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Until now, I've never
written the story about my collaboration in
printing the screen prints for Lorser Feitelson and Helen
Lundeberg. When I met Lorser and
Helen in 1969, they were well-known artists and I was just
beginning to exhibit my work. Feitelson had seen my screen prints
and whenever he saw me, he always
discussed the technical aspects of silk screen prints.
During one of these discussions he told me that the various LA Printing
Studios had approached him to do Lithographs. He said,
"Lithographs are not right for my work. I want to see the
richness of the paint and that's only possible with silk screens". It
never occurred to me that shortly afterwards he would ask me to do
some silk screens with him.
In 1970 Lorser called me about printing some editions of his work. He was
concerned about how precise they needed to be. I told him, "If
you do the full scale drawing, I can make the prints as precise as
your drawing". He was pleased and asked me about my charges: I'll
do it for one of your paintings, plus 2
printer's proofs from each edition. There was never any
discussion
of how many different editions we would make nor was there ever a written
contract.
The next day I picked
up samples of papers at McManus-Morgan and together we went back and purchased two cartons
of paper plus some
paints and stencil film. I already had the large silk screen
frames and printing set-up. Lorser took some of the paper
for his own use. Surprisingly he came by the next
day, ready with his first drawing - a pencil drawing on a sheet of
the paper he had taken. It was
planned as 4 colors - Black, white, Red on a Blue
background and he had written the color on each shape and on the
background. I learned that when he said "Red", he
meant primary red. "Blue" meant primary blue, etc. During our
association, only two colors on two of his editions had to be mixed.
The rest
came straight from the can. From the beginning Lorser said, "I
don't need to see a proof of each color and only need to see a
proof of the finished print".
I'm a fast worker and even with my
teaching day-job, was able to have a proof ready for him in 3
days. The Feitelson's were over within minutes. It was clear that he was
pleased with the first print, but he kept looking at all the edges on each shape as if in
amazement. He especially loved seeing that the paint was
actually raised on the paper and you could feel it. When we
discussed the size of the edition, he indicated that it was
ridiculous how
some artists published editions in the high hundreds. We
agreed that his editions would be 25, I think, partially because he wasn't sure
of the print's reception. In two days the
first edition was ready and the Feitelson's came over for
"the signing". He signed and numbered the prints at my dining
room table - and then took me out to dinner.
The next day Lorser had another drawing
ready and from that point, our routine was established:
I would cut the stencil from his drawing and print the edition, call him
for the signing, and then we'd go out to dinner. He had
such trust in me that it was a dream on my part, to work with him.
But after all these years, I look back and think how stupid I was in one
respect: I didn't save any of the drawings he made for the
screen prints.
On one edition Lorser asked for "Yellow-green" as a background color.
I had to mix the color and when I printed a proof, I panicked at the
color, so I called him and asked him to come over and
check. He said, "That's perfect".
Another time he asked for a background of "Baby Blue".
Again, I asked him to come over and check. Once more, "That's
perfect". He never asked me to re-mix a color,
re-print any colors, or re-cut any stencils.
When Lorser did a drawing of his "marriage of two lines", I
recognized the
challenge of making the lines the same width from top to bottom.
In my own paintings, I used the "hard-edge"
technique of applying masking tape to various shapes before
painting. I had employed this same method on Feitelson's
silk screen stencils - laying the stencil film over his
drawing and carefully applying narrow masking tape along the edge of
his drawing, using the edge of the tape to guide me as I
cut the stencil. To my knowledge no one had ever used this
method of cutting a silk screen stencil before. But cutting
the lines the exact width required a new method. There was no
tape as narrow as the lines on this drawing. I carefully
applied masking tape to a long piece of glass and cut strips on this
tape the exact width of Feitelson's lines. These exact
width tape strips were then applied to the stencil film to guide me in cutting the lines.
After finishing about 15 editions (I lost my written record in a house fire in 1972),
the next time the Feitelson's came by, it was Helen who showed me a drawing. Now
... there
had never been any discussion about doing screen prints for
Helen - nor was there a discussion now. I simply took
her drawing as if it were expected.
Working with Helen was totally different
than working with Lorser. Each color had to be proofed for
approval. She sat with me while I mixed a color..."...a
little more white..." and then "...what do you think Lorser?"
Forever her teacher, he would say, "...add a little Umber..." and
the final decision seemed to be his. Then I would run a proof
of this color for approval. If it was acceptable, the session
would end until I was ready for the next
color. For Helen's "Planet" prints, we pushed the use of
transparencies to extreme limits. I saw a lot
more of the Feitelson's during the printing of Helen's 10 editions.
And I learned a lot more from Lorser during this time.
There was never a
time when I knew how long this association with the Feitelson's
would continue. It ended as suddenly as it began.
One day Lorser called and said, "You should come over and pick out
your painting". That evening I drove to their home/studio on
3rd Street. Lorser took me to a storage space in a rented
store next door. He began flipping through a stack of
paintings
asking, "How about this one?" I spotted a painting
on the left of the stack and said, "How about that one?"
I heard an audible "GULP!"... and then "OK". I knew I had
picked a good painting. As Lorser and Helen helped me load the painting
on my truck, we all knew this was the end of our collaboration.
I would continue to see them at various art events around town
and they would always reach out to me with a warm greeting.
For 6 months I had put my work on hold to work with these two
artists and it had been a very rich
experience.
All of my
Feitelson-Lundeberg Printer's Proof prints were placed in a
portfolio and stored in a print cabinet in 1971 and they remained
there until an inquiry about purchasing one was received in late
2008. That was followed by several additional inquiries and
sales in 2009. Thus, I made the decision to publicize the
collection on this website in October of 2009.
When Lorser died in 1978, there was a
memorial service at Barnsdall Park. My Feitelson painting had
been in his retrospective several years
before and Josine Ianco-Starrels called and asked me to bring the
painting to set up for the Memorial Service.
The service was the last time I saw Helen, although we did sometimes
talked on the phone. |
