Friday, September 3, 2010

The Pressman

The Pressman


One of my  close friends since high school has had a love affair with ink all of his life.  To some  extent, I've shared that graphic arts fascination all of my life as well.  I still recall that my most favorite class in four years of college was an elective poster making class.  The idea of creating moods with ink, shapes, and letters intrigued me.  David Lasko taught me well.

Over time that fascination spilled over into photography where I could see and print complete images that I created.  I enjoyed the three distinctly separate processes:  shooting the image, processing the image in the digital darkroom, and printing it on different types of media.  Being involved in the complete process is extremely enjoyable.  Playing with all of the variables remains equally as enjoyable as taking the image.

The pressman above represents a person passionate with both ink, process, and art.  He is part of a history and a process that will soon be obsolete.  Once he leaves there will be no one else to to do his work.  We will lose another craftsman to change.  The new craftsman work in a different environment, a digital one.  They duplicate the old processes and enhance them digitally.  One day they also will become obsolete.

We enjoy what each craftsman brings to the table.  Each creates art in their own way.  I am proud to be an artist and part of that change.  I try to keep changing  but still work on always being a craftsman.

2 comments:

  1. I am a pressman myself. Nice article. I like to share my knowledge with other pressmen in the trade.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the kind words. I just know that I share the same passion as pressmen.

    ReplyDelete

Please feel free to comment.