by Elizabeth Cook-Romero
Daily Lobo
Printmaker Carol Sanchez's mezzotints, on display at the Coleman Gallery on Central Avenue, use a 17th-century technique to create velvety sensuous images.
Sanchez reflects nature, but she does not copy it. Abstracted branches, seedpods, flowers and body parts emerge from seductively dark backgrounds. Looking at Sanchez's prints is a little like watching clouds float by. Meanings appear and fade and what is seen is as much in the viewer's mind as in the prints.
"I find myself looking at things real closely - almost microscopically," Sanchez said. "I look as closely as I can, and I store it in my head and pull it out later."
Like the landscape painters of Yuan Dynasty China, Sanchez does not draw, but observes so deeply that she is able to tap into her stored impressions. There is a power to the forms she pulls out of her head. At times threatening and at other times erotic, her prints have the immediacy of something pushing to the forefront of consciousness.
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In some prints the natural form is unmistakably present. "Droplet," a small three-by-four-inch print, depicts a wet twig. One small drop is breaking free but has not fallen. This is the moment before the water drips and the surface tension shifts.
"Enclasping," is far more ambiguous. At first glance forms appeared ready to intertwine as they lean toward each other, but after looking at the print for a while they seem already interconnected.
This four-by-six-inch print is the most abstract and complex in the show. It suggests unseen and misunderstood connections.
"People see things in my work that are not intentional," said Sanchez. "But I like it when people grab from their own experiences."
Sanchez never has a title, or even a definite idea of what a print will look like before beginning. Because mezzotint plates are fragile, most of her prints are in editions of 10. But in spite of the small number of prints each plate will make, Sanchez often pulls five to eight proofs as she works.
The rich blacks and subtle grays in mezzotints can look a lot like photographs. It was the invention of photography that caused mezzotints to go out of fashion.
The velvety blacks are made by rocking a copper plate tens-of-thousands of times with a curved-steel tool that has hundreds of sharp teeth. When the plate has been rocked enough to make a surface that will hold a uniform layer of ink, the grays and light areas are scraped and burnished. The bur left by the rocking breaks down quickly under the pressure needed to print deep blacks.
Ink is rolled onto the plate and the excess wiped off. Wiping is an art in itself. If too much ink is left the grays become muddy, not enough and the blacks become dead.
Sanchez says wiping the plate is the hardest part of making mezzotints. She does the last wipe gently with the bare-soft skin on the side of her hand.
The exhibition, "Existential Exotics: Mezzotints by Carol Sanchez," will be at Coleman Gallery Contemporary Art until March 29. The gallery is at 3812 Central Ave. SE.
