ELLEN VERDON WINKLER
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THINGS TO SAY

10/6/2022

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In writing this blog, I wonder if I have anything new or original or even interesting to say. It seems a bit silly and leaves me feeling self-conscious. 

But, actually, there are things I must say. I’ve worked at art a long, long time. I’ve learned some things that have compelled me to keep working all this time, and I want to express them. I want to share them and put them out into the world.

So!

For the last few years, I’ve been doing lots of landscapes. Mostly these are done in pastel, sometimes in oil or acrylic. These images are very funny to me. They are playful. They are surprisingly like the landscapes I’ve found in traveling through Montgomery and Frederick Counties. They are very like the gently rolling hills I've found there. The works often contain playful and impossible elements such as arcane buildings with domes and porticoes or roads that rise straight up into the sky. I love these drawings and paintings. They are, as my friend Vicky says, little friends. Except, they’re not so little. Two examples are below:
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"How Many Ways", Pastel, charcoal and oil pastel on paper, 2021
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"Get Away, III". Oil on Board, 2020
Previously, I had worked mostly from observation. Working in this way, it is almost inevitable that I will put marks onto whatever surface I’m working on and they will be some attempt to replicate what I'm seeing. Placing or putting marks is deliberate and intellectual. It’s driven by a sense I have of what “should be” in the picture. Three examples of this kind of work are below. Click on the image for a larger version. 
But, now, I’m distinguishing from this deliberate and descriptive work to talk about work that springs arbitrarily and randomly from another, non-intellectual place entirely.

This work is unexpected and uncertain until I can suddenly recognize something that seems to belong in the picture. A tangle of lines that are puzzling, until suddenly they resolve into a highway cutting through a landscape. Or, perhaps buildings that are upside down when viewed from one angle, but perfectly right-side up when viewed from another. Rules of traditional perspective do not apply here.

Work done in this manner often surprises me. More than anything, I want art to surprise me. So, the fact that a heavy line goes down on the page, and suddenly it becomes a street or a towering high rise or a tree trunk, simply intrigues and delights me. I never make mistakes in these works. Not because I’m not likely to make a wrong move or get something out of place, but because marks that seem out of place, or disruptive, urge me to keep working at the picture until I find something I like, and balance is restored. So, truly, I am finding these images as I make them. I feel an incredible freedom in doing these found drawings. Examples of this work are below. Click on each image for a larger version.
I think of this as drawing with my eyes versus drawing with my intellect. When I’m working intellectually, I’m very likely to miss the tremendous excitement of two pigments going together, or the texture of scumbled washy paint. All of this excitement disappears when the intellect is in control and I get caught up in some cerebral discussion of how the chair or the row of houses are mostly likely to look. Is it a metal chair? An upholstered chair? How many windows in those row houses? It's unimportant. The only thing that matters is responding to what is happening as I work and to the visual qualities of the drawing or painting as it emerges. 
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About the Lines

9/22/2022

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We’ve recently visited the National Gallery to see “The Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan and James McNeill Whistler”. The show focuses on the model and her collaboration with Whistler. But to me the really extraordinary aspect of the show were the etchings and drypoints done by Whistler that are prominently on display.

Whistler was an amazing etcher. His drawing skills are sublime and they are everywhere here. But, it’s an altogether different matter to draw on copper with an etching needle. Whistler was such a master of this and of the more challenging technique of drypoint. In this technique, lines are drawn directly into the plate with a sharp tipped needle (sometimes diamond tipped, as shown below).
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 These lines hold the ink which is then printed. Drypoint is executed often in such a way that a metal burr is created which gives a unique feature to the lines. They appears as  very dark marks that seem almost to be furry. A burr is shown below and appears as the bright line. The dark lines below it are etched lines. 
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Control of drypoint lines is difficult. The metal's hardness is difficult to draw through, and often results in jagged and broken lines.. But Whistler’s drypoint lines dance and swirl. They are so very liquid and so very beautifully descriptive.

These dark lines (seen in the detail of the print "Jo", below) contrast often with very light lines (the very delicate lines describing the contours of the models face as seen below in Weary). Whistler’s control was extraordinary. And, it is another wonder how the artist wiped his plates. A printmaker covers the drawn plate with a viscous ink, usually black, and then carefully removes it so that ink is left in the lines, but not on the plate’s surface. This is so tricky! Often, eliminating plate tone comes at the cost of wiping ink from the delicate lines. 
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Detail: James McNeill Whistler, Jo, 1861 (state i/i), drypoint on ivory laid paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Rosenwald Collection, 1949.5.53
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Detail: James McNeill Whistler, Weary, 1863 (state iv/vi), drypoint on ivory Japan paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Myron A. Hofer, 1947.10.
And, considering the kinds of marks a printmaker can utilize, the work of Vicky Vogl is another extraordinary example. She is an artist with a vast knowledge of art, art history, and particularly, the craftsmanship of making art. She is a master of aquatint, which is another subject altogether. But what I’m pointing out here is a print she has done called "Strings". Her work reminds me so of Goya, who did often grim images which included fantastical creatures. Vicky's work has the same quality of line but is filled with joy and delight. In the eye of this wonderful rabbit creature, we have a bold glint that is actually a hole in the plate. Did she drill it, or just have the good sense to put it to work for her? Her work is worth much study.
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Strings, Victoria Vogl, A/P
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detail
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About Travel

9/10/2022

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We travelled recently to Denver. What I'm always perplexed by is the notion of traveling to a specific destination with expectations of what we might do there. We did in fact have a wonderful visit with family and stayed in a friend's very beautiful house. But three very unexpected things stand out for me. Murals painted on the grain silos we found in Salina, Kansas, Google Map's strange route taking us out of Denver when we left that had us on a gravel road through prairie land with hawks perched on every telephone pole, and this magnificent sunset which we found in Troy. Illinois (above). It's the unexpected nature of these things. They are like miracles where you'd least expect them. It's this that I want to get into my art. The thing that surprises and makes you, for a moment, forget all else.
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Salina, KS

7/9/2022

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We’ve just made a road trip from Denver to the east coast where we live. We stopped the first night in Salina, Kansas and came upon this massive mural in downtown Salina and these other scenes. The mural was painted by the artist Guido Van Helton (www.guidovanhelton.com). It depicts a group of children at play. Their figures encircle the entire structure which is about 100 feet tall. These giants play where, 120 years ago or so, grain from farms across the prairies was gathered, presumably for shipping to markets through out the country.

These grain elevators are crumbling. (Where does that grain go now?) This whole part of the city is crumbling away and stands as silent testimony to loss. It is a haunting place. I would love to know the story of what happened here..

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Making a start

6/27/2022

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I’ve long felt that the details of an etched copper plate (above) are just as beautiful as the print that is finally made from them. These intricately detailed surfaces call out to be explored, and as much as anything,, cause me to ask, what am I seeing?

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​​This is the 19th century log cabin that I found in upper Montgomery County and that gave rise to the plate I’ve mentioned above. You don’t see the logs, because the entire structure is sheathed in badly beaten up corrugated metal. And how I love that texture.. The last time I passed by, this building was still standing…barely.

The building by itself isn’t as visually interesting to me as all of the various details. And, I’m not interested in depicting any narrative about this building, though there is a rich one here. But the details are so arresting. That is what I’m after..
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Finally, here is a detail printed from the plate (first image above)... There is nothing so fine as an etched line.. The heavy, ropey lines are made from engraved lines added after the etching process. I often think of a copper plate in process as a very low-relief sculpture. There is such a richness to prints.
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    Ellen Winkler is a printmaker, painter and book artist.

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