Bill Ritchie's art in Washington State
in
the
Selections from the Lynda Ritchie Collection
She shares her collection with her family
Awazu Kyoshi Posters - The 1st Tokyo Art Festival, 1975
"Sweet Target Hearts No. 12"
Provenance: 1976. Mixed media work, (lithograph, intaglio, relief, chine-colle). Gray, brown, orange, black, ochre, yellow. Image(s) 19 1/2 X 14 3/4 in. each on 29 1/2 X 42 in. Arches Cover. Signed lower right, "A/P To Lynda." Collections also of Billie Jane Bryan, Nellie Sunderland, Sam Davidson, The Evergreen State College and others. Exhibited at Northwest Printmakers, Anacortes and Everett Art Festivals.
Comment: One of the best-documented prints I did in terms of keeping notes--available on the Web--because it bridge the time in 1975-1976 that I made my first trip from Seattle to Japan and back. This trip--or bridge--served me in ways similar to my old heroes of the Northwest School, the painters Graves, Toby and their kind. The name comes from a strange source--cartoons and pop music!
Two drawings on lithograph stones that started out to be a continuation of the Target Heart Series (I had one about five before) but then I got something like "writer's block." I was in a dilemma as to what to do until I went to Japan and discovered it is "all right" to repeat myself in my art and craft. I wrote an essay about, too. C. T. Chew helped me through it.
It was hard to list this as a "lithograph" when I wrote down the methods I used to make this print. I settled on the drawings on stone because they got the thing started. Then I added and added and added to my plates--even got C. T. Chew to add his collagraphs! -- until they came together as you see them now. The making of the Sweet Target Heart suite of prints spans almost a year in which one of my biggest dilemmas seemed to reach resolution. That was what I call the dilemma of redundant art. Then again, I am not sure.
"Hangdown Target "
Provenance: 1969 Intaglio print, Impression Red, silver, ochre on natural buff paper chine colle'd. Image 8 3/4" X 12" on 12 1/2" X 16" Arches Cover. A/P Lynda. Signed lower right. See also Kathy Rabel and Jundt Art Museum Collections
Comment: "I'd made a series of targets and reflections, and it was the first year I started my video art period. About this time I acquired a lining tool (AKA 'liner') that made tiny, evenly spaced lines that reminded me of video raster lines. I also was perfecting the KPR photo-etching process. Last, I got a can of silver ink from Dan Smith. Chine colle I had learned from Stephen Hazel. All these things combined to yield my 'Hangdown Target.'"
"Target Heart I"
Provenance: 1971. Lithograph drawn on stone. Printed light green solid background and black image, 9 5/8 X 12 5/8 in on 12 5/8 X 15 1/4 in Van Gelder Zonen natural buff. A/P.
Comment: The crayon manner of drawing lithographs is an antique approach to the art of lithography on stone, and it is a great way to contemplate and entertain oneself through inner dialogs. The placid water in which my imaginary target is half-submerged equals my state of mind when I draw this way, or, similarly, with silverpoint. Target I was the first in its series. Several followed and theyl started with the crayon manner. I built strong easels for the stones-- weighing up to 100 pounds each--to be like a drawing or painting surface.
"My Father's Farm"
Provenance: Print. Intaglio and relief from etched zinc plate printed in thalo green w/black, blue and yellow. Image 16 1/4 X 22 3/4 in on 20 3/4 X 29 3/4 in Arches Cover. Signed lower right A/P "for Lynda." See this work also in the Gloria Abbenhouse, Lee Altman, Jocelyn Curry & Rick Asher, Dr. Charles McCann, Kay Pruvich, and Kathryn Sharpe Collections, as well as the Everett Public Libary and the Seattle Juvenile Center.
Comment: My Father's Farm is named for the real thing, inthe Yakima Valley, where we used siphon hoses for irrigation. Those bright, early mornings were just a memory when I made this print, and when I made this print I was in a very different environment, indeed! I composed the image from a video photograph made in the first "video art" experiments, using film of a sunrise over the Cascades and a drawing of the same title.
"Bridge's Heart 7"
Exhibitions and Awards: Puyallup Art Exhibition, "Best in Show," juried by Gervais Reid, et. al., September, 1973. Puyallup WA; Lubbock Invitational, Purchase Prize (State Proof), 1973. Lubbock, TX; Philadelphia Print Club Open Competition. Stewart M. Egnal Prize Purchase Award. Sylvan Cole, Andrew Stasik, Janet Flint, jurors. 1973. Philadelphia PA; Jane Haslem Gallery, 1974. Washington, DC.; National Print Invitational , Georgia Southern College, 1973, Statesboro, GA; 20th Annual Print Exhibition, 1973, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; 1st Annual Images on Paper, Purchase Award. Feb-Mar, 1973. Springfield Art Association, Springfield, IL
Comment: "The Henry Gallery Association wanted new members and, as an incentive to join, offered a print. Commissioned to produce the print, I was excited and worked hard, eager to please. It went badly. The harder I worked the uglier the print became. I made plates and pulled many states. Finally I threw out the design entirely. Then it came all at once! A lithograph, from a different series, and using corduroy and soft ground to get the effect of raster lines (from my video work) made for an entirely new direction. Things fell into place and “Bridges Heart” was one of my most successful prints. It’s the only print of mine that the Henry Gallery has in its permanent collection."
Trial Proof, State 10, similar to Lynda's print
"Collection III"
Provenance: Print. Intaglio. Intaglio, etching, aquatint & engraving on 1 copper and one zine plate, burnt sienna, black, red, ochres. Image 19 1/4 X 17 3/4 inches on 24 X 22 3/4 in Rives BFK. Signed lower right, A/P for Lynda. Also in the collections of Patricia Austin, Billie Jane Bryan, Don Marshall, Dr. Charles McCann, the University of Washington, Kobe Art Museum (Japan), Reino Randall Estate, Nellie Sunderland, The Evergreen State College; Trippe Collection, Rob Walker, Constance Speth and others.
Exhibitions: Collection III: Part of the Children’s Game was exhibited in the National Print and Drawing Exhibition at Western Illinois University, Macomb (1970); Invitational Group Exhibition, Dick White Gallery, Seattle; 40th International Print Exhibition, Seattle Art Museum; National Print Exhibition, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA (1969); National Print Exhibition, State University College, Potsdam, NY; Invitational Print Exhibition, University of Kentucky (1971); Invitational Traveling Print Exhibition, Kobe, Japan and Washington State (1970-71); National Print Exhibition, Honolulu, Hawaii; Invitational Print Exhibition, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay (1971); Seattle Art Museum’s Rentaloft.
Comment: “Over the course of about a year, this print incorporated states of mind I was going through in 1967-68, the animal creature and finally ‘planting’ the tree symbolically on the horizon. I introduced a fascinating game structure, like a playing field. ‘The Children's Game’ refers to the naïveté and the fun of game-play. But there is a sense of foreboding: the games children play can lead to games that adults play and not always in the best interest of human kind. This time was during the Viet Nam conflict. I saw the tree driving along the north side of Lake Union to my UW job. I became fond of it as it was solitary, growing on the brow of a hillock. I had photographed it and incorporated it into this print (which was my first photo-etching). Then, one day, driving by, I saw it ripped out of its place and thrown on a pile of dirt in the back of a dump truck to be hauled away to make room for a condo.” – Bill Ritchie
Active and passive sides of Legacy Mini Halfwood Press No. 1
"Legacy Mini Halfwood Press"
Specifications: 2004. Legacy Mini Halfwood Press. Serial No. 60001. Specifications: Rollers are 1.5 x 6 and 5.5 inches top and bottom. The bed is 1/4 x 6 x 17.5 inch polycarbonate (the standard) plus a brass bed, same size; overall length is 17.5 inches; overall width is 9 inches; overall height is 10 inches; weight, about 12 lbs; drive wheel is 8 inches diameter in stainless steel. Wood is recycled wood, veneer over particle board, with Ipe cladding the steel. The press includes a clock, a music box that plays Pachelbel's Canon in D, and a 10 Gb flasth memory drive concealed underneath the bed. This is the first Mini Halfwood built by Tom Kughler and Bill Ritchie.
Comment: This is the first Mini Halfwood, made by Tom Kughler and I in the spring and summer of 2004. I used it regularly from then to the time of this writing, sprint of 2013. Lynda and I traveled with it as far as Kansas, and showed in in numerous art fairs and sidewalk festivals around Seattle and outlying communties, art supply store, back rooms of bookstores, coffee shops, parking lots, and on sailboats, too. It figures in my novel, "Rembrandt's Ghost in the New Machine."
Printmaker's Chest for Mini Halfwood Press No. 1
(the brass bed was sold to another owner).
"My Father's Farm from the Moon"
Specifications: Print. 1974 - 1976. Intaglio, relief, chine-colle. Black, purple, gradation of orange, blue. Yellow, red ochre and burnt sienna. Ochre watercolor on Asian paper chine-colle'd on . Image size 38 X 27 1/2-inches on 42 X 32-inches Arches white cover paper. Printed from etched zinc plates and cut circuit board plastic, puzzle-pieced together. Un-numbered green variation indicated as T/P. Signed lower right.
Comment: The title is partly from My Father's Farm series and my video art. The inspiration came from the Lunch with Terry Riley video. C.T. Chew helped and wrote the accompanying song. The plates took two years to complete and many states existed before this one.
Exhibited: Exhibited and winner of awards in regional shows in Anacortes, Bellevue, Everett and Puyallup, WA; One-Man Show, Kiku Gallery, Seattle; 1st Editions Graphics Project, Oregon; Baltimore Museum of Art Print Club, MD; Brooklyn Print Exhibition, NY; National Print Invitational, Georgia Southern College, Statesboro, GA.
Note: the actual print in the Lynda Ritchie collection
is not available for photo at this time
.
"Little Spaceship Crash"
Provenance: 1977. Print. Intaglio, relief, stencil, litho. Colors uncertain at this writing but may have been ochre, red, blue, black, gray. Image 12 X 9 in on 15 X 11 3/4 in Van Gelder Zonen (natural, buff) paper. No. 1/35. Signed lower right.
Comment: Spanning two years of development and about 75 impressions, Little Spaceship Crash was the seed for a larger work. These came out of the movie, Planet of the Apes. I like to tell the story about the path flown by the helicopter filming it, and then my entry into computers graphics and how I learned the X-Y-Z of IT. This print was test of methods I would need for a larger version, then the tests resulted in an edition that stood on its own.
Institutions and corporate collections: Art Planning Consultants, New York, NY; Baker University, Baldwin, KS; Landau/Alexander Gallery, Los Angeles CA;Oregon Arts Commission; Bill Mally Collection, University of Washington IMS, Seattle, WA; Norton Building, Seattle, WA; Teller Training Institute, Seattle, WA; United Pacific Reliance Corporation, CA; USIA Tokyo, Japan.
Exhibitions: Anne Hughes Gallery, Portland, OR; Davidson Galleries, Seattle (where it won an award), WA; DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA; Impressions Gallery, Boston, MA; Kiku Gallery, Seattle, WA; Silvermine Guild of Arts, New Canaan, CT; US Information Agency, Tokyo Japan; Visual Arts Center, Anchorage, AK
(Placeholder - this is not Lynda's print)
"Locus and Sea Squares "
Provenance: Print from a variable edition of 141. Printed with intaglio inks from a lacquered copper plate on distressed paper chine-colle'd to fine rag paper .
Comment: This print is from a series of 141 trial proofs and artist's proofs in "cycles" of approximately 15 each, of different color series. They are proofs which I made in the processes of cyanotype, woodcut, and intaglio techniques. The result is a series of monotypes. The images derive from three sources: The map is based on the Colorado River, a vicinity known once as the Crossing of the Fathers; the leaf-like shape I call locus--the path of a moving point (I drew these to help establish data for use in a computer program). The Great Wave was drawn to resemble the famous print by Hokusai. Besides the pleasure of meeting people who want to take this print into their personal collections, I have shown the print numerous times and it has given me many rewards, nationally & regionally.
Click here to see the process of Bill printing this print
and the printed transcript by selecting: Transcript
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