From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 02/05/00-02:02:14 AM Z
On Fri, 4 Feb 2000, Randall Webb wrote:
> 2) Gum arabic or gum acacia is sold here in industrial
> quantities, needs a lot of preparation and also needs a preservative-
> usually formalin- which is filthy stuff. The alternative is Windsor
Randall, SURELY commercial printers in the UK use ready-mixed
"lithographers' gum, 14 degrees baume" which comes with the preservative
already in it...(& sells in this country for $16/gallon). But maybe they
call it something else, like paraffin or marmelade ? (I admit I wouldn't
be keen on mixing the gum myself, tho no reason not to mix a big batch at
one time... And, as noted, if you don't have a friendly mortician to give
you a few drops of formaldehyde, thymol or glyoxal are fine.... what do
you harden your gelatin with, or don't you size the paper?)
> and Newton's gum arabic for water colourists. This is stable but very
> expensive for what it is. Quite honestly I have never had much trouble
> with the colloid content. The usual problems are the paper, the sizing
> and the pigments.
The Winsor Newton gum arabic is indeed obscenely expensive in this country
also, and is as it happens one of two gums I've heard DOESN'T WORK WELL
for gum printing. It is absolutely clear -- water white -- which is no
doubt important for delicate watercolor washes, but matters not a whit in
gum printing, in fact I suspect it's counterproductive, the dirt has
magical qualities. (The other is an etcher's gum, which has added things
that make it NG for gum printing, at least by my tests.)
> I have always regarded gum as a somewhat primitive process. The idea
> of brushing glue, soot and a nasty orange liquid on a piece of paper,
> leaving it in the sun and then putting it under a hot shower is a
> bizarre way of making a photo!!!!!.
Ahem.... that's an option surely, but not the only...
> ... I tend to use it either for graphics or as an expressionist
> medium. I tend not to impose pre- conditions on old processes. I let
> the emulsion take its own course. The process sits in the dirivers
> seat and I am curious passenger in the back. If it looks OK then it
> probably is OK.Having said that I am excited by the precise tonalities
> obtained by machine made and coated silver gelatine paper such as
> Ektalure in a cold cathode enlarger. Being both lazy and impatient I
> usually by-pass the auto development bit and use either the hot shower
> head, a brush or on occasions, a pot scourer. The latter gives real
> impressionism.
Which of course has its charms...
> As the man said, "THERE AIN'T NO RULES"
In fact Stieglitz said that too.. About 10 years ago I came across an
article he wrote in a photo magazine of the '20s, with title something
like "Why there is no such thing as 'gum printing'", his point being that
there are so many DIFFERENT styles of gum it's impossible to define...
However, for exactly that reason (I found), generalizations about the
process are treacherous, and rarely hold across the board.
So enchanted was I with the article I instantly put it in a safe place,
planning to reprint it some day... and yes, you guessed it, that place was
so safe I never found it again. Nobody else seems to have seen the article
ever and interlibrary seach drew a blank. (Maybe some day when I'm looking
up PVA I'll find it again.)
Ideally, I'd LIKE to print in the instinctual manner you describe, but for
me it's always booby trapped -- that is, I'm likely to make a divine
sublime heavenly print that way -- and spend the next 5 years trying to
get it again -- if I haven't measured, counted & made notes. Of course
that in itself is no guarantee of repeatability, but at least gives a much
higher yield.
The solution to that problem is easy, of course -- standardize. That is
settle on one paper, one gum, one size, one or two brands of paint &
standard negative. But that would be to lose much of the magic of gum --
its infinite variety, and expectations of something neverbeforeseen right
around the corner.
best,
Judy
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