Snapshot In Time: When Carol Summers was creating this woodblock print other kinds of "Magic" and "Curtains" were in the news too. For example, in 1998 in theaters around the country, two chick flicks opened... Curtain Call and Practical Magic. The airwaves also told stories about Canada's Icy Curtain followed by the lifting of the Bamboo Curtain. The Orlando Magic were growing in popularity on the basketball court as was the new "Curtain of Water" ride at the nearby Waterworld.

Art Smart Fact: Carol Summers creates each of his woodblock prints by hand, usually from one or more pieces of quarter-inch pine wood, using oil-based printing inks and porous mulberry papers, the kind used for Japanese woodblock prints. For MAGIC CURTAIN, he carved several different blocks which added a great deal of difficulty to the entire process. Different shapes and different ink colors adjacent to each other are often the undoing of printmakers without master skills. The woodblocks used in this woodcut print for the curtains were made slightly larger than the mulberry paper so that the image and color would flow off the edge.

Next, Summers typically centers a dry sheet of paper over the cut block (or as in this case a group of woodblocks fitted together) securing it with giant clips. Summers refers to his own woodcut printing technique as “rubbing”. The ink is applied directly to the front side of the clipped paper and and spread out with a roller. (In traditional woodblock printmaking, including the Japanese woodcut printing method, ink is applied directly on to the block and then pressed on to paper.)

After the ink is applied to the front of the paper, Summers sprays it with mineral spirits, which act as a thinning agent. The absorptive fibers of the paper draw the thinned ink away from the surface diffusing and muting the colors, causing a unique glow to evolve over the entire image. This is a woodblock art methodology unique to Carol Summers though many woodblock artists have tried to copy it. Indeed, in fine arts programs and universities around the world it is known and taught as the "Carol Summers Woodcut Printmaking Technique."

About The Art: MAGIC CURTAIN has a clever Retro Art or Pop Art feel to it. Those purple-ish cafe curtains, ceramic bowl and bright yellow table top are right out of the 1950s and early 1960s. In this picture, Summers leads our eyes indoors to see an outdoors scene complete with mountains, a river and even a rainbow.....and he doesn't offer up his mini-landscape in just any ordinary way either. Instead he serves it up as a dazzling still life centerpiece!

Note: With a purchase at Peggity's of one of the original Carol Summers woodcuts you receive free a four-color, 48-page Catalog Raisonne; a four color, 64-page 50-Year Retrospective Exhibition Catalog (including a color woodcut frontispiece); and the museum poster ROLLING SEA.....all personally signed by Carol Summers! Each of these items can also be acquired separately here at Peggity’s.