On why I make the 'Meditations' on art

'Lovely, lovely!"

There's a funny story behind the weekly videos on art that I'm posting here and on You Tube. The reason why I call them Meditations is because for a brief period, I was contributing 200 word pieces on art to US Catholic magazine, and that was the title of the column, which was printed on the last page of the magazine. The reason I and a few other writers were sending in our Meditations on art was that the regular contributor was no longer available. That regular contributor had been good old Sister Wendy Becket, who had shuffled off this mortal coil and gone to meet her bleedin' maker, to quote the Parrot Sketch. For those who don't know who Sister Wendy was, well, she was a nun who was very popular at one time for talking gushingly about art. She was given her own series by the BBC for a while in the 1980s and 1990s. I seem to remember she would say that things were "lovely" quite a lot. Bonnard's bathroom pictures? Lovely! Rubens acres of naked flesh? Lovely, lovely! Robert Mapplethorpe's photo of himself with a bull whip inserted in his arse? Oh, lovely! (Ok, I made that last one up).

She was all right, really. You can't say bad things about Sister Wendy, can you? But if you're watching or listening to my weekly meditations, try not to picture me in a wimple.

UPDATE: I've been told that Sister Wendy is still alive. If I'd bothered to check the intertubes before I wrote, I would have discovered that she's 80 years old and living in a caravan on the grounds of her nunnery in the UK. Sorry, Sister Wendy fans.

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Restoring my Printing Press

I've just finished restoring and assembling my large etching press -- a six week process involving lots of rust removal, scrubbing with steel wool, and repainting. Here is a photo of the same kind of press from the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative: And here is a short YouTube video of me testing the press, making sure the motor still works after nearly seven years of lying in storage:

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Brancusi in Plastic

Artist Mary Ellen Croteau is showing these columns made from recycled plastic cartons and lids in the window of the Columbia College bookstore on Michigan Avenue. They are a playful homage to Brancusi's "Endless Columns", with a serious environmental message for our times: Image copyright Inhabitat.com and Mary Ellen Croteau Mary Ellen also runs a wonderful experimental art gallery in a window space in west Chicago, called Art on Armitage . I will be exhibiting a mixed media piece there during August 2012.

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How to etch a linoleum block

Linoleum as a material for printmaking has been used for nearly a hundred years now. Normally, you cut an image out using special gouges similar to woodcut tools, cutting away the lino around the image you want to print. This is called relief printmaking, because if you look at the block from the side, the material that remains stands up in relief from the backing material. You then roll ink with a brayer over the surface of the block, place paper over it, and either print by hand or run it through a press. You can do complex things this way (for example, reduction linocuts), but the beauty of the process is that it is quick, simple, and direct. Incised lino block, from me.redith.com Etched lino block, from Steve Edwards A few years ago, I saw some prints that were classified as coming from etched linoleum blocks, and I loved the textures I saw in them. In the last few months, I've been trying to use this technique in my own studio, learning about it as one does these d

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