I am printing a freshwater drum, the final image of the book. The key block, based on a photograph of a living specimen, was cut during the winter of 2008. Since then the book has evolved, and a caption has emerged for the image that is a poem describing a dead drum. I have saved this image for last, this drum, to allow time to think about the living fish, and the dead one.
The first press run has been printed from from a large background block representing the water the fish is swimming in, or floating on. Then the key block of the living drum was printed in black. A reduction cut of the background block was printed next in brown, over the water, and a second key block (of the dead drum) was printed, in opaque white, over the key block of the living drum. That is where things stand.
Of course much proofing from the blocks was done before the book paper was cut and printing of the actual pages began: trying various colors, and sequences, and then drawing onto the proofs to get some idea which way to go. I showed what I thought was a promising direction to Anicka and she said, “It’s not working, Dad.”
Anicka is gone now, back at school, and I have no choice but to push on. The challenge is to turn this living fish into a dead one, while somehow keeping it alive. A ghost.
As the images for this book have emerged, the process–the method and vision involved in making them–has evolved. During the process of printing, it seems to me now, the image is in a state of constant revision, not unlike a poem, or a painting. With the emergence of each image confidence grows, to the point that I can now continue printing, though the vision remains unclear.
I feel I have crossed into a highland, a technical plateau with a view that is both unexpected and sublime. As I look out over this pool of images, I could not have foreseen what I see. This is a place I could not know until I came here, and I will leave when the drum is done. The memory of this place will stay with me, but once I climb down, I can’t return. I am gone.
