Snapshot In Time: In 1999, when MILLENNIUM was being created, we were partying like it was 1999!

Art Smart Fact: In the majority of his woodcut prints, Summers makes the blocks slightly larger than the paper so the image and color will bleed off the edge. Before printing, he centers a large, dry sheet of mulberry paper over the top of the cut wood block or blocks, securing it with giant clips. This is the same kind of paper used for Japanese woodblock prints. Then he rolls the ink directly on the front of the sheet of paper pressing down as he rolls onto the dry woodblock or reassembled group of blocks as is the case with the woodblock printing of MILLENNIUM.

Summers is technically very proficient; the inks are thoroughly saturated onto the surface of the paper but they do not run into each other. The precision of his color inking has been referred to in several text and woodcut printmaking handbooks. Summers refers to his own woodblock printing technique as “rubbing”. In traditional woodcut printing the ink is applied directly onto the block not the paper. However, by developing his own method, Summers has avoided the mirror-reversed image of a conventional print and it has given him the control over the precise amount of ink that he wants on the 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 softening the shapes and diffusing and muting the colors. This produces a unique glow that is a hallmark of Summers' woodblock prints. Unlike the works of other color field artists or modernist printmakers of the mid-20th century, this technique made Summers’ extreme simplification and flat color areas anything but hard-edged or coldly impersonal. By the time he created MILLENNIUM, Carol Summers had developed a personal way of coloring and printing and was not afraid of hard work, doing the cutting, inking and pulling himself, even at the age of 74 years.

About The Art: While this little jewel might depict a river valley from many places, one art historian noted that its appeal lies our respect and fondness for the vastness of the entire American landscape. Technically, according to Summers, this was one of the most difficult woodblocks he ever created. In the early stages Summers tried two larger versions but decided having a “smaller but bigger” landscape gave it the drama the turn of the millennium deserved. Despite its size and relative simplicity, this woodcut took an inordinate amount of time to complete....a lot of separate blocks and adjacent edges of different colors all printed on a miniature plane.

Note: With the purchase of any of the original Carol Summers woodcut prints at Peggity's you will receive free a four-color, 48-page Catalog Raisonne; and a four color, 64-page 50-Year Retrospective Exhibition Catalog (including a color woodblockt 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.