Paul Holt

Prints

Alternative Statement

One day after thousands, I spied presses through a window. There was a moment of pause. I had come a long way from  presses, as if across contentents, though really through time. 

I called a number posted "printmaker wanted - you pay". After many conversations and introductions, I was given a key of four digits, which unlocked the only barrior (a door) to the thing that could tame my illusions. The press ! It brings me to. There is a long suspended moment where nothing else exists. Well.. there is also ink smeared on glass, measured,abandoned, remeasured, rolled...smeared, folded, smeared, rolled again and again...   Images appear then disappear then reappear in sequence - without order,  in order - without sequence, one / neither then a near final proof or better, a finished print, alive in the room.

 There are often printmakers sharing space, like an order of serial impressionists. Joy floods me near the level of printing to know they may feel this arcane pleasure. There is a slippery magic somewhere just near the drum of the press and it flashes through with paper to be revealed when the plate is separated and the image is held to light.

The uncertainty of this magic with my full intentions marked on the plate is what pulls ever toward the next piece. Aloof, yet focused on a moving target, printer and print must somehow know how to dance.