From: Dave Rose (cactuscowboy@attbi.com)
Date: 02/27/03-11:43:51 AM Z
I agree. Gum is not necessarily better than other processes. (I thought
Jordan's bombastic description of gum was really funny).
IMO, it's the final result that counts, not how you got there. In 1995, one
of my cyanotype/gum prints was awarded "Best In Show" at an open photography
exhibition in northern New Jersey. As with all my alt-photo prints, the
outside-edge brush marks were cropped out by the window mat. The judges,
commercial and fine art photographers, had no idea what kind of print they
were looking at. One asked if it was a C print. I thought it was great
that they didn't care how my print (or others) were made.
Contrast that experience to having a snobbish gallery owner in Manhattan
dismiss my silver b&w prints with the question, "Nice, but do you do any
printing in platinum?"
Dave Rose
Cactus Cowboy
Big Wonderful Wyoming
----- Original Message -----
From: <jeffbuck@swcp.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>; "Richard Sullivan"
<richsul@earthlink.net>
Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2003 9:44 AM
Subject: Re: King Gum
> Dick, Sandy and All Listening In:
>
> Dick's making a point here that I can neither improve on nor resist
> elaborating a bit: So much depends on who has used the medium. There was
> nothing that special about albumen except when Atget used it, nothing that
> special about silver except when Adams used it, nothing that special about
> platinum except when Arentz uses it. Art is not about "arts and crafts"
but
> rather about vision. At Platypus last year, as a number of people,
including
> myself, admired Dick Arentz's recent prints, I heard him remark to a
> bystander, "This stuff isn't better than silver prints. It's completely
> subjective." Gum isn't better than platinum isn't better than silver
isn't
> better than oil painting isn't better than cave painting. Art does not
> improve. If there is vision, there are means at hand to give it form. An
> artist chooses one means over another for any number of more-or-less
> imponderable practical, personal, and simply accidental reasons. -jb
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