A Copper Alliance Member
Copper in the Arts
Evan Summer: The Fine Art of Intaglio
Evan at work in his studio, Studio 108. Photograph by Paul David
Equipped with his own home studio and University Printmaking Workshop at Kutztown University (where he also teaches), Summer uses the intaglio method to create his signature detailed prints on copperplate with an almost three-dimensional feel.
He shows in solo and group exhibitions from New York to California, Eastern Europe and Asia. Over the years, he’s even invented a copper-plate printmaking system that allows him to send, exhibit and market his work through the mail to galleries all over the world.
Copper is Summer’s favorite medium. When he started printmaking as an undergrad in art school, he didn’t care for zinc. Copper gave him a cleaner etch, with precise lines that fit the images he wished to create in prints.
To create a copper plate, Summer first covers the plate with acid resistant hardground. He scratches through the ground with an etching needle exposing the underlying metal. It is then etched with acid. When he’s ready to see the print, he covers the plate with a thick viscous ink, wipes it with a cloth, and runs it face up through the press, printing on to dampened paper. Sometimes Summer will make fifteen proofs or trial prints before he finds the right result, revising the copper plate in between each print.
Evan Summer, Beneath the Surface. Etching and drypoint on copper. Photograph courtesy of Evan Summer
“The density of lines, tools, acid are all factors in what happens on the plate,” Summer says. He also uses drypoint on his plates by scratching on the copper with a diamond point tool, to create raised lines on the copper. The result is a fuzzier line than the precise lines he would get from etching.
For acid application, Summer takes his copper plates to the nearby campus. There, thanks to Kutztown University Research Grants, Summer has an acid tray large enough for his bigger works. Although, sometimes he prefers the smaller vertical acid tray at his home studio.
“Some acid produces a solid which can prevent further etching,” he explained to me. “The vertical tray helps the solids drop away from the copper.”
From start to finish, Summer’s process is ever-changing. Sometimes he sketches before etching. Sometimes he draws directly on the ground that’s covering the copper plate. “It depends on how well spatial aspects are organized in my mind,” he said.
Evan Summer, phattie shitta. Etching and
drypoint on copper.Photograph courtesy of Evan Summer
“I don’t know where the images come from,” says Summer. “I did see things like this as a kid. Growing up in Buffalo, it was common to visit Niagara Falls on the weekend. It’s a place where you look down at something so majestic. Most things in nature, you look up to see.”
Vegetables, bugs and animals have also become subjects for Summer’s prints.Typically, he works from interest and observation, photographs he’s taken when on trips with family. The structure, shape, texture, form, and way insects fit together fascinates both the scientist and artist in him.
Last year, Summer completed a two month residency in China. This January, Summer’s work will be showing at the National Academy of Design in New York.
Currently, his work is showing at The Grey Art Gallery in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The Williamsport Sun Gazette will be publishing a feature on him as well. His plans for the future include more of the same – living, teaching, and working in Kutztown.
“I didn’t plan to stay here,” he said. “But the university has treated me well. I like where I am. Why mess with anything?”
Resources:
Evan Summer, Kutztown, PA, (610) 683-4535
Quincy Pond Print Works: Past Lives Brought into Focus
Matthew Smith, Blue Heron 2009. Copper block etching.Photograph courtesy of Matthew Smith
At age 22 with an associate’s degree in fisheries management from University of Rhode Island, he was charged as captain of an 80-foot trawler out of Newport, R.I. Today, he makes handmade copper block and intaglio etchings of marine life, fish, turtles, and other creatures of the sea. His time at sea helped him learn to make quick decisions, which is especially needed in printmaking.
“You had to be able to live for tomorrow as a fisherman,” says Smith from his Copper Canoe Gallery in Exeter, N.H. . “You had to know where the fish were going to move the next day.”
And, although he had many successful tomorrows as a commercial fisherman, even earning the title as best commercial fishing boat captain in the Northeast, he was overcome by realization that the industry had become too destructive.
So he hand-built a handsome log home (his studio to this day) that skirts peaceful Quincy Pond in Nottingham, N.H., and abandoned fishing at sea to hunt down his lost love in art – one he inherited from his mother, an accomplished painter. He took printmaking classes at University of New Hampshire and Newport Museum School, but then pioneered his own path toward a tribute in copper to the sea creatures he once hunted. Smith then opened Quincy Pond Print Works to help him create his prints, frame them to museum standards, and make them available to collectors in New England and across the country, shipped in packages he designed himself.
Matthew Smith, Sunapee Moon-dance 2009. Copper Block Etching & Lead Plate.Photograph courtesy of Matthew Smith
“Copper will work with you in these chemical reactions,” says Smith. “And there’s more of an historic conversation with copper. Copper has a way of educating us … once we give up the struggle of making it do what we want.”
Smith files down the edges by hand and creates a topography, a texture, of sea creatures and nature’s sea beauty with a buffering compound perfect for creating on paper schoolies or octopi. Several copper plates (up to nine) may be needed per print; thousands have been sculpted by Smith to this day. It could take a day up to 18 days (for a copper lobster print, for example).
Once inks are chosen and prints are printed, no square inch of copper plate goes to waste. “Thousands of plates have been created, but nothing goes to waste,” says Smith. “Starfish are reused into smaller starfish.”
Smith says, after a staff and economy change, after seven lucky years, The Copper Canoe will be closing, but rerouting – into another challenge to be conquered by Smith – to his more online presence at quincypondprintworks.com and a cross-country wholesale sales movement by some members of his staff.
Resources:
Copper in the Arts: EVENTS
- Palm Beach Jewelry, Art, and Antique Show
Feb 15, '13 - Feb 18, '13 - Native Expressions: Dave McGary’s Bronze Realism
Mar 7, '13 - Jun 30, '13 - Evolving Character Head Demonstration with John Coleman
Mar 9, '13 - Mar 9, '13 - More Upcoming Events...
Copper in the Arts: HISTORY
This History of Intaglio
Martin SchongauerPhotograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The process began with an engraver's block, which was used to hold or turn a copper plate as Schongauer cut fine lines into it using a burin or square tool-steeled rod sharpened diagonally at one end. The prominent corner was an effective and controllable cutting edge. Copper was the preferred metal because it was strong yet easily worked and did not rust.
Printer inks were then rubbed over it and wiped with tarlatan (starched cheesecloth) leaving ink only within the cuts. It was then run through a press where paper absorbed the ink in the small reservoirs created by the grooves.
The mezzotint matrix was worked with an intaglio rocker to have a consistent tooth to hold the ink. Copper plates were perfect for this process because it was not so hard that the rocker would be damaged but still offered excellent retention of detail considering the pressures required during printing.
Ecce Homo, engraving from the Passion
series by Martin Schongauer.Photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
In her book, Etching, Engraving, Ruth Leaf states that copper used for etching should be cold-rolled 16- or 18-gauge and hard ground rather than soft so you can get very fine lines. You can polish the backs of old copper plates if you can find them. Or, they can be purchased with an acid resistant coating on the back surface.
Intaglio aquatints offer tone gradations in color. The copper plate is dusted with resin and heated. The grains melted and produced an irregular pattern surrounding the resin patches. Acid applied to etch only the spaces around this resin resulted in an overall texture. Then watercolor in added.
Since the advent of photography, intaglio is less common, but still used by artists that want to create a true one-of-a-kind print. Modern plates for printing money, checks, bonds and other securitysensitive papers display such a high level of microscopic detail that it can't be recreated or scanned. More than one hand engraver will work on the same plate, too, making it impossible to duplicate all engraving on any document.
Copper in the Arts: NEWS
New Show at Washington Printmakers Gallery Features Work by the New York Society of Etchers - January 09, 2012
Jon Fasanelli-Cawelti, Self Portrait. Intaglio: Engraving, gouging, scraping, burnishing, etching.Photograph courtesy of the New York Society of Etchers
As a group of exhibiting artists, the NYSE began its formal exhibition program in 2000, creating and collaborating in 20 exhibitions of artist prints. Eight of these efforts have focused exclusively on the graphic arts of local emerging artist and not for- profit workshops; thirteen of the shows have had international influences with collaborating artists from Hungary, China, France, Ireland, Peru, the Ukraine and Australia.
The remaining seven exhibitions have been organized on behalf of cultural institutions in Bridgeport, CT, the Ukrainian Institute of America and the Paramount Center of the Arts in Peekskill, NY. So far, ten exhibitions have been documented with professionally published catalogues. Portfolio projects of exhibited NYSE prints have been organized for most of the above institutions, as well as for the New York Public Library, which accepted a collection following the inaugural exhibition.
The portfolios will preserve and significantly support the long-term record of New York printmakers. In addition, the NYSE’s catalogues and exhibition posters have been collected by both public and private collections, including the Library of Congress and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“There is no particular theme or restriction for our show, and although we are the New York Etching Society, that isn’t an indication of our technical preferences and is actually more of a nod to a previous organization: the New York Etching Club (active from 1877-1894),” says Richie Lasansky, NYSE member responsible for organizing this exhibit and whose work is included in the exhibition. “As far as technique, it’s a mixed bag. There are all kinds of etching: lift ground, soft ground, spit bite, aquatint, straw hat and white ground. Direct techniques (such as) engraving, dry point, scraping and burnishing. Not to mention lithography, monotypes, solar plate etching, some paper litho, and even the odd woodcut.”
