What artists inspire me and why
Robert Rauschenberg was a creative influence as far back as undergraduate school (1967-71). I was fascinated by the images of his combined paintings and assemblages in Art History books and his approach to printmaking. I thought his experiments in both mediums were unique through his use of collage and the sense of looking at his images in two-dimensional-book reproductions and actual original prints was that of floating forms.
My affinity with Rauschenberg’s style was solidified, when, after graduation in 1971, my photo screen print was exhibited next to a print by Rauschenberg at the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s international exhibit, Silkscreen: History of a Medium.
Romare Bearden, a trained mathematician, songwriter, and avid historian, embraced a world view that was multifaceted. His images are about telling the story of his life and interactions with growing up in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, and adulthood in Harlem, New York City as a social worker, activist, and studio artist. The impact of what he saw and the people he encountered in these locations were often displayed in his art along with themes from Greek mythology.
Early on, fell in love with the idea of story-telling or social narrative themes that reflect my own life experiences, knowledge, and evolving perspectives of the wider world. Bearden’s use of collage-layered space and photographic imagery was accessible and always gave the sensibility of time as a visual element.
I first met Bearden in 1976 and wrote the following for a brochure celebrating his receiving the Brandywine Workshop’s first James Van Der Award.
Bearden’s commitment to depict an honest, yet sympathetic portrayal of African Americans is the axiom on which he selects themes, symbols, and ultimately, his visual approach. In his art we see life kaleidoscope, moving at a fast pace, yet inevitably repeating itself, Images remind the viewer of a documentary film, which, in Bearden’s perception, constantly manages to run backward still projecting an event that has a timeless characteristic.
Sam Gilliam, prominently known as a painter, Sam was an avid printmaker. He worked in collaboration with master printers William Weege, Susan Goldman, and Lou Stovall, among others. I was fortunate to develop a lifelong friendship with the globally
celebrated artist from 1975 until he died in 2022.
Gilliam and I collaborated on many original editions in which the artists explored photo screen processes from hand-drawn mylars, offset lithography, and print collages. What I learned from Gilliam was to consistently experiment and embrace innovation. His influence on me is demonstrated by my use of the composition's edge for color ascents and disrupting the common notion that the sheet of paper was either a square or rectangle, by employing cut-aways that could make compositions (prints) appear bigger through the articulation of negative space (cut-outs) along the printed edge of the paper.
Like Gilliam, I was always interested in how I could take the traditional limited format of printmaking and expand it to have the sensibility of something much larger.
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John E. Dowell, Jr. was my first mentor-influence to my aesthetic ideas. We first met in 1973, when Dowell returned to his native Philadelphia to teach printmaking at Tyler School of Art, Temple University. I was a Tyler graduate student at the time and he challenged me to print photo process screens from his delicate drawings on mylar. John was a Tamarind-trained master printmaker, and the challenge was to get results similar to the planographic process of stone lithography for which he was a true expert. Dowell’s drawings for color separations were often very delicate with a variety of line thickness and density, and tonal variation that was particularly difficult using a mesh such as that in screen-printing.
The artist paid close attention to negative (white) space and the activation of that space through the use of limited color and mark-making that reminded one of calligraphy. Together, we also explore the use of reversible imagery where the white paper was employed as color and created transitions of values in overlaid colors. This facilitated the ability to produce multiple colors in a minimum of color printings.
Dowell showed me how to create luminous colors and to be efficient at creating color separations. He helped to advance my understanding of collaboration and quality standards, while providing valued mentorship on life as a practicing artist-arts administrator.