This article appears in the July issue of Alki: The Washington Library Association journal.

INKY FINGERS:

Reevaluating the Printed Page in the Age of Google

By James Greene

So here is the setup: A typical undergraduate is charging to and from classes while texting away on their cell. They simultaneously carry on “conversations” with several friends, send emails, listen to tunes, update their facebook status and, oh yeah, there may be some studying going on as well. For some reason they have to enter that giant building in the center of campus- you know, the one with all the books. But on this day when they enter the library, they are confronted with something they likely have never seen before. Their eyes are pulled away from the 3-inch phone screen as they survey the scene. A gang of ink-stained students in aprons is assembled around a printing press (in this case a small screen-printing rig) engaged in the act of physically printing pages of words and images- right there in the library lobby! The wet prints are clipped onto a clothesline to dry and there is a sign urging students to take a free one.

Photo courtesy of Megan Hopp. 2010

This student (and hundreds more like them) has just witnessed Think It, Ink It!- a program that EWU Printmaking and English Comp students organized for the Spring 2010 term. During the months of April and May, student printmakers could be seen at work every Thursday from noon to two-o’clock in the JFK Library lobby on the EWU campus in Cheney. Think It Ink It! was even more successful than originally imagined, with small crowds of onlookers forming around the press each week, many of them returning week after week to score new prints. Extra aprons were brought for those student bystanders curious enough to pull a print themselves. The accumulated printed posters (created with a social conscience by both English and Art students) were distributed around the library in a variety of innovative ways. One student created a second clothesline near the exit, another handed them out to passersby, and a few sneaky students found ways to hide printed “Easter eggs” within the stacks themselves- with Library permission of course. The enthusiasm the inky-fingered students show for the medium is contagious. One could almost hear the “gears turning” inside students’ heads as they mused on further applications of public printmaking. “We should do this during Banned Book Week!” said one. Another chimed in: “We should do this every week!”

Photo courtesy of Megan Hopp. 2010

The fact that digitally-native students get excited over what is, (as many of their enlightened professors would put it) old media is no surprise to those of us who teach Printmaking in Art and Design departments. Students get a high from seeing their ideas become printed multiples, which are distinct from one-of-a-kind artworks and images that are only viewable on a computer screen. Printmaking technologies like the relief block, the lithography stone and the silkscreen can operate somewhere between the high-tech and the lo-fi (to borrow a term used to describe a gritty, undeniably human-made thing.) While the technology used to carve and print a woodblock goes all the way back the 15^th century, the methods used to generate the image can come from any number of today’s tools including this year’s version of Adobe CS. For Graphic Design students, who all learn to use the same industry-standard software, a knowledge of physical printmaking processes offers an added dimension to their work- a warmth, if you will.

Beyond promoting the desirable physical characteristics of things that are hand-printed, Think It, Ink It! serves as an object lesson in the intellectual value of the printed page and reading in general. Renowned media theorist Marshall McCluhan observed that every new medium makes psycho-physiological demands on its users. As we grow accustomed to the ease immediacy that Google and other digital technologies offer, we inevitably become more and more like those technologies. For readers more accustomed to skimming around the web following link after link, it is becoming increasingly difficult to engage in the sustained, deep reading so centrally important to deep thinking. From my perspective, an irresistible parallel exists between reading and crafting. In the contemplative state we reach when we perform a skilled repetitive action (be it printing or weaving or pottery-throwing) we have the time to think- to make our own mental connections, and cultivate our own ideas. The same is true when we read a book or magazine article. The value of the printed page goes far beyond the knowledge we pull from the content- it comes from the intellectual depth-charges that the meaning of those words set off in our minds.

Photo courtesy of Megan Hopp. 2010

The act of physically printing is not only fun- it does much to validate what some students may have already suspected: that the arrival of one technology does not always herald the death of that which came before. Just as the value of vinyl records is not lost on the hip-hop generation, the printed page may very well be the next cool “old-school” artifact, coveted for its unique properties. The fact that University students raised in the Google era get excited by the potential of hand printmaking says much about the staying power of print and the vital role their university libraries play in fostering a fertile, fruitful habitat for hungry young minds.

James Greene is the son of a reading teacher and a Lecturer of Art at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, WA.

BACK TO COMICS!

Here are the first 7 pages of a as-of-yet-untitled space comic book written by my old pal Ben Kubczak and pencilled and inked by yours truly. This project marks my return to the comic form after nearly a decade-long period spent pursuing other graphic avenues (see portfolio.) The reasons for this return to form are numerous and now that I’m back in the comics saddle I feel like I’ve gone home, in a way.

Back in January of 2010 I was approached by an author friend of mine about doing a serious graphic novel and we worked tirelessly for weeks squaring away the plot, characters and overarching themes. Unfortunately this project was put indefinitely on hold, but gearing up for the project had whetted my appetite for the comics medium. Enter my old friend Ben, who is one of the most imaginative adults I know. Ben volunteered to produce a fun classic-style space adventure tale and in his free time banged out a 48-page script. As of this writing I am about 23 pages into pencilling and inking. The work has been fun and freeing and the time has flown by. In the meantime I have planned a handful of other less lengthy projects that I’ll be tackling this fall.

NOTES ON PROCESS:

For this project I am working on an 11 x 15 inch artboard of 400 series Strathmore Bristol Board. I pencil it all using a cheap mechanical pencil. Inking is accomplished with a #1 Windsor & Newton Seven series sable brush and a mixture of one part Pro Black India Ink and three parts Speedball Superblack India Ink. I opted not to hand-letter this one until I felt more comfortable with my lettering style, so all the fonts are digital. The main font is from Blambot and it’s called Red State Blue State. The SFX are mostly accomplished using Blambot’s Armor Piercing font.

Between 1997 and 2000, I drew a regular editorial comic strip for the Northern Iowan, the University of Northern Iowa’s student newspaper (now known as Northern Iowa Today.) I recently stumbled upon an indexed list of nearly the entire run of the comic at UNI’s Rod Library archive. Check out the link here.

Week after week, The Riot Act would parody student life and all the sin and stupidity that came with being free at last and on your own in the late 90’s. The comics reflect the apathy of the Clinton years, the sleaze of Cedar Falls’ (then) College Hill bar scene (anyone remember the Hill?) and the inanity of being a student living in close quarters with others. The best of them, in my opinion, poke fun at the silly paranoia that came with the Y2K scare. The theme of drunken craziness that pervades many of the comics has much to do with the strip’s namesake: the 1996 Homecoming riot on College Hill, which saw cars overturned and students sprayed with mace by truncheon-wielding police, which I witnessed just weeks after I started my college career. The disorder and angst of that moment left a profound mark on my impressionable teenage brain.

The Riot Act ran almost every Friday during the semester in the Features section next to ads for STD clinics and album reviews for such classics as Chris Cornell’s Euphoria Morning. This was before the paper went online so the comic in its original context has a real vernacular feel. I am impressed with much of the linework, which I know was kicked out usually hours before deadline. The NI Features editor Kylie Green, I realize, was patient beyond belief- especially when I began eviscerating the college’s fraternities. Ironically, a couple of my pals and cousins at UNI belonged to fraternities including my freshman roommate Jon Mumma, who rushed Delta Upsilon: a fraternity dedicated (at that time) to overturning the traditional frat boy stereotype. My contempt for frat row eased up almost immediately after the comic stopped running in 2000 when I shifted my focus to Studio Art and ran out of time for the weekly cartoon. As a side note, it is worth mentioning that in 2004 when I was a graduate student at the University of Tennessee, I along with Jeff Edwards began a fake 19th century style men’s secret society (a fraternity) called The COA. Even when I was drawing the Riot Act, my Art Department friends and I comprised our own fraternity of sorts- which was certainly more exclusive than the fraternities I attacked.

The Riot Act was usually penned late at night on a black and white computer-printed “blank” starting in the spring of 1997 when I was still a freshman living in Shull Hall. There was no internet in the dorms in those days, so we spent a lot of time vegging out in front of MTV, TV Land and Cartoon Network. Later I moved to my own dorm room, then to a typical college dump, then to a stone basement beneath a house occupied by five women. The comics medium (consisting of pen and paper only) followed me around and in retrospect, seems to have served a kind of documentary purpose, with nearly all of the banal settings and characters pulled directly from my lived experience.

Between 2000 and 2008 I more or less gave up drawing cartoons for publication. My interests during that period shifted to printmaking, photography, installation art, and video. Oh and I also got married, went to grad school, started teaching, and had two children. Throughout that time, I still incorporated cartoon elements into much of my artwork and many of those pieces can be found here at valuistics.com. In 2008 I embarked on a strange brand of performance art that saw me creating several cartoon “costumes.” The positive feedback I received from that project (called Moral Hazard- in reference to the 2008 economic crash) got me thinking more and more about returning to cartooning- my first artistic love.

In 2010 I returned to comics, beginning two projects that will soon take the form of self-published graphic novels. In this age of economic uncertainty and joblessness, cartooning has been a welcome refuge from the defeating environment of art, academe and the non-existent job market. Today I comprehend exactly was it was that drew me to comics in the first place. Cartoons, (usually made by outsiders and anti-establishment types) are an EMPOWERING medium. I knew this even as a kid. The Riot Act was built upon 5 years of experience beginning as far back as my first published cartoon in 1992. Throughout high school, under the tutelage of Judy Ecker and Spencer Pink, I produced regular strips and illustrations for the Washington High School Surveyor and, with my colleague Ben Kubczak, won a number of high school press awards (yes, there are such things.) In addition to newspaper strips, I also wrote, drew, printed and distributed my own comics ranging in genre from space operas, westerns, and crime stories. The power that comes from commanding your own meaning in the the compelling visual realm of comics was what propelled me into the world of graphic art. Making comics made me view myself as relevant, and I exploited the medium successfully even at a young age.

Now I return to comics, if, for no other reason, than I want to summon the power and promise they once held for me. Look for more comics work coming soon!

New American Landscapes by James Greene

(Silkscreens on 100-lb bristol board, 2010)

Here are images of Eastern Washington State between Cheney and Steptoe Butte State Park. The fog lifted around noon. What we could see of the landscape was foreign to us. Things emerged and patterns were discerned. The mist created a unifying awareness.

A fun experiment for any artist/writer duo. Picture it- late one snowy evening over Skype my pal Ben (who seems to remember every detail of his dreams) describes the people, places, and things he remembered from a recent dream. I listen, and, Wacom pen in hand, attempt to draw what he is describing. Try this at home.

JG

The Fall 2009 quarter marked the beginning of my time as Printmaking instructor at EWU. This time I emphasized screenprinting and had a number of experienced design students in the class. I must admit, the projects my students kicked out (at times under short deadlines due to the quarter system) are some of the best I’ve seen from beginners. Here is a small selection of the cream of the crop from this year’s class. I expect more printmaking goodness to come out of the Winter quarter as these guys get back into the studio and really kick out the jams! Congratulations EWU printmakers! Huzzah!

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

Can we now perform mythic acts? Can we transform or confound our own expectations? Can we again perform alchemy or magic? Can we gather around a campfire and re-tell our cultural narrative? These questions are worth asking now, after a decade of doubt, as we witness one society making room for the next. Art must be put in a more useful context now that it has retired its duty of cultural storytelling to the entertainment industry. Our mass media and the masses it is created for are increasingly merged as we move into an ever more technologically-aided framework for human communication, which itself has become a matter of information distribution and reception. Somehow it is possible for me to embed a media fragment in the form of a YouTube video on my facebook page as a way to communicate with friends. Abstractions like these have re-rigged art’s function as a means for a culture to “tell it’s own story.” When do we get to the fun part? When do we get to re-write the myths? I resolve my feelings on questions like these by betting on the eternal need for the artist to be a transformer or culture-hero.

My work has always been executed in a project-based manner, which has allowed me great flexibility with materials, approaches and concepts. Printmaking has aided my understanding of how images work by offering chances to deconstruct the process of creation. The multi-faceted nature of my image-making practice demands a multitude of readings, something I see as freeing and vital in a visual culture that offers few unmediated primary experiences. To the end that I can create work that engages the conscience as well as the senses, I intend to continue using art as a machine that challenges viewers by reversing visual and thematic polarities to enhance the primary experience of looking.

I have used repeating printed images and building materials to construct hyperbolic structures with layers of subtext. For my 2006 “printstallation” Valuistics: The Making Of, I screen-printed on pink foam insulation board and insulated gallery walls with a scale representation of my home, brand name by brand name. By focusing on my own valuistics (the values and politics I support through consuming) I was able symbolize and account for my existence as a consumer, an existence I once feared had overshadowed my role as citizen. The totalizing affect of late consumer capitalism surrounds the viewer on all sides and implicates everyone in a debate about the moral contradictions of “conscientious” consuming.

When I lived in Florida I took a special notice of the isolating and dividing tendencies of the landscape of gated communities, and capitalized on the microcosmic potential offered by a backyard swimming pool. Again printing on foam board, (blue this time instead of pink) I charted a satellite image of a Jacksonville neighborhood and screen-printed it onto the re-branded blue foam. The resulting SUBURGS float on the surface of the pool like melting sheets of polar ice: a drifting nowhere-land of privatized islands lost at sea.

Lately, my emphasis has turned towards raw “thingness” as a framework for mythmaking in an age of informationalization. This has had unpredictable effects, which have become parts of the process of my work. In November and December 2009 I exhibited a series of drawn lithographic printing stones arranged as cultural artifacts in a museum case about some ancient civilization. Here I hosted a series of live conversations, which were recorded, edited, and made available in a variety of media. This deconstructive approach (showing the matrix of the image and not the reproduction) has, perhaps somewhat ironically, increased my interest is in further deconstructing the creation of meaning by using video and photographic means to document discoveries made during this process of transformation.

By defending thingness AND accounting for the realities of our mediated world, I feel like I can write a new myth or two.