Artist in Residence, Vespertine, Boulder, CO, 2023
June 21 - July 28, 2023
Unearthed Avarice
During a five-week residency in the Sugarloaf Mountains outside Boulder, Ginsberg walked each morning past the remains of more than a century of gold mining: collapsing shacks, hand-cleaved lumber, half-filled shafts. Prospectors here were as likely to find pyrite as gold. The prints and objects from this residency take up that confusion of appearance and worth, layering gold leaf beside imitation leaf and repeating the form of a cage. He printed from carved plates of float glass, a process called vitreography. Some of the works are made to oxidize and slowly undo themselves.
Interval
Vitreograph with relief and embossment on Rives BFK
12” x 12”
2023
Claim
Vitreograph with relief and embossment on Rives BFK, Gold Leaf
12” x 9”
2023
Haul
Vitreograph with relief and embossment on Rives BFK
Unique impression
18” × 18 in.
2023
Bust
Vitreograph with relief and embossment on Rives BFK
Unique impression
24” × 9”
2023
example of deep embossment using vitreography
Vitreography and
Alternative Printing Processes
During my 5-week residency, I explored Vitreography as my primary process. This is a fine art printmaking technique that uses a 3⁄8-inch-thick (9.5 mm) float glass matrix instead of the traditional matrices of metal, wood or stone. By carving into the surface of the glass using abrasives and rotary tools, I explored techniques to transfer photographic images, patterns, and attain deep embossments.
There are a handful of printmakers and artists working in or that are aware of vitreography, the printmaking process developed by Harvey Littleton and Warrington Colescott at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1974. As a founding participant in the American studio glass movement, Harvey Littleton was captivated by glass and its potential as a printing matrix. His innovative investigations quickly spread from UW-Madison to the Pilchuck Glass School, WA. which currently houses the only printmaking studio solely devoted to vitreography printing in the United States.