08 Nov Etching: The Practice of Alchemy and the Art of Collaboration, PART 2

After graduating from college, I was determined to keep learning the full scope of printmaking, both relief and intaglio techniques, old and new ways. I went to Scotland to attend a short course on “Innovative Intaglio” with Keith Howard. My hope in working with him was to find the missing piece that would make his inventions work. Alas, even experiments in his workshop failed. So, I left behind the world of polymer print innovations for historically proven techniques.

Before leaving the U.S. I arranged to make an apprenticeship in traditional stone lithography at Atelier Fleur de Pierre in Paris. Lithography had been eliminated at Evergreen because of toxicity and I naively thought that I could learn all I needed to know in a month. Despite the arrangement I had made with the Chef of the atelier, my arrival at the studio seemed to catch everyone by surprise. On my first visit I found the niece of the Chef, Clementine de Champfleury, tall, blond, and beautiful, standing at the front gate painting the old decorative iron cobalt blue. I timidly introduced myself in simple French and she responded in a confident, dramatized American drawl, “My name is Clementine!”

I was invited into the family run studio led by Jacques de Champfleury and his son Etienne. Etinne’s wife, Laurance and cousin, Clementine assisted. I was given a stone, a small space on a worktable, minimal instructions, and the use of an ancient, manual press. Working solo, I observed the dynamics between studio staff and artists and became curious about their activities, conversations, and jokes. Although they were polite, I sensed that they weren’t quite sure why I was there. Each day I was invited to join them at a long table for a communal meal. My offers to help prepare and contribute to the meal were usually declined or ignored.

Eventually it became clear to them that I wanted to help in the studio, not just work in solitude on a stone. However, summer was a slow time in the atelier so when there weren’t stones to grain, I volunteered to work side-by-side with Clementine, washing and painting walls and doors. Two young women working side by side on studio repairs earned us the nickname “Bricol Girls,” as in bricolage. The joke referred to a misogynistic French movie by that title from the late 1990s about sexy call girls who do construction.