Once Again

I moved to SF in 1997 - 10 years ago. Wow. I moved down from Portland, Oregon, where I had lived for the previous 6 years. I loved Oregon, and Portland in particular. The city is like a small, well-appointed town. It taught me how to love a city, and when I moved here to SF, everything I learned to love in Portland was turned up a few notches. However, what SF still lacks is a bookstore on the scale of Powell's. I sometimes fantasize about moving back up to Stumptown just so I can hang out in that bookstore some more.

The year I moved here I had a one bedroom apartment in the neighborhood where I still live today. I didn't have much to my name, except a futon, a nice stereo, and an imposing easel that I bought from Daniel Smith in '94. I painted a lot then, simply because I did not know a soul. I also did some linocuts. It is no wonder that the majority of my subject matter back then was of Oregon land and seascapes. One linocut in particular was inspired by a place on the Oregon Central Coast that I used to go to all the time. It was in a town called Yachats, just north of its better known neighbor Florence. I used to stay in a place called Gull Haven, and at Gull Haven was a little cottage on the edge of cliff with nothing but a fireplace, hotplate, and windows that looked over the boiling ocean. The cottage was called the Shag's Nest. I went there often enough that the view was etched in my memory, and one day 10 years or so ago I carved a linocut in my apartment based on that memory. It looks like this:

So fast forward to today, in my printmaking class. Linocut is one of the prints we have to make for our portfolio review, so I found my old plate upstairs, tucked away under a pile of books and whatnot, and brought it in. It still had ink on it from 10 years ago. I applied some paint thinner, alcohol, and then Simple Green, and got the plate back to a state that would print. I mixed up some relief ink, and then applied the ink to the plate with a small, 3 inch brayer, in a fan pattern, meaning I would start in a corner, and then roll the brayer to its opposite corner, and then fan out the pattern across the plate until I was rolling it to corner perpendicular to where I started. I did this from all four corners, which nicely inked the plate.

The results were rich. The blacks were dense, velvety, and deep. I printed 12 small ones, and 2 large ones. Here is a shot of them all layed out next to each other. It made me remember the beauty of Oregon, and how much I love the lines that can be manifested with linocut. It was like a visit with an old friend.

Last year, in November, I had the opportunity once again to drive back from Portland back down Hwy. 1 to San Francisco. I stopped at the Shag's Nest, of course, but it was under repair so I had to move on further south. I snapped this shot on a nearby beach, which reminded me of how it remains so spectacularly beautiful.

Comments

[b.a.]

Not to ignore the printmaking parts of this entry, but the missus and I are in the process of planning a brief drive around the PacNorWest, and this Ocean Haven tip is invaluable. Thank you!