sizing and gum reference images

Katherine,

I think you are right that one of the uses of a group of images of gum
errors would be to help beginners identify their problem and to be able to
look at how others have solved that problem. You're right that there have
been very different effects called speckles on the list. You have been very
clear with your illustrations on your site but others have different
parameters of paper and size, different techniques, and different
definitions of terms. Let's put some images together and see how many
specific effect we have and then worry about naming them. Speaking for
myself I'd be delighted to have you name the effects and then open it to
discussion. I hope you will contribute your images because you are most
likely the person who has done the most to document gum effects, most of us
have been throwing them away without a thought.

You wrote
I mean, who
> would get to decide how to group the different examples and what they
> should be called? Since we seem to work in parallel universes, it's
> hard to imagine that we could come to an agreement on any of that.

You may be right. But we won't know without trying. If we can do it we could
really advance the discussion by leaps and bounds. It may be true that some
effects are, due to multiple variables, will prove too inconclusive to
define (your parallel universe comment). If we only define some of the terms
and effects we will be better off for it.

I look forward to the possibilities, and hopefully your help.

Jack

> From: Katharine Thayer <kthayer@pacifier.com>
> Reply-To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
> Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2005 09:11:27 +0000
> To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
> Subject: Re: "speckling" v "staining " (was New Orleans/glut)
>
> Jack Brubaker wrote:
>>
>> Chris, Judy, Catherine, et all,
>>
>> If we are to make real progress in understanding sizes, papers, and gum
>> methods it seems we will have to resolve the terms used to describe various
>> aberrant results. Clearly writing about it is continuing to be confusing and
>> misleading. Remember the quote something like "writing about art is like
>> dancing about architecture" (at the moment I can't remember who wrote that).
>> We need a visual reference for the terms and conditions we are referring to.
>> Does someone have a site where images could be posted from various workers
>> where similar effects could be grouped together and given a clear name. I'm
>> sorry to be proposing such a thing and not offering to do it myself, but it
>> seems the time has come to have a visual tool to refine the discussion and
>> move us foreword.
>
>
> Hi Jack,
> As the one person in this discussion who has actually shown visually
> exactly what I mean by "speckling" and by "staining" I'm not quite
> sure why this admonition is addressed to me. But certainly I agree that
> we need visual aids to discussion, and that's partly why I put up my
> website, so I could point to various things there to help people
> visualize what I'm talking about in discussions here. I'm certainly the
> one regular contributor who very often points to a visual example of
> what I'm talking about.
>
> I think your idea is good in theory, and I certainly would like to see
> what other people besides myself mean by things they describe, but I
> find the thought of the idea in practice rather amusing. I mean, who
> would get to decide how to group the different examples and what they
> should be called? Since we seem to work in parallel universes, it's
> hard to imagine that we could come to an agreement on any of that. The
> speckling I've seen, I've seen enough times to recognize it and know
> what causes it. From the discussion, it sounds like the speckling Judy
> and Chris are talking about are different from mine and from each
> other. It almost seems like each of us would have a completely different
> set of speckles, with different perceived causes, none recognizable by
> any of the others. But perhaps this would be useful in creating a
> taxonomy of speckles, which beginning printers could compare their
> speckles to and follow the recommendations of the person who provided
> that particular speckling example. But I'm not sure it would achieve the
> stated purpose of coming to some agreement on basic terms.
> Katharine
>
>
Received on Tue Sep 6 15:58:03 2005