Artist melds lithography, authenticity, creative process

Artist melds lithography, authenticity, creative process

By Margaret Agusta

JAKARTA (JP): Lithography is perhaps one of the most
misunderstood creative processes. Mention lithography and art in
the same breath and someone is likely to ask: How could a print
be considered a work of art? Isn't it just a copy of something?

These questions arise because from the time the technique of
lithography was developed in Germany by playwright Alois
Senefelder in the early 19th century it has been used in the
publishing and mass communication industries.

Lithography, which means "to write or draw on stone" in the
Greek language, began with the process of placing an image on
limestone and then transferring it to paper. In modern commercial
printing, the lithographic plates are made of metal or paper, not
stone.

Since it became a prominent commercial printing process at the
beginning of the 20th century, technological advances in plates,
inks, paper and presses have made lithography the most widely
used method of commercial printing. The lithographic process is
utilized in the production of books, magazines, calendars,
catalogs, greeting cards, brochures, billboards and bonds.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the term lithographic
print brings to mind something one could find on the shelves of a
bookstore, a supermarket, or being thrust into the faces of
motorists stopped at any of Jakarta's intersections.

Exhibition

So why would art lovers be drawn to an exhibition of
lithographs?

The "Litho Madness" exhibition now on at the Dutch cultural
center, Erasmus Huis, at Jl. HR Rasuna Said S-3, Kuningan,
answers these questions.

The exhibition of 35 lithographs and seven pen and ink
drawings by Canadian artist Ken Pattern, which runs through Dec.
8, includes a display of photographs documenting the method of
creating works of art with the lithographic process. And a video
presentation explaining the steps in the process provides an even
more detailed look at why a lithographic print produced by an
artist can be defined as an original work of art.

Ken Pattern, who is better known in Jakarta for the detailed
pen and ink drawings he has produced of Jakarta's rapidly
disappearing kampongs in the almost seven years he has lived in
Indonesia, says the opportunity to indulge heavily himself in
drawing is what drew him to lithography in the first place.

"The strength of what I do is in drawing," Pattern said of his
initial interest in leaning the technique of lithography. "I saw
that it was possible to repeat drawings with prints, while
maintaining the quality."

Real love

Pattern, who graduated from high school in Canada in 1961, did
not embark immediately upon a career in art due to concern it
would be difficult to make a living in that field. Although he
had been interested in drawing from the time he was a child, he
would spend four years at university studying sociology before
coming to the realization that his real love was art.

He began drawing, painting and exhibiting. It was between his
first public exhibition at the Vancouver Public Library gallery
in 1978 and a second in 1979 that he discovered that lithography
was an art form which could enable to make a living from his
artwork.

"Printmaking meant I could show in several galleries in
different areas at the same time. I could achieve more exposure
and not be tied to one place," he told The Jakarta Post a few
days before "Litho Madness" opened.

In order to learn the technique, Pattern enrolled at the Emily
Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver where he studied
printmaking under Bob Evermon, a graduate of Tamarind Institute,
the foremost school of lithography in the United States.

During his introduction to the process, Pattern was to
discover that besides providing greater opportunity to display
his works to a larger audience, printmaking would enable him to
offer affordable art to a larger number of people, many of whom
might find his pen and ink drawings, which sell for as much as
2,800,000 apiece, too expensive.

"Printmaking is a democratic media. Unit cost is lower and
more affordable, while a print is still original art," he said of
his lithographic works.

The lithographs on display during the current exhibition cost
from Rp 110,000 to Rp 765,000 per unframed piece and from Rp
175,000 to Rp 850,000 for framed works. All of the works on
display are from series of 70 prints each.

"Lithography is a nice compromise of still producing original
art and art that is affordable by a larger number of people, that
reaches more people," Pattern said.

Method

Pattern produces this relatively more affordable art through
hours of painstaking concentration as he moves step by step
through a complicated and repetitive process.

The first step Pattern takes toward producing a lithograph is
to "grain" a limestone slab. This involves grinding down the
surface of the stone with a mixture of water and carborundum
(abrasive grit) and a stainless steel disk called a levigator.
Most lithography stones, which are 10 cm thick when new, come
from a quarry north of Munich, Germany.

Then he selects a sketch he wants to transfer to the surface
of the stone for printing onto paper. Once this image is traced
onto the stone with a paper smeared with iron oxide powder and a
ballpoint pen, Pattern begins to apply the basic principle "water
and oil don't mix" by drawing over the image left by the tracing
process with a litho (grease) pencil.

Then the stone is prepared with rosen powder and talc, before
an "etch", a solution of gum arabic and nitric acid, is applied
to the segment of the stone with the image to enable the surface
to accept the application of ink.

The chemical process resulting from the application of the
etch permits the image area to accept oil-based ink and to repel
water, while the rest of the stone repels the ink.

Once the ink is applied, it is allowed to dry before more
rosen, talc and etch solution are applied. It is necessary to
repeat this process several times in order to stabilize the image
before moving to the printing stage. The last etch application
remains on the stone until printing.

Once this point has been reached, Pattern prints his
lithograph by pressing a piece of paper onto the stone which has
been rolled with ink, transferring the ink from the stone onto
the paper with the use of a press.

This process can take up to one month for a four-color
lithograph, with 40 to 60 hours of that time devoted to drawing.