False Pride

My experience meeting with the National Laureatte Artist, Dato' Syed Ahmad Jamal formerly the Director General of the National Gallery in Kuala Lumpur whose works I have seen here and there and whose life is pretty much obscure to me is very enlightening. The artist who inaugurated the opening of the Penang International Printmaking exhibition at the Dewan Seri Pinang or the the Penang National Art Gallery was it seemed to me a little exhausted physically and had a hard tome delivering his speach.
The show itself was a vewry good effort at trying to bring International Printmakers to the Malaysian Art scene as there was a good enough representation from all over the Globe with pieces that vareid from Woodcuts to modern graphical printing techniques that utilizes the computer dexterity with manipulating the printing medium to produce excellent prints that captures the imagination. But I still enjoy the subtle beauties founfd in the Litho prints and the etchings and aquatints. I di not see much of these and not a one drypoint or mezzotint. Most of the works I saw was not anything that I would consider as par excellent whether it was in the subject matter or the techniques used, I have seen master printers in my life at some of the most obscure places such as the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay , such works as done by Timothy Josephs nnd my mentor the late Mr. Clarry Nelson Cole. The intaglio prints of Clarry's works was among the International Collection of Prints from all over the world that was part of the Smithsonian collection being shown at major cities around the world. His works had such a surrealistic aura about them that they were almost spiritually alive. Clarry Nelson Cole was an Art proffessor from Sierra Leone who was teaching at the UWGB when I was attending the college. Clarry was made an honorary citizen of Texas for his exemplary dedication to print making.
Clarry opened my passion for printmaking and we would spend from morning till the closing time bent over our plates polishing, scrubbing, rocking and watching nervously as the plates were taking an acid bath or how they prints would turn out as we pulled it off the press. We were lost in our own worlds most of the the time leaving eachother alone as we stare into the grains or burrs on the surface of the copper plates after a good amount of the process of rocking the plate. I was most into mezzotint as I love the sense that I am working upon a field of gold as the burrs caused by the rocker blade was set ablazed against a candle light. I could see myself running in this field of blazen gold with my hands flung out and grazing the fine gold strands like I once did while running through a rice field when I was a child. To form an image on the plat one has to flatten those wreas that will reject the ink when ready for printing. In essence like most prinmaking processes one has to be good at drawing the images in reverse. The subletlest form of art is found is the process of printmaking where the printmaker and his process of creating the print becomes one and the print produced is testimonial to his acheivement of this one spiritedness between mind and matter.
I enjoy mono=type printmaking technique as it allows me to create freely without too much technical involvement that often makes it almost impossible to pour out my creative energy. Mono printing is a technique that is about the most basic form of printmaking which can be exploit for those who are impatient but totally and passionately involved with what he does...I am a very impatient creator. I was informed of this by one of the instructors at the Miyagi Art Museum in Sendai where I had spent almost three years engrossed into mostly printmaking and Japanese Black ink paintings on Hand made papers. These three years was about the peak of my creative endeavors throughout my life. I was most creatively alive when I was living in Japan and Printmaking was ozzing out of me that even my Japanese instructors were awed by it to allow me to use their facility freely with alot of help given if and whenever I needed. Most of my best pieces were given away to my nephews and nieces simplr because I could not afford to give them anything most expensive at least in fiscal terms. They may not value it as such but to me I gave them the best for safe keeping.
I saved yet some for myself to be brought here for any possiblitility of having a show someday at anyone of the Galleries here but Allah would not permit me my glory as they ended up being missing along with a few of my best acrylic and oil paintings. I felt the sadness and the anger at the loss when I discovered it but now I only am angry simply because they had not been able to be shred with others who aspire to become great prinmakers here in Malaysia, and Ye I am among the best in this country after having viewed what representation of an Internatinal prinmaking show is like to day I know deep down my loss of those pieces is not my loss alone. Those pices carried the information i had collected for the purpose of teaching others if and when I am given the opportunity to, but as I said earlier Allah has not given Hu's Grace on this.
Among my favorite printmakers down the Art Historical figures East and West are Goya and his Lithos, Durer' and his etchings, Dore' and Hokusai and Utamaro, Hamaguchi and Clarry Nelson Cole. Printmaking was what brought closest to my spiritual self, in prinmaking I touched the unknown n myself often at times when I least expect while in the process of preparing a plate or inking one, or while rubbing off the excess ink from the burrs of a mezzotint plate to reveal the outlines of the images to be exposed finally. In the silence of the studio or listening to the background music from a cheap radio or an insignificant converstaion going on across the room suddenly I am transported into another dimention when my blood becomes the ink and flows on to the plates spread otu evenly to cover its surface the I remove it slowly like I am wiping my tears of long time hidden sorrows lock within my soul a sense of release would settle over me after it was all completed and I would feel awaken like from a sleep and WALLA!! if it all goes well a print is brought into light.
Throughout my years in the US and in Japan I had printed hudreds if not thousands of prints as I sometimes ended sleeping in the print studios when the nights grew late and the time to close was up but due to some good friends like in the security guards, I was allowed to stay dack and left alone with my works. Most of my creations were given away to close friends and and benifectors who supported my lifestyle when I was too busy to take care of myself. As I said before I could not afford to give anything less than a piece of my soul created through the processes whatever I was working on at the time.