From: Katharine Thayer (kthayer@pacifier.com)
Date: 07/08/02-05:59:50 AM Z
Sandy King wrote:
>
> I too am puzzled by Katharine's remarks. Stuart Melvin's gum over
> platinum prints are stunning and are among the most beautiful prints I
> have ever seen that use gum, either partially or in whole.
> They are so unlike Cibachromes it is quite pointless to even attempt a
> comparison. I find the use of the terms "glowing" and "luminosity" to
> be very positive when describing prints. The opposite is often dull
> and lifeless.
>
Hi All,
I was simply responding to Dick's remarks about Stuart Melvin's
12-layer gums; Dick remarked that they had a glowing and luminous
quality, and it sounded like he didn't think anything like that had ever
been done before. My point was simply to say that glowing gum prints are
nothing new, but I must have said it very badly if what I said is being
taken as criticism of luminous gums in general or of Stuart Melvin's
work in particular.It seems like the confusion comes from my evocation
of the word Cibachrome, which probably was a poor choice and I withdraw
it for purposes of this discussion, because it seems to have confused my
point, which was simply that luminous gums are great, but Stuart Melvin
isn't the first to make one.
I said at the outset that I wasn't meaning to take anything from Stuart,
and I'm not; I say more power to him! I've never seen Stuart's work
except for the reproductions of his gum-over-platinums in View Camera
last year, which didn't make my socks roll up and down particularly, but
as I've said here recently, I know that reproductions of gum can be very
deceiving. I agree with Sandy that glowing and luminous are positive
qualities; my glowing gum prints were gorgeous, with deep jewellike
color; people would invariably catch their breath when they saw them. I
suppose my present work could be called dull and lifeless in comparison,
and it took me a while to get the courage to follow my vision and print
the paler subtler way I was "led" to print, fearing that I would be
giving up a ready market for my work, that people wouldn't understand
what I was doing, that collectors of my glowing color work wouldn't be
interested in collecting this different kind of work. My fears turned
out to be groundless on all counts. Each to his own, has always been my
mantra, and still is.
Katharine
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