On Viscosity Prints [excerpt from academic paper, presented in Oxford. 2015]
My practice involves a print making technique strategically employed because of the language it speaks, its grammatology, if you like. Viscosity Printing, simultaneous colour etching, or Hayter technique (three names for the same process) was developed in the 1930’s by chemist turned artist Stanley William Hayter. Bear with me while I explain the processes involved as understanding them will aid in appreciating their relationship to our theoretical concerns regarding relationality. The technique involves the simultaneous printing of many colours on one etching plate. Before Viscosity Printing, most etchings were either single colour, usually utilising dark ink, and if colour was required, it was painted in by hand, or separate plates were employed for each colour and carefully registered to avoid blurring or overlapping of colour fields.
The process of Viscosity Printing involves the relationship of plate, inks, rollers and paper. The plate, protected by a thin layer of bitumen, has a design scored into it, this is then ‘bitten’ (placed in an acid bath) and the acid etches the surface area left uncovered. The plate can be recovered with bitumen and etched numerous times creating planes of different depths, rather like a topographical map. Inks need to be prepared before being applied to the plate. These will have plate oil added to them in tiny amounts so as to create differences in viscosity. Thus if one has four different colours each will have a different viscosity. The final consideration before printing is the density of the rubber rollers, their softness or hardness. Each colour is rolled with a single roller and applied to the plate in a single pass so as not to muddy the inks. The interplay between the densities of each roller, the viscosity of the ink and the depth of each plane of the plate mean that each ink colour remains separate and is forced to a particular level in the plate. The dampened paper can then be gently lowered onto the plate before it is run through the press and printed. Because of the number of variables involved and especially the difficulty in controlling the viscosity of the ink, multiples, known as editions, are rarely made using this technique; rather the unique state of each print is what is treasured.
For me the use of Hayter technique has many resonances with the processes that are necessary for healing in Australia and perhaps in other contexts also. Broadly the conditions for the process involve the relationship between many seemingly oppositional or agonistic forces, these elements must firstly be understood in their specificities and then in terms of their relational aspects. The plate is the site that holds the event, most often it is made from copper or zinc (base metals cherished by alchemists) we cover it with bitumen (which also comes from the earth) and this is called a ground. We scrape the ground and bite it; the process is visceral. We re-apply the ground and mark it with another story, another layer; it is now contested ground. The bitumen both masks and protects, where it is scraped back it opens to reveal the base metal of the plate/site and allows the acid to bite, to score and change it. As the acid etches the plate, tiny bubbles of hydrogen form on the corroded surface, the by-product (so much hot air) of all this activity. Etching takes time, we wait, we watch the bubbles form and we do not foreclose on the process. There comes a time when enough layers have been etched into the plate, when it holds all it will hold and we know the site must be made ready to receive the inks. It must be cleaned of bitumen; unmasked.
The inks have different colours and qualities, fatter/thinner, and will reside in different locations on the plate but there will sometimes be a little bleeding, overlapping, merging. Each new application of inks to the plate reveals a slightly different relationship of colour to space or place and when the print is finally pulled from the plate the result is unique. Although there are rules and each element has specific qualities, the relational aspects of which imply the outcomes most likely, in the end the results can be surprising. For me the time, repetitions of process, competing narratives and contested site involved in the practice of viscosity printmaking are important. These elements and the commitment to their honest employment to create an event, a method with an open outcome, where the specificities of each element are respected, but they come together in unexpectedly beautiful ways, offers so much promise and embodies a way to work together that offers hope for healing.
Rachel Joy 2015