper often being ‘edgier’ and more attractive than the ‘pretty’ colour of the ink on glass. I also found the use of white to be very different. With oil based ink, I use white a great deal. However the water based colours tend to go chalky with overuse of white like water colours do. I find myself using extender instead to make the colours paler.

Inking up is slightly different between the two inks. I have good rollers and that’s a plus for water based ink. Oil based will be far more charitable to the slightly naff roller than the more fluid water. Applying oil based to the block is fairly easy to judge, while water based can be a bit of a struggle to get even (though this may well just be inexperience on my part). I find I sometimes have to double print a water based colour to get a good coverage. I also pause for a few moments longer with the pressure on the press to allow the water based ink a chance to absorb into the paper. I often use several different colours and paint freehand onto the lino with small rollers before printing. Oil based colours tend to catch the texture and separate quality of the individual roller marks. Water based inks blend slightly more, giving a gentler texture and more painterly effect.

Water based ink does dry much more quickly than oil (even when the oil based has cobalt drier added), but do be warned that the colour needs time to settle. I have rushed to add a layer to a print, thinking that it was dry, only to find that the print becomes a little blurry. The other problem to watch for is paper tearing. This happens, as far as I can see, when tacky ink is repressed onto the paper in the press. Do make sure you clean off all the ink if you are leaving any areas of lino in contact with the paper that are not inked for the next part of the print.

The conclusion I have drawn from all this is that both techniques have their stronger and weaker points. I adore the heavy matt finish of water based ink and the sensual way it embosses into the Rosaspina, but I appreciate the purity and the ease of oil based inks and the simple functionality of Zerkall. If my studio ever does get above five degrees Celsius again then I will probably do most printing with oils and lash out on water based for specific projects.

Quick, quick, slow…

I’ve been teaching a lot recently, followed up by a week’s residency at a museum. All this has given me more exposure than usual to lots of people with their thoughts and opinions about printmaking. This of course coincided with a period when Radio Four actually seemed to be cheering up a bit with some more upbeat programming. (At least that is how it sounded as I twiddled the volume up and down in time to the arrival of visitors. Doubtless now I am back in the studio it will be a return to job loss, terminal illness and general all round middle class angst.)

This has resulted in the interesting and at times frustrating fact that on the one hand I have students who are excruciatingly hard on themselves for not managing to produce a perfectly aligned and sensitive Japanese woodblock in the space of a few hours, while on the other I have people telling me that what I am doing is akin to potato printing they did at school.

A lovey first time attempt by one of my recent students - one to be proud I think.
A lovey first time attempt by one of my recent students – one to be proud of I think.

In fact both attitudes are a symptom of this present fiction that arts and crafts are achievable and achievable fairly fast. I know that there is a great deal of TV time given over to darning socks with retro wool and hand baking your own sofa cushions, but these programmes either insist you do it within the hour or face elimination, or worse, they simply gloss from thought to result with an airy ‘ooh I never thought taxidermy would be so easy!’…

Fact is that being good takes time and practice. Knowing what to do is one thing, doing it fluently is quite another. I know how to plaster a ceiling, but every time I lie in my bath I can see that an apprenticeship would have been a good idea. One of the best things about my residency in Japan was to learn that time spent in practice was time spent well and that hard won expertise was to be respected and honoured. It’s the only time I have had my job description win more respect for me than less from the man in the street.

raising fine detail by clearing away most of the wood, this takes time to do well and accurately
raising fine detail by clearing away most of the wood, this takes time to do well and accurately

So please students, stop beating yourself up: most of you do better than I did in the same space of time, much better and, if you apply yourself as I do, then the floating world of Japanese printmaking is your oyster. To the potato printers from school, you are spot on: relief printing is the same process and, like you, I did that at school too. I also learned to play tennis, but sadly I’m a long way off the professional circuit…

The Postman Always Rings Twice (and sometimes lots more often)

At the moment there is somebody out there in internet land who is convinced that I ache to play bingo. Several times a day I am showered with mail encouraging me to rush some site, spend my money and waste my time. It doesn’t matter how many times I unsubscribe and mark the mail as spam, Mr Bingo keeps on trying. I wouldn’t mind, but the thought that I now belong to a demographic of bingo playing types (no offence, but in my mind that equates to drinking port and lemon and having a best hat) is rather demoralising. Junk mail, how I hate it.

However, it must also be said that I am keen to mail people myself. An important part of my work is keeping a mailing list. I like it: it’s like having an online pet. It grows and I am delighted, it shrinks and I worry. I am nerdy in checking my analytics; graphs that are all about me are much, much more fun than anything I learned in CSE maths (yup, too mathematically challenged to sit an ‘O’ Level, though I did get a grade one and that, I believe, came the same thing. Best of all I was taught by the teacher who survived being shot with a rifle while waiting at a bus stop – most kudos in the maths department obviously…)

I do try and avoid Mr Bingo’s lovebombing technique. These days we all have to wait for people to want to subscribe and nothing will put people off faster than asking them to sign up for emails. Needy, just like in dating, is not the way forward. I prefer the insouciance of the carefully placed clip board, the casual reference to my mailings: ‘What? You’d like to sign up? Really? Well please do give me your address’. It’s an option on my web site, but you do have to actually sign up rather than be tricked into it by Yoda style grammar. I never combine my visitor’s book with mailing list form. People should be entitled to tell me that they like/love/hate my work without feeling I may send love/hate mail in return.

The mails themselves I try to make fun, lots of pictures, useful links, a bit about the ongoing story of my work and, most important of all, I only send them when I have something to say. And that doesn’t include saying the same thing again and again in the hope that the recipient will crack and, in my case, develop a keen need to shout ‘house!’ at my laptop.

The Dating Game

Recently I stepped away from having a paper diary and into the cloud world of an electronic diary. The idea of relying on a cloud to keep me up to date with the daily dance of students, galleries, teaching venues, delivery dates (not to forget cat inoculations, the dentist and birthdays) is not terribly confidence inspiring. However, it seems to work and my also-new android phone trills and buzzes with reminders and updates, telling me that I am so terribly important now.

I know artists traditionally have the reputation of being above such mundane tasks, but the fact is that, however fabulous the work, nobody loves an artist who is late or forgets to sign contracts, delivers work on the wrong day or, my personal nightmare, doesn’t turn up to teach their class. There are precious few of us famous enough to get away with this sort of flaky behaviour. It’s my experience that an artist’s reputation is as fragile as a Hardy heroine’s: once the word gets out that you are trouble, people will move on. The plus side to this is that a reputation for being on time, on budget, well prepared and generally efficient will result in work, bookings and happy galleries.

This was brought home to me today when I finally compared my Cumulonimbus’s worth of teaching and exhibiting dates with the events and teaching pages on my web site – disaster! I’ve slipped out of sync and had to spend several hours updating. That opens up the can of worms that is web site maintenance (another time I think, I’m stressed enough as it is). I guess I will have to add yet another task to the diary to update regularly so this doesn’t happen.

I don’t suppose it matters how you keep a diary; I’ve had all sorts in my time from lockable ones (two days worth of serious teenage angst and then forgotten), an eighties filofax (too big) through Moleskines (so hip) to the cloudy one. The point is to pay attention to it. I am very late to the electronic diary, but now I have it I find it has two great advantages: it chirrups until I pay attention plus I can book courses in a year or two ahead without scrawling hopefully in the back of the current year. The only thing I miss is the annual choosing of the colour…