"Anhelo" Part II or Anatomy of a Print...

In March of 2004 I had the honor of being one of the 18 artists selected to be part of the 11th Serie Project at Coronado Studio in Austin, Texas. The week of Monday March 15 – Saturday the 20th was spent printing the print “Anhelo”. I traveled to Austin with anticipation of working on a new print in a new environment and among new acquaintances. I took along some tunes, a digitally drawn color image, a to-scale printout of my idea as reference for creating the print and an open mind. I worked with master printer, Satch Grimley. Satch was great at intuiting what I had in mind and worked with great dedication mixing and pulling colors for the print. I also had in mind catching a few performances at the yearly South by Southwest music festival.

Monday Satch cut down paper, set registrations and prepared screens while I did some ebony pencil tone drawing on textured mylar. We decided four basic color break-outs were needed for a good base to start from so I did a lot of drawing the first two days.

Tuesday Satch and Coronado intern, Dominic Pagalilanan, started pulling transparent layers of background colors. They layered the four basic colors as I worked up the mylar drawings for transfer onto the separate screens. We strayed from the original print idea by creating a border effect around the main image (which ended up putting us a couple of inches over the Serie Project’s maximum image size standard.)

Wednesday printing continued. More transparent layers were laid down bringing more definition to the figure and background areas. I worked into some of the drawings on mylar with India ink and used these to shoot new screens. The ink made a stronger contrast in blocking out the screen and helped get more concentrated areas of color. Wednesday night Satch and I caught some of the SXSW shows in downtown Austin. The standout performances were by the Futureheads and Destroyer.

Thursday we continue to define areas with more transparent layers. I am suddenly aware that time is short. Satch and I both conclude that doing the ebony drawing on mylar took up more valuable time than necessary so we have to make that up somehow. My flight out is early Sunday morning and the prints need to be done before then. Thursday night Dominic and I head downtown to catch some more of the SXSW. I met up with one of my old Art Academy student turned rockstar, Patrick Keeler (from The Greenhornes and now The Raconteurs.)

Friday we put in the longest day ever. Satch amazes me by pulling many colors this day. Around 1:00 a.m. (Saturday) we called it quits as we were both wiped out and starting to lose focus. I liked where we were but I could see the image needed to be pushed and pulled in a few areas to really make it work. I was worried because Satch had prior commitments of his own at Flatstock and I didn’t know if the print would be finished to my satisfaction. During the day my old high school buddy McCleod shows up but I'm too far behind and busy to really get a chance to talk to him. We plan a time to meet later that night but printing late causes me to miss that meeting.

Saturday morning Sam comes in and we talk over the status of the print. Sam agreed that the print needed a few more steps. He made a call to Marie, the wonder woman. While Sam and Marie shot more screens, mixed more colors and pulled more layers I blocked out more templates. Late in the evening I got into pulling some colors myself. We worked the whole day until 10:00 p.m. or so. Finally we got to where I was satisfied with the print. But we still weren’t done. Our next steps included selecting the prints for the edition, signing them all and adding the Coronado chop mark.

Over all this was a great experience for me. A whole week in total working environment is really a luxury for me at this point of my career. I’d like to thank Sam Coronado and all the staff at the studio for being so generous and kind towards me while we produced this print: Satch Grimley, Marie Garza, Leah Hesla, Dana McBride and Dominic Pagalilanan. I would also like to thank Gilberto Cardenas and Notre Dame University’s Latino Studies for sponsoring my trip to and from Austin and making this endeavor possible. A special thanks goes to Marie Garza for photographing the process.