L'ATELIER d'IMAGE TRANSFORMEE

   After retiring from the practice of  architecture, I continued to create drawings using the same technical pens and ink with which I had so many years of experience.  Combining my love for botanical study with the precision made possible by the use of the technical pens led me to explorations of pure image making. Again, my architectural experience had conditioned me to consider the reproduction of those images.  Because my ink drawings are line only, shadows, tones, and textures must be executed by alternative techniques (akin to the same challenges posed to engravers and drypoint artists).  I soon realized that the benefit of facility in reproducing images executed in line only was offset by the limitation  of the choice of only one printing color.  
     Because I live in a former pottery center, the transition to having decals made of my drawings that could be fired to ceramic bodies was a natural one.  The adjunct pottery businesses enabled my learning of the techniques of producing  and decorating of ceramic wares  and tiles. 
      However, producing designs for ceramic wares meant the adoption of additional sets of constraints that I realized would not permit me adequate avenues of expression for some of the ideas that I had for projects.  Scale, for example. was a major obstacle.   The image sizes that can be printed for decorating tiles and tablewares are severely limited not only by the items themselves, but by the reproduction process itself.   This hurdle caused me to experiment with unconventional repeats and other means to break free from the confining dimensions dictated by the tile grids.  Some degree of success was achieved but this was tempered by the recognition of the additional limitations   being imposed by the decal manufacturing process itself.   Decals' efficiency once lay in the printing of large quantities.  Before digital printing's development, it was necessary to print larger runs of images for efficiency. These were runs of a 10" by 16" "window" that often was at a minimum of 10 sheets with 50 being a preferred minimum.  
     Not willing to be bound by these somewhat arbitrary constraints, I began executing drawings whose scale was appropriate for the idea that I was attempting to explore.  Reproduction of these drawings would be in the form of limited editions of prints. This determination occurred simultaneously with my growing familiarity with Japanese Washi papers and my desire to work with them. The exquisite, handmade papers themselves are each unique and it was my intention to somehow combine my imagery with them rather than impose drawings upon them.  This idea led to my images, themselves manipulated by printings, colorings, excised backgrounds, and other means,  being transformed by their addition to the art papers into another cohesive entity.  This was the genesis for my collage editions.