Re: Presentation Question

All of my gum and cyanotype prints are window-matted in high quality white
matboard and framed in glass & polished aluminum frames. It's a clean and
simple presentation that directs attention to the images. I sign the window
mat with pencil, only my name. I never show brush marks beyond the image
border. In my opinion, it's distracting.

Dave in Wyoming

----- Original Message -----
From: "Katharine Thayer" <kthayer@pacifier.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2004 4:34 PM
Subject: Re: Presentation Question

> Ryuji Suzuki wrote:
> >
> > From: Schuyler Grace <schuyler@bellsouth.net>
> > Subject: RE: Presentation Question
> > Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 10:38:18 -0700
> >
> > > Thanks to everyone who responded to my questions about presenting my
Pt/Pd
> > > prints.
> >
> > Are you already closing this thread? I was hoping to hear more about
> > how others do and why they choose to do so... :-)
> >
>
> Well, since Schuyler has already indicated that he thinks there is a
> "proper" way to do this, he will no doubt be shocked to hear that I
> sign on the print, I mean right on the image, the way a painter would
> sign a painting. I don't think of myself as a printmaker; I think of gum
> printing as a cross between photography and painting, not as a subset of
> printmaking, and I don't see any reason why I should follow the
> conventions of printmaking in signing my work. No one has ever batted an
> eye at this practice, not galleries or buyers.
>
> The only person who has ever taken issue with the presentation of my
> work, and forgive me if I've told this story here before, was when an
> earnest young woman, who told me importantly that she had just earned a
> degree in art, came up to me at an opening and told me condescendingly
> that an original print "must" be shown with the brushmarks showing, that
> it was "wrong" to mat right up to the image and hide the brushmarks in
> the border, and that no one would buy my work because without the
> brushmarks they would not be able to tell that it was an original
> print. I knew, but she didn't, that the entire series had been sold to
> a collector before the opening, and I have to admit I did enjoy smiling
> graciously at this silly young woman as a gallery person came in and
> went around the room putting red dots on the tags. The point being that
> it's the work that sells, not the presentation, and that rules about
> presentation, whether sensible or silly, are simply irrelevant, IME.
>
> Katharine Thayer
Received on Sat Sep 11 08:16:14 2004