Re: Reprise ...Re: archivalness of gum

[Judy Seigel <jseigel@panix.com>]

Actually, Diana, I thought your asking your interlocutor if s/he thought 
his/her watercolors were archival was the PERFECT question.  (Their lack 
of archivality is variable, largely depending, if memory serves, on how 
applied to which paper & with how much "medium".)  I think in other words 
that the subtext of all, ALL, of this dithering about whichever
*photographic* medium is... ta dah !!! ARCHIVAL!! is that it's, feh!,
only a photograph so what good can it be?

I add that I myself am product of 2 highly esteemed art schools (Cooper & 
Chicago Art Inst.) tho of course practically before the dawn of time (and 
only one, extremely perfunctory, class in photography in the bunch).  The 
word *archival* was not EVER mentioned. We did learn you ought to isolate 
a canvas with something like glue, and it was better to do undercoats "fat 
over lean."  (Mostly tho we tended to shrug this information off.  We were 
ARTISTS, not chemists.)

True, some things were hinted -- that for instance certain pigments as 
grounds were better, but by and large there was no agonizing over 
archivality.... We were, as noted, ARTISTS, so our work was deathless, and 
if perchance it changed -- faded perhaps -- even better, ... that would be 
the patina of age !!!!!

 Judy

On Sat, 22 Dec 2007, Diana Bloomfield wrote:

> Thanks, Judy.  I actually didn't know that about watercolor, so that was a 
> bad answer I gave him-- and maybe he knew that, and so probably the reason he 
> asked.  But thanks to a few people here, I can now tell him all about the 
> archival properties of gum.  So . . . maybe gum over platinum is actually THE 
> most archival!  :)
>
> Diana
>
>
> On Dec 22, 2007, at 12:57 AM, Judy Seigel wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 20 Dec 2007, Diana Bloomfield wrote:
> >
> > > Hey Judy,
> > > .... I was very surprised when the person asked me that question about 
> > > putting a layer of gum over platinum  (this person, who, admittedly, 
> > > doesn't do alt processes and only prints digitally).  My reply was simply 
> > > that maybe he should ask a painter who specializes in watercolors if 
> > > he/she thinks their paintings are archival. ??
> > EXCELLENT question !  (Watercolor is officially the least archival "art" 
> > medium... for whatever that's worth.)
> >
> > CUT:
> >
> > > I did print all that work on Hahnemuhle, but haven't tried any of their 
> > > papers for alt printing yet.
> > I liked their Merten Spiese (sp?) for gum... it doesn't show as much 
> > texture in the actual print as it looks like.... But I need to try that 
> > Photo Rag paper.... thanks...
> >
> > J.