Text Box: Why Bill Ritchie started his ‘Zines Ever wonder, “What happens to the life work of professors after they are retired and gone from campus? Does it matter?” Remember in the movie, “About Schmidt,” when old man Schmidt (played by Jack Nicholson) retired from insurance sales, and he boxed his unfinished ideas that he wanted to transfer, and told the new director of marketing? But, soon afterwards, he happened to see his files in a storage bay, ready to be hauled away. Where they were going? The recycler? The landfill? Or, which was the least likely, to an archiving service? In such a facility, perhaps the pages would be scanned and indexed for later research. Ha! Yet, if that were a practice in the insurance business, you might wonder what gems of ideas might the newcomers to the company find—ideas that were ahead of their time. Suppose, for example, Schmidt had seen the future of insurance sales methods, such as those used by Geico today? Is it conceivable that with Schmidt’s years of experience he might help the company? The film was not about best business practices, however; and this essay—based partly on Bill Ritchie’s academic life—is not about business at all. His story is about art and the technologies that artists use for printing. Bill Ritchie was hired to teach printmaking at the University of Washington in Seattle, one of the nation’s leading research universities. Bill took the research aspect of his job description quite seriously. He not only taught the usual curriculum accepted all over the US, but delved deeply into the history of the art and craft of printmaking. The results of his global research were not appreciated at the UW art school, which is a conservative school. The connection between printmaking and new media technologies was unsettling to the painting faculty—akin to transforming printmaking into something entirely new. Bill left the school in 1985, but he was greatly concerned because his research would be of no interest to the printmakers off campus. On campus, printmaking is treated as a property of painters, a graphic extension of fine art painting and a commercial platform. Being an avid journalist, Bill continued writing about his findings. Bill had lessons in interactive computing and networking in the last few years that he taught, and won a grant to buy an Apple II+. Computers had been the pinnacle of his work, and he learned how artists can use computer graphics and use computers to edit videos. He made layouts and designs for books, posters, art catalogs and ‘Zines. Video games were being invented and sold when Bill left school. Ten years later the World Wide Web was available to the public. Immediately upon retirement, he bought computers for his work. Still, access to the global higher education community was closed to him. He now a mere “civilian” outsider. A generation on campus (and begun at a young, impressionable age of 25) made Bill into a kind of misfit—unfit for teaching printmaking in a conservative art school, and unfit for the business world. It is in a world between two worlds—the world that is dying, and a world that is being born—that Bill lives to this day. Fifty years in the arts and teaching—writing on an almost daily basis—yielded thousands of essays on every imaginable topic related to fine arts, new technologies, humanities, entertainment, philosophy, creativity and economics. These are a few of the subjects Bill thinks about and, in some instances, has acted upon. By the time he reached the age of 70, he knew he had to do something so that would not allow that all these things would be lost—the way old Schmidt saw his boxes of files were discarded. Back in the late 1970s, when Bill got his first computer, he decided that the way to give longevity to his ideas—short of finding a book publisher—was to keep a database he calls “’Zines.”

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Printmaking Objects

How many objects are there?

Seeking a way to teach printmaking online, this professor arrives at the question most beginning printmakers encounter: What are the tools and equipment needed for making traditional fine art prints? He uses a musician’s computer game as an idea to teach. Read 441 Words

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Closet Musician

Let the music be heard in a printmaking world

He postulated there is a connection between printmaking and music. In printmaking you make plates and print them repeatedly. In music you write the score, or improvise, and do this over and over. A good game needs music, and he finds an idea how to do it. Read 791 Words

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Gone Away II

The sequel

At a beach town in Oregon the artist thinks back to an early impression of what a 19th Century painter, Henri Matisse, said about painting, that a good painting is like an easy chair for the tired business man to come home to for relaxation. He disagrees. 690 Words

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Time Was

When students paid a lot to hear me

In a nostalgic mood, the old professor reflects on a time when he was at the peak of his career when students paid a high price to hear and see him teaching. Considering this, what do students get today for their money, paying a lot more for someone else? 1286 Words

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Key Concepts of Ritchie Mined

A dummies review

Reading “Trading Card Games for Dummies,” the author extracts some concepts for publishing, as a Kindle book, abstracts of his journals and musings. He’s envisioning a game form of collectibles: three-thousand essays and four-hundred Artist Trading Cards. 1367 Words

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Domain Card

Anatomy of a basic ATC card in Printmaking Camp

The four cornerstones in the hybrid learning printmaking online game are Teaching, Practice, Research and Service, and the Domain Cards can be used in all four. The inventor shows the anatomy of a Domain card in this essay, which includes an illustration. 900 Words

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Dusty in Trouble

Notes on a character

The author is on a team working on a multimedia project, and he’s challenged to write an explanation for the trouble pitted against one of the characters in the back story. The character is a retired art professor who got himself trapped in velvet prison. 962 Words

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Silitransfer and About Edition Numbers

Printmaking workshop and the importance of edition numbers

The author writes about his vision of a printmaking workshop in which he plans to teach intaglio printmaking with his silitransfer method. He also writes about his view of the history, the purpose and the invention of edition numbers for printed artworks. 754 Words

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Moment Numbers

What about edition numbers?

In email I got a message from someone asking the question, “What about edition numbers?” which gave me an opportunity to explain my idea for a better way to document and qualify original handmade prints. “Qualify” in this sense, takes on a double meaning. 724 Words

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Method of Play

How ‘Zines work in the game

The author writes about creating ‘Zine index numbers and the rules that apply. The purpose of the ‘Zines is to draw from the unique backgrounds and perspectives of an individual teacher. He also writes his justification for a spectrum of ‘Zines and games. 896 Words

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Defining Gamification of Art Education

Using game strategies for TRPS

Art education is less than a hundred years old in the fields of formal education. Today it is a mature professional field, taught in colleges and universities throughout the USA. It seems to be stagnating when it should be renewing itself technologically. 600 Words

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Equipoise

Reflections

You wonder if it’s a good idea or a bad idea to reflect on the past and review what people are doing today differently from what you are doing now. You wonder what you are doing! Is the world so small, or is the world truly very large? It makes you think. 362 Words
Text Box: 2010 Legacy Mini Halfwood Press #89 If this were a real online magazine, this would be a typical advertisement, or, as it is here, a patron appreciate box. This Legacy Mini Halfwood Press belongs to Warren Ralls, in Surrey, England. Warren was the first to build his own Legacy Mini Halfwood press at Bill Ritchie’s Halfwood Press Workshop in Seattle. Working side-by-side over a four-day period, Warren and Bill not only completed presses, they also laid a long term plan to build Halfwood Presses in England. Today, Warren shows his progress on his Website. (pending update). On Warren’s Web page among Bill Ritchie’s patrons, you can learn more about Warren and see the sample from his etching work like the one below, “Broc and the Oak.”
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