[alt-photo] casein

[Christina Anderson]

(whoops, sent this with the wrong email so sending again)

Good morning!

So I'm on this casein hunt for one silly reason--I blame it on Sam Wang.  Long ago I saw Sam Wang's caseins and thought them beautiful. Four of them are in his book, Sam Wang, Four Decades of Photographic Explorations, another "must-buy" alt book for just the HUGE amount of alt work documented within its pages. Sam's work is very poetic, subtle.

Sam told me about 4 years ago when I was researching at George Eastman to check out casein. Didn't have time to then, because of the need to stay on task with my gum research. But he also told me that Franklin Enos' archives were in Kentucky, so I got this hairbrained idea to rent a car and drive to Louisville after my gum workshops in Lexington (about an hour away) to check Enos out. So actually, I can probably blame Ruth Adams for this because she was the one who invited me to KY in the first place and made the jump to Louisville possible. Not like I go to KY often...

I went through the 14 boxes of Franklin Enos' notes at U of Louisville in Kentucky. He was quite the altee, wow. Carbon, carbro, dye transfer, bw, casein, gum, etc. etc. He would be like the male counterpart of Judy Seigel, except I wonder if Judy could find her notes in her darkroom and file them so neatly! Enos' notes were meticulously documented. Wow. At least we have the PF journals, which should be a BOOK.

The cool thing is that all those personal letters are in there, too, which, of course, this generation will never have unless they print out emails. There are even a few dirty jokes in those letters!! LOL, watch what you put in print. Phil Davis' correspondence is in there, a folder on Sam himself, correspondence with a guy named R.V. Kendall in CA (Russ?), a guy named Paul Mathena...who all seemed to do/teach casein. Enos' files are a perfect historical document for that time period. He died in, I think, 1983.

I read PF#6, Lucas Werth's article. Excellent.

Laura Blacklow has an article on the web that is quite good.

Ernie Theisen's article on Unblinkingeye.com very excellent.

Bunch of stuff on casein in Kosar.

It is surprising how little stuff in print there is on casein. Gum abounds by comparison.

Why did casein not take on big, I wonder? Was it just the ammonia issue was terrible?

Anyway, I do have a point to share in this email that may be of use to the one or two casein printers in existence: has anyone tried this from Kremer instead of making the somewhat laborious casein/ammonia mixture? SInce it uses borax and is already in suspension, it would seem to be a great substitution. But I'm the first to admit I am an armchair casein printer, never having done it, and certainly would not make it my process of choice because of my commitment to gum.

http://kremerpigments.com/shopus/index.php?cat=0201&lang=ENG&product=63210

It would seem, SEEM being the operative word, that a gummist could just buy some of this and substitute it for gum arabic and see if it has benefits. 

I also went through the list archive and came up with only 5pp 10pt type notes out of 15,000 emails so it seems not to be that popular with our list, either. Rosae Reeder, David Greiner, Guido, and Judy were in discussions about 2002-4 or thereabouts. Looks like Loris has done it. Tom Ferguson. I know Peter Blackburn is an avid present-day casein printer and hopefully will one day write a book on the process (if you're reading, Peter, hint hint). It is realllllly important to get these processes in PRINT!!!

I've also gone through msdses to see if other emulsions are casein based, e.g. Selectacolor (doesn't seem to be) and I cannot locate an MSDS on Kwik Print which may have, in fact, been casein based. I don't know if Kwik Print is one and the same as Selectacolor either. There was also another product called, was it, Creatacolor that may or may not have gotten off the ground.

I found the patent on casein as well. It is not 271 but patent 2,716,061. 1955. Lupo. But two sources on the web said the process in fact dated from 1908 and don't know about that.

So that is all my thoughts to date if there is any use for it on this list (probably not since the convos on this list have been so dismally miniscule lately, everyone probably defected to Hybrid or some other such forum), but would love to know if someone has tried that Kremer product and if it is boom or bust.
Chris


Christina Z. Anderson
christinaZanderson.com
Christina Z. Anderson
christinaZanderson.com