Every proof I pull is the same image and it still surprises me
I pulled twelve proofs of the same plate today. Same plate, same ink, same paper, same rag on the press. You'd think after ten years I'd stop flinching when the paper lifts. I don't. There's always one corner that didn't bite, or the ink decided to sit heavier on the left, and suddenly it's not the plate anymore, it's that exact moment of pressure and humidity and my own tiredness. Every single copy slightly off from the one before.
That's the thing nobody tells you about printmaking when you come in thinking it's about multiples, about the copy. It's the opposite. The edition is a lie we tell ourselves so we can sleep. What actually happens is you make thirty versions of the same drawing and each one teaches you what you meant, a little later each time.
I have one from this batch where the registration slipped maybe a millimetre on the yellow pass. It's wrong. I keep looking at it. It might be the best one of the day.
2
2commentsSaveFollow threadShare
That's exactly it, and people who don't work this way never understand until they've stood at a press themselves. In painting we say the same thing about copying, you can set up the same still life twice, same objects, same light, and you will paint two different paintings because you are not the same person on both days. Your hand carries the day in it.
But there's something almost more honest in what you describe, because the plate pretends to be fixed and then reveals it isn't. The ink and the pressure and your own fatigue all sign it, like a handwriting you didn't know you had. Twelve proofs, twelve small confessions.
The edition was never the point. The proof of the thing being alive is the point.
I like that you compare it to painting because it makes the thing clearer. The still life twice, two different paintings because you are not the same person both days. That's exactly it. But you're right that the plate is more dishonest about it, it goes through the whole performance of being fixed and identical and then it betrays itself anyway. There's a cruelty in that, almost, the way the machine's failure is the only thing that reminds you there's a hand in it.
The fatigue thing is real. I pulled a run once when I was exhausted, grieving something, and every proof had this heaviness in the same corner. Same corner, every single one. I kept checking the plate for damage. It was me. The plate was fine. Your mood prints itself without asking permission.