Early in March 2019, I received an email from Bud Shark at Shark’s Ink. in Lyons, Colorado, asking if I might be interested in doing a print project with him. Bud and his wife Barbara have been running Shark’s Ink. since 1976, and have collaborated with a stellar group of more than 160 artists from the United States and Europe over the years. Bud’s email arrived during the short, dark days of my first winter in Santa Fe. I was awaiting the completion of my new studio and was beginning to feel a bit of frustration along with the excitement and anticipation of having a new workspace, so it was the perfect moment to begin to wrap my mind around a collaborative print project.

Bud and I began an easy correspondence, sharing ideas and figuring out an ideal time for me to visit the studio. We settled on the last two weeks of August 2019, and I began to work on ideas for the prints. At the beginning of May, my studio was finished, and I began the task of moving, unpacking and settling in. All the while, ideas percolated in the back of my mind for new prints. By July, Bud and I were in constant contact, with a flurry of emails back and forth. Since printmaking is still fairly new to me, I relied on Bud’s expertise to assess how my images might live as prints. For me, the most exciting part of working in another medium is learning the nature of that medium, and figuring out how to take advantage of its unique qualities, characteristics and processes.

I left Santa Fe and spent a couple of nights in Denver before heading up to Lyons. Since I’d spent many months at home, overseeing the studio project, it felt wonderful to be on the open road. The drive to Colorado is gorgeous, and I couldn’t help but prop my phone on the steering wheel to take a few shots of the single-point perspective landscape. It is one of my favorite things about living in this part of the country.

In Denver, I had a long meeting at Robischon Gallery that ended late in the afternoon. I had just enough time to dash over to the Denver Museum of Art to see the exhibition Jordan Casteel: Returning the Gaze, and also The Light Show, before racing over to the Clyfford Still Museum to make my regular pilgrimage to see the 1953 letter that Still wrote to Jackson Pollock.

Dear Jack,
Went up to Janis’ gallery with Barney the other day & took the liberty of pushing into the office to see some of the paintings you did this summer.
What each work said, what its position, what each achieved you must know. But above all these details and intentions the great thing, to me, came through. It was that a MAN had been at work; at the profoundest work a man can do, facing up to what he is and aspires to. I left the room with the gratitude & renewal of courage that always comes at such moments. This is just my way of saying thanks, & with the hope some of my work has brought some of the same to you.
Clyff Still

Sure, the emphasis on the word man gives me pause. But I think Still meant it in the spirit of individuality. As an artist, the thing that gives me courage, and the thing that makes life worth living are the interactions between artists, both in real-time and through time. So, Pollock’s works spoke to Still, Still responded in writing to Pollock and, through this letter (and the sum of their paintings and their lives) they both speak to me and to anyone else who might be listening.

I arrived at Bud and Barbara’s at lunchtime on August 18. Barbara’s skills as a great cook are well known and, after quick introductions, we sat down to a delicious lunch on the patio at the front of their home, overlooking a little valley, with a big mountain range in the distance. Bud and I got to work that afternoon. What follows is a diary of the project, based on my studio notes and photos, accompanied by notes on Barbara’s exceptional meals.

The view from the top of the driveway. After long days of close work at the computer and the work tables, I loved being able to focus my eyes on the mountains in the distance.

Day 1, August 18

After lunch (zucchini soup, served with fresh bread with ricotta, cucumber and fresh peach) Bud and I walked over to the studio and began to plan our strategy for making the prints. We printed the image for the first print on the laser printer. Because the printer has a maximum printing size of 11x17 inches, while my print would be 33x30 inches, we tiled the image and taped it together. After deciding that the woodgrain “background” would be the first plate, we tested woodgrain patterns and colors. Luckily, Bud had some nice sheets of oak plywood with a beautiful grain on hand. He mixed up some ink and we tested the color and texture, finally arriving at a combination that had just the right amount of texture, color and value to work with the white of the paper and the super-saturated, bright colors that would follow.

Test print, showing the woodgrain plate in contrast with the white paper. We worked to get the color and value just right.

We then printed out the full image again, replacing my temporary faux woodgrain (that I had created in Photoshop) with a bright cyan blue. Satisfied that we had a plan of action for Monday, we had dinner, chatted and read before bed.

Day 2, August 19

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Barbara is an artist, writer and, as mentioned, a fabulous cook. Breakfast was the same every day—exquisitely the same! Barbara's breakfast is my preferred breakfast, so I was thrilled by the daily offering of homemade granola, homemade yogurt, Colorado peaches and blueberries, along with a tall French press coffee. I soon learned that Barbara spent a couple of years writing her book, How I Learned to Cook: An Artist’s Life, a combination memoir, art book and cookbook, with reproductions of 85 of Barbara's paintings and drawings, along with 105 of her recipes accompanying a narrative of her journey with Bud and the artists they’ve worked with over the years.

After breakfast, Bud and I picked up where we left off, laying a sheet of mylar over the printout with the cyan in place of the woodgrain. We’d need to black out all of the woodgrain areas so that we could make the plate. First, we carefully traced around the woodgrain areas with mechanical pencils. Then, we painted all of these areas out with black acrylic paint. Bud and I spent about 10 hours working on this. It rather reminded me of being a kid and working on a school project with a friend. There’s a lot of intimacy and time to talk about anything and everything when working on a task like this, with heads bent, eyes focused and hands busy.

After a long day, we sat down to a delicious summer meal of grilled salmon, corn, potato salad, homemade pickles, tomatoes and a lovely dish of golden beets served with their greens and a dollop of homemade yogurt.

Day 3, August 20

When I built the files for the prints, I composed them in my usual way, as if they would be paintings. Once Bud and I began looking at them more closely, I realized that I would have to reorder the colors. Typically, the lighter colors are printed first, so there was a lot of reshuffling and editing to be done to make them more suitable to the process, without changing the overall feel of them too much. While I busied myself with the files and prepping the second set of mylar, Bud and his longtime printing assistant, Evan Colbert, began working on the first plate. Evan measured and tore down ten sheets of paper, slightly larger than the finished size of the prints. Of these ten sheets, we knew we would lose a few to mistakes along the way, such as misaligned registration, colors that might have to be adjusted, etc.

Bud inking the first plate. He applied several very thin layers of ink, while Evan stood on the opposite side of the press and wiped the plate with a wet sponge.

By late afternoon, the first plate printed was printed.

The remainder of the day was spent preparing the mylar for yellow, the second color. It took us a while to get a good system down, but by the end of the day, we were feeling more comfortable with our process of printing, assembling and correcting the mylars.

Day 4, August 21

Bud and Evan printed the yellow, but we had some registration issues and lost a number of the prints, so we had to replace them. Evan tore down five more sheets of paper, and we printed the woodgrain layer again. Now, with ten prints to work on again, we were up and running. I printed out the mylars for the next color, green, while Bud and Evan printed layers one and two. I am always amazed at how different ink is from other mediums I am familiar with. It’s so saturated and intense, but also tends to be more transparent due to the thinness of the application. The white of the paper sets the colors alight. Evan is a masterful color mixer, and he pretty much nailed each color on the first try, without fail.

Soon a nice rhythm developed amongst the three of us. I tweaked my files and printed and laid out the mylars, while Bud burned plates and Evan mixed ink. Bud and Evan work together like the perfect machine. Evan seemingly reads Bud’s mind and is there, in the right spot, doing the right thing, at the perfect moment, with very little discussion along the way, except for the exchange of “yeah” and “yeah” when the paper is perfectly placed on the plate and the press is about to engage. At one point, Bud tossed a sponge in the air, which Evan caught without looking. It was like watching the perfect stealth football play.

The day ended with Barbara’s delicious summer pasta, served with chunks of brie, fresh tomatoes and herbs, and a big salad.

Day 5, August 22

Now that we had established a good system and rhythm of working, I had a bit of time to watch Bud and Evan printing. As mentioned, the two of them work as one. When they are printing, the studio suddenly goes quiet, and one can feel the increased level of concentration in the air. Bud’s body language changes; his confidence, expertise and precision are evident in every move he makes. Suddenly, there is an economy of movement that feels athletic; it’s like watching two teammates who’ve played a sport together for a long time. It goes something like this: Bud: ink, ink, ink. Evan: dip righthand sponge, squeeze righthand sponge, wipe righthand sponge back and forth 12 times, covering the plate. Bud: roll. roll, roll. Evan: wipe lefthand sponge back and forth 16 times. Place paper over the plate on the press. Check the marks at top and bottom. Evan: “Yeah.” Bud: “Yeah.” And… print! In between all of these steps, Evan might have 30-second increments of downtime. He uses these spare moments to peruse a big stack of cookbooks that he borrows from the library. He keeps this stack on one of the workbenches. Nearby, he has a scrap of paper on which he notes his menu ideas and grocery list for dinner that night. We had a lot of fun discussing gardening (Evan is a pepper fanatic, growing dozens and dozens of hot pepper plants every year), cookbooks and recipes.

By the end of the day, we had printed three more colors. We enjoyed Barbara’s shrimp and peach tacos for dinner, accompanied by poblano peppers stuffed with corn, breadcrumbs, cheese and piñons.

Day 6, August 23

At the beginning of the first week, we were doubtful that we’d be able to complete two prints in our two weeks together but, by Friday, things were humming along well enough that Bud felt confident that we’d be able to finish a second print, so I jumped into working on the file, while Bud and Evan printed three more colors on print #1, which was beginning to shape up nicely.

Dinner: Nicoise salad.

Day 7, August 24

While I continued to work on the file and the separations for print #2, Bud and Evan printed two more colors (orange-red and midnight blue) which completely transformed the print. Although we’d been printing up to three colors each day, we decided to let the prints thoroughly dry before printing the very last color (very pale lilac) on Monday.

We had a very special dinner that night, with several Colorado artists (Kate Petley, Kim Dickey and Ana Maria Hernando) art historian Kirk Ambrose, and Bud and Barbara’s daughter, Zöe Shark, who’d just returned from a long trek in Peru. It was a wonderful evening, and so lovely to be introduced to such talented and interesting people. Barbara’s dinner: smoked coho salmon, quinoa with cherry tomatoes and corn, grilled zucchini and squash with parmesan and nuts, Zuni Cafe’s recipe for olive relish, walnut focaccia and peach tart for dessert.

Day 8, August 25

We’d been going full speed all week, and had decided to work through the weekend, but since it was Sunday, we started a bit later in the morning and stopped a bit earlier in the afternoon. Bud and I completed painting out the knock-out layer mylar for the woodgrain plate, which was our big task of the day.

Sunday evening, we went to a dinner party hosted by Kate Petley. Kate and her husband Mark graciously hosted a terrific group of people for a big sit-down dinner at their lovely home. We were able to sneak down to Kate’s studio to see works in progress, too! I so enjoyed meeting this fine group and felt so welcomed by everyone. It really was a night to remember.

Day 9, August 26

Today we completed the first print! We printed the final color, a very delicate transparent lilac. After a brief pause to evaluate the finished print, we jumped right into the second one, printing both the woodgrain and the yellow after lunch. Dinner: pork tenderloin, olive relish, tomato and cucumber salad, sweet potato with lime, corn on the cob.

Day 10, August 27

Bud and Evan printed two colors (green and yellow-orange) before lunch, while I continued working on the separations. After lunch, they printed one more color (pink). Now that we were well on our way with the second print, we could breathe a little. Bud suggested that we go on a hike in the late afternoon. It was so nice to be outdoors, moving our legs! We walked along the trail to Button Rock Dam. It was a gorgeous afternoon and it was wonderful to see a bit of the area.

Day 11, August 28

I continued to work on the mylar separations, while Bud and Evan printed three more colors (purple-pink, grey and brown). My work on the mylar layers was beginning to wind down. Roseanne, Bud’s longtime assistant who handles all the sales, correspondence and promotion, as well as all of the packing and shipping of prints, took the time to show me some of the many editions in the flat files. The files had been recently reorganized, after the major undertaking of transferring the Shark’s Ink. archive—known as the Sharkive— to the University of Colorado Art Museum in Boulder. The collection covers the printmaking process from beginning to end, including over 700 signed limited-edition prints and more than 2,000 related materials including artist studies, trial proofs, unique proofs with paper alternatives and artist and printer’s notes and correspondence. After inventorying, documenting and packing up prints and related materials for the University, Bud and his team completely reorganized the editions that remained in the studio. Roseanne knows the location of each and every print, and she expertly and carefully opened drawers and pulled out various prints for me. The breadth of Shark’s Ink.’s collaborations is astonishing. Over the years, Bud has worked with many notable artists, including John Buck, Enrique Chagoya, Red Grooms, Jane Hammond, Robert Kushner, Hung Liu and Betty Woodman, among others.

Dinner: spatchcocked chicken, tomato salad with peaches and herbs, zucchini-onion gratin.

Day 12, August 29

Bud and Evan printed the violet and the orange-red before lunch. After lunch, they printed the midnight blue. One color to go! Dinner: tomato and cheese tart, lentil salad.

One color to go, but we’re nearly there. Of course, the prints need to be torn down, which will make a big difference.

Barbara making a cheese and tomato tart.

Day 13, August 30

Bud burned the final plate this morning. We printed the last color (pale lilac) before lunch. After lunch (black bean and cheese tacos, divine cookies, melon slices) we tore down and curated the prints. Meanwhile, Evan began preparations for the next artist, Enrique Chagoya, who was scheduled to arrive on Monday. Finally, Bud and I signed and chopped the trial proofs. Of course, all the hard work of printing the editions is still to come; Bud and Evan will complete the prints this November. Bud packed up two prints for me. Evan and Roseanne left a bit early, and I realized that I had not even had a moment to explore the charming town of Lyons during my stay, so I dashed downtown for a couple of hours. Of course, I needed a souvenir, so I bought a beautiful coyote skull in an antique shop. Our final dinner was bittersweet. I’d had such a wonderful time with Bud and Barbara and the team. Barbara made bucatini with sautéed vegetables, goat cheese and candied walnuts, along with a salad of tomatoes, green beans and golden beets. We said our farewells and I packed up so that I could leave for the long drive home at six the next morning.

I am so grateful to everyone at Shark’s Ink. for this wonderful and memorable experience.

Variation (white/oak) No. 1 , 2019, twelve color lithograph, 32 ¾ x 30 inches — *Variation (white/oak) No. 1 , 2019,* twelve color lithograph, 32 ¾ x 30 inches

Variation (white/oak) No. 2 , 2019, twelve color lithograph, 32 ¾ x 30 inches — *Variation (white/oak) No. 2 , 2019,* twelve color lithograph, 32 ¾ x 30 inches

In autumn 2016, I made my first trip to Magnolia Editions in Oakland, CA for the stated purpose of "seeing what's possible," at one of the Bay Area's most respected and innovative printmaking and fabrication studios. As it turns out, just about anything is possible at Magnolia!

First, a bit of background. Of course, most everyone in the Bay Area is familiar with Magnolia, and working with the team was a long held dream of mine. Till now, I had very little printmaking experience, and I confess that I barely knew the difference between an etching and a relief print. But, as it so happens, Nicholas Price is one of Magnolia's master printers. I've known Nicholas for several years, through our mutual involvement with Root Division, a local non-profit arts organization. Nicholas mentioned to me that Magnolia might be interested in inviting me to do a project. Of course, I was intrigued, but with deadlines stacked up at the time, I felt I had a bit too much on my plate. When the dust finally cleared, about a year later, I'd had a good long time to do a bit of subconscious work on ideas for a project. I wonder, artist friends, if you work in this way? I sometimes feel I have two levels in my brain. It's as if that symbolic "back burner" is real. Ideas are simmering, with just an occasional stirring every now and then. Anyway, when I finally sat down to work on some preliminary sketches, they jumped out of my laptop in full form. I sent them over to Nicholas and thus the project commenced.

What follows is a photo journal, from the beginning of the process to the end. I took loads of photos on each of my visits to Magnolia, ever fascinated by the very complex process of making the prints. The project, Identical/Variation (green, red, blue, black), is a suite of four prints, each comprising an etching in black ink; elements of vibrant UV acrylic ink; and a woodblock relief, printed in four different colors in variable orientation. Like the Identical/Variation theme that I have revisited over the years in my paintings, Identical/Variation (green, red, blue, black) employs a variable matrix that allows for the possibility of originality within the parameters of repetition.

Magnolia has been in the same building for a very long time. It's a privilege just to hang out in their studio. Every nook is perfectly attuned to purpose and task. I love seeing how other people organize their studios, and I took mental notes on Magnolia's organization and flow. It's orderly, but well lived-in, and flexible enough to be fluid and a bit funky. Don and Era, artists and proprietors, are ever-present. Don, like a brilliant mad scientist, was deeply engaged in learning how to duplicate the minute fibers and texture of Renaissance paper during the months that my project took to complete, while Era serenely presided over other projects, as well as the business end of things. On any given day, artists flow in and out, working on their projects, the phone rings, and people pop in for tours of the studio. All the while, master printers Nicholas Price and Tallulah Terryll calmly and expertly do the meticulous work of making prints and other works of art.

Magnolia is known for combining traditional and digital techniques. We determined that the first step would be an etching, derived from my digital file, and printed (in the negative) onto the etching plate, in a series of 8 steps, each with a longer duration in the acid bath. In the foreground, you can see the negative of the design for my etching plate, and in the background, the big flatbed printer. Tallulah is the master of this beast!

Printing the etching plate on the flatbed printer.

Here, you can see how the acid has burned lines into the copper plate. Since we printed and etched multiple times, some lines are deeper than others, resulting in lovely line variety in the print.

The copper plate on the flatbed printer, awaiting another layer of black acrylic ink. The acrylic ink resists the acid, and will later be cleaned off.

This is the plate after the final pass of ink and the final acid bath. Each time, the ink covers more of the image. The exposed areas are etched with acid multiple times, resulting in deeper lines that will eventually hold more ink.

The copper plate is shiny as a new penny, until Nicholas begins spreading ink onto the surface. Every little incised line must be filled.

After the plate is inked, the excess ink is wiped off. This takes time. A lot of time! The ink must sit only in the etched line, while the rest must be removed.

The plate, inked and wiped. Now it is ready to print! The paper is slightly damp, and wrapped in plastic so that it won't dry out. Magnolia has a special drying room for the etchings. Ideally, they will all dry and shrink at the same rate. Since my prints have multiple steps, registration was an issue. The shrink rate had to be carefully calculated and monitored, so that subsequent steps will register with the etching.

Very precise instructions on the printing press!

Further precision in the placing of the plate on the press. Each of these steps must be checked and double-checked.

Wow! Our first glimpse of the etching! Pulling the print is very exciting. There is so much labor and methodical process in printmaking. Seeing the print for the first time is like opening a gift!

One reason I am so excited about this project: printmaking allows for such extreme complexity and detail.

This is what blew me away: the etching is hard and soft at once, with an abundance of line variation, somewhat similar to a hand-drawn pencil line, but in rich, deep black. This is due to Tallulah's decision to do 8 passes with the printer and 8 successively longer acid baths. It really paid off!

Once we felt good about the etching (although it would take weeks for Nicholas to print enough for the edition) we were able to move on to the next step: the UV acrylic ink. Tallulah once again masterminded the flatbed printer, getting the registration just right and adjusting each color.

In my original file, the colors were very loosely placed, as you see here. They align to the shapes, but I wanted them to have a looser, almost hand-painted feel.

Once we figured out the acrylic printing, it was time to prepare for the final step: the woodblock relief print. We decided to laser-etch the block. I have always wanted to do woodblock printing, and it's great to have the option of using digital technology to cut the block. Although I love the idea of carving the block by hand, in this case, I wanted to preserve the pixilation and precise detail of my image.

The block, before inking.

I love the detail we were able to achieve with the laser.

Once the woodblock was cut, Nicholas and Tallulah worked on building up a number of prints, complete with the etching and the acrylic printing, in preparation for printing the whole edition of Identical/Variation (green), the first color in the series.

Of the four colors in the group, the green was the most difficult to mix. I wanted it to be relatively opaque, and was amazed to see how different in character ink is from, say, oil paint. It is so saturated, even when transparent.

Even the task of applying the ink to the roller takes a lot of patience. We remixed the green perhaps 6 or 7 times. Each time, Nicholas had to thoroughly clean the palette and the roller before testing the adjusted color.

If you want to build big muscles, become a printmaker! The large roller is quite cumbersome and heavy.

Rolling the ink onto the block. It is very tricky to get just the right amount of ink on the block, with even coverage over the entire surface. Nicholas showed me that the goal is to achieve an 'orange peel' texture with the ink. Assessing the ink requires attention not only to the appearance of the ink on block, but also to how the ink sounds as it is being rolled and how it feels.

Perfect coverage. Ready to print!

Testing the green alone, without the etching and inkjet steps.

Testing the green woodblock.

A detail of one of the early test prints. There is a lot of variation in the surface, due to how the ink sits on the first two elements.

The color that we finally settled on!

Are printmakers the only people who still use phonebooks?

Pulling the green print.

Once we finalized the green, we moved on to the red. We nailed the color quickly this time around.

A detail of the red test print. Even though the ink sits on top of the first two steps, it seems to fall back in the red print, as if it's in the background.

Delicious reds!

Pulling red.

A striated view of the press, the woodblock and the print.

Rolling blue. Like the red, we had a relatively easy time mixing the blue ink.

A shot of the block with the blue ink applied. It had a metallic sheen to it.

To check the colors, Nicholas would draw them down on raw paper with a mixing knife. However, the quality of the ink is different when it is printed, due to the way the ink is rolled on the block and the pressure that the press creates.

Drawing down the black ink on a test print.

Transparent base. We mixed this into our colors to create more transparency in the ink. I was amazed by the high color saturation, even when mixed down with the transparent base.

What do you do with rejected prints? Make buttons! Magnolia has a button making machine, so I spent a few hours cutting circles out of some of the rejected prints, which I then mounted onto metal button forms.

Last but not least: the black print. Again, the ink looks almost metallic on the block. You can clearly see the orange peel texture of the ink.

Pulling the black print. With this, we neared the end of the project, at least in terms of the major esthetic decisions. Our next task was to curate the prints, going through each color methodically to determine which made the cut for the edition, the printers' proofs and the artist proofs. I also signed and numbered the prints, after Nicholas and Tallulah applied Magnolia's chop and my chop. I felt surprisingly anxious about signing the prints. Even though the paper is very sturdy and tough (it has to be, considering how much it is handled) it is very hard to cleanly erase pencil lines.

I am so grateful to Magnolia Editions for the invitation to work on this project. The generosity of Don, Era, Nicholas and Tallulah, along with the fantastic vibe of the studio, the other artists who flowed in and out, and even the neighborhood (with other artist-run businesses in close proximity) made for a dynamic environment in which to collaborate.