… BUT, I had to learn to use THE MAC to stay with my original major,
I said to my art self,, it’s only a TOOL.
I am an Artist first… advertising design back then was a stable creative job.

I began showing my fine art in 1989.
I have worked in Advertising Agencies .. HELLO, back BEFORE PHOTOSHOP EVEN exsisted.
Hated being stuck behind a machine, so slow was every change..
I met DeBusk in 1991 & quit the agency to help with his Gallery and began to design his brochures,
t-shirts, ads in ART NEWS and ART IN AMERICA..
Sold the his art for his as well.. Art Expo, Tias Japan

After moving to Los Angeles, I was told about this NEW art publisher via Art News, I met with Dolgin and was hired imediately overseaing limited editions with the Iris..
But it bothered me.. selling them as “SIGNED LIMITED EDITIONS”

Knowing about computers and colors I oversaw the reproduction process for all the artist’s Dolgin published. The year was 1995.
He did not care that I had showed my original paintings in New York at Art Expo in 1994…only 6 months before
I ended up quitting Dolgin Fine Art..because he wasn’t paying for ads, nor the ARTISTS, on time.

The digital printing process was new.. digital printing inks were not that stable…
Giclee is not & was not a lithograph or screened process.. it didn’t require layers of screens,,,and tested inks,
Needed a professional 4×5 scanned on a High dollar drum scanner.. rgb, taken through Lab, then color corrected in CMYK..
matched to the original..
The IRIS printer printed each piece of the edition, one at a time, taking approx 30 mins. for each print to print.
Scans came in as RGB then had to be output as CMYK, and most studio’s used photoshop to adjust the curves.
Phil Lippincott actually wrote Color calibration software for color control from input to output within a Digital Network.
The paper or canvas also could cause color variations..
THE new ArtPRINT had longevity issues of inks fading unless UV protected, etc… intellectual property rights.. also a problem.
THE ART WORLD needed to intellectually address the “digital fine art print making process” seriously
..into the business of Art Marketing.

The Term “Giclee” was made by Jack Dugan, who is a cool guy who’s studio was over Main street in Santa Monica, down the street from a Gallery I delt with for DeBusk… Early 90′s Main St. was limited edition hotspot.
The rock stars came to the art openings…
Graham Nash’s studio was the most famous Giclee Printing Studio at the time I organized the seminar, they mainly reproducing old rock n roll photos as cepiatones on watercolor.

I loved ART, the ARTIST & the Art World.
The collector needed to KNOW it was a limited DIGITAL REPRODUCTION.. Giclee edition..standards of inks needed to be set, with seals of longevity approvals for the early giclee’s. to even be ethical to market.
A gallery selling the print might display it in a storefront window… poof magenta fades.

FOR THE LOVE OF ART, I organized the “Digital Art Revolution”seminar for Art Expo LA 1996.
I had a panel of all the digital “professional’s” + Sytex, Phil Lippincott a forefathers of Seybold, as well as some of the newer Giclee printshops such as HARVEST all spoke on the panel.
SYTEX loved me, because this seminar meant potential sales of another $80,000 IRIS printer..

The time I invested in the Art Market, for this seminar was a loss, However, I was mentioned on the front
Cover of ART BUSINESS NEWS Oct. 1996.. for organizing what was said to be the most “dynamic seminar” in the history of Art Expo..

IT REALLY IRRITATES ME.. that that My name isn’t in association with Giclee…
I received credits on the FRONT COVER of Art Business News in 1996, at ART EXPO, ..where is my online reference? For the work I DID FOR THE LOVE OF ART.

…all that publicity?? WHERE DID IT GO?

In this digital age.. ARTISTS have to be smart,
As Artists we need to KNOW & protect our rights..
Intellectual property is valuable, and it’s ours, Our time is worth MONEY.
Don’t release ANY designs print resolution, until you have been paid in full…or have a legal contract.
Know your rights and protect them….have a REALLY GOOD Lawyer.
Intellectual property laws have been made as technology progressed…
Unfortunately, the legal process isn’t really set up to protect the artist..

Fine Art is Fine Art..
Nothing compares to the luster of thick paint, or beautiful handmade paper.
Originals are still originals..
The Artist will always be the Artist.
Posters are Posters,
Reproductions are Reproductions..

I am a FEMALE Artist/designer/visionaire
I am Art Everything, because I had to be.
Paintings, drawings, furniture design, art direction of film, packaging, Advertising, Publishing,
Created my own cosmetic brand..
I own trademarks & know all about digital rights and intellectual property rights etc.
but I have had to learn about them the hard way.

DEAREST ART BUSINESS NEWS.. my 1996 DIGITAL ART REVOLUTION online credit please… THANKS.

Sincerely,
Sue Davis

I have become disabled fairly recently. I prefer to paint; I used to draw portraits. However, due to numerous back surgeries and spinal cord injuries, I am lucky to even move my arms or walk. Painting is almost impossible. I took a PRINTMAKING class a year ago at the local University and the weight and size of the presses was almost impossible. I completed the class and got a good grade. I have a great appreciation for those artists. Drawing or etching original work was simple, but the physical act of inking and rolling literally killed me. It was with great difficulty that I completed the class. The knowledge and craft was importnat to me, but came at great physical price.

While lying in bed, depressed and feeling totally helpless, I dsicovered Photoshop. I learned that I can create art through ditigal means. The instant color and ability to manipulate is exciting and immediately satisfying. For one in constant pain, this little bit of artistic creativity gives me some new sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. It is not what I’d prefer. I’d perfer a paintbrush and ladder, but I can’t do it. It does not make me less of an artist. I have had to adapt to my life situation. Is that not what life is all about? I thought I was done with art, but I found a new way taht I can do while my arms rest on my stomach on the laptop. Incredible. Talk about lifting the clouds of disability depression! You can’t imagine the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction I felt to be able to create something again. Isn’t that what art is all about? Expression of feelings and emotions through various means?

I don’t think any of you are saying that this form of art is not art. But I do believe that competitions that prohibit this type of art when they include all other types of painting, printmaking, etc. may be short sighted. Many do.

I have been told my work is good by many friends, so I thought I’d try to enter contests, shows etc. I recently discovered the term “no giclee prints.” Never having heard the term, I googled it, only to discover a whole line of people who say that my art is not really art. Then others say the art is art, it’s the # of print’s that’s the problem; then others say it’s the original signing or limiting of the prints that’s the problem. My head is spinning. Who gets to define the term? Which do I follow?

I understand the technical debate issue. I cannot physically move the press. Those who can are in an entirely different league. Yet, I am told my work has commercial value. As a recently disabled person, it was quite an exciting thought to think I might actually be able to make a living selling art work originally created as a form of pain management and distraction. I can get lost in a digital canvas for hours and realize that’s 5 more hours without r.x.

Art is in my blood. It is my passion. I would like to see some new terminology that is created to meet the ever changing technical abilities associated with computers and graphic imagry. Computers are here to stay. It is only logical that they would enter the art world. If the art world does not come to some concenus on this topic soon, definitions will continue to be created by Microsoft.

My daughter can create incredible graphic imagry; most teenagers can. It is not the same thing as what I’m doing, yet I cannot tell her that her cool cropping, editing and blurring is not ART. Her frieneds ask her to create their banners because she is artistic. I cant help but think my scoffing at her “art” is kind of how I feel about others scoffing at my “art” now.

One of my favorite artists of all time is a man named Romaire Bearden. I believe a majority of his work was cut and paste from newspaper and magazine prints. I also believe at the time he started to do this, there was a great outcry in the art world. It was not his original work… or is it? He personally inspires me.

However the experts come down on this new topic, I wish they would figure it out. It seems to me that new definitions and terms should be in order. I, for one, would not even object to terms like “Master Printmaking”, which infers exceptional ability on the part of the printmaker, as a whole new term.

Photoshop makes PRINTS. You cannot take that term away; it exists. The button “PRINT” has created a whole new definition. Photoshop does not “giclee”…. that is a very small term coined by a very small part of the world’s population now. Unfortunate, true, but Microsoft says “Print”.

I, personally, felt sad to see a little *sign — “no giclee prints” after I mounted work to send for a competition and googled the word. It’s confusing for one who simply loves to create with color. I think my work is art. I just dont know how to classify it now, and I feel somewhat intimiated by this discussion, as I know that this is a physically inferior to actual printmaking or oilpainting a landscape…. yet perhaps not mentally inferior…. it’s all my selection of color, placement, angle, size, etc. That’s art, not graphics.

Entering philosophical discsusion now. I look forward to clarification!

Hannah

I’m a fine art photographer and I can guarantee you that the prints I produce are fine art prints. These prints are produced for the most part on an HP Z3100 digital printer. I market them as “Digital Pigment Prints” and certainly NOT as “giclee” prints. (The term has lost all meaning to begin with since it’s consistently misused.) Just because I utilize a modern matrix (digital) it doesn’t mean that my prints are any less “valuable” than those pulled as screen prints, lithographs, mezotints, ets. It DOES mean that I use a different medium.

In my specific case many of my prints are indeed “hand pulled” when I utilize a pigment transfer process. This can’t be done mechanically of course and so therefore qualifies as a “hand pulled print”, by my definition at least. Is this print disqualified because I used a computer as a small part of the process? If so I suggest that any definition excluding modern technology is antiquated then.

I fully sympathize with traditional fine art printmakers. I’m one myself. But I also pride myself in being innovative and incorporating new techniques and processes in my work to enhance the experience of the art lover/client.

Martha makes a fine and valid point above. And no, we’re not related that I know of so I don’t have a vested interest in supporting her view. lol The links she provides are more than ample proof to me that ART is being created and shown by the involved parties. Is it any better because of the medium used or the process employed? Hell no. There’s an old saying among photographers: “You sepia tone a bad print…resulting in a bad print that’s been sepia toned.” The process doesn’t change the fact that it’s still good or bad art. ONLY the artist can do that.

This seems to me to be the crux of this entire discussion. If the art isn’t any good, it doesn’t matter what it’s called. To paraphrase — a print is a print is a print. Only the quality of art it displays is of any importance. The process is a means to the end only.

Audrey Feltham

It would be nice if the giclee people would admit to making reproductions, but I doubt they ever will. And this issue predates digital. I confess with shame to having signed a “limited edition” offset poster of one of my prints in my youth.

About Andy’s comments above: they are very funny and to the point. I would like to note, however, that original fine art is also being made digitally. Please visit my web site http://www.marthavista.com or Dot Krause’s http://www.dotkrause.com for examples.

Giclee (or ejaculate) we cognicenti all know is a fancy word for INK JET PRINT. Audrey above makes the most telling point – it is galleries, not so much the artists, who have foisted this new art form on their buying public, replacing the ‘offset litho’ as the preferred low cost/high return object de art to sell to unwitting customers.

And I’m sure bona fide painters, in another parallel webworld, are this minute sounding off on an internet forum about the proliferation of cheap knockoff ‘real oil paintings’ mass produced in some 3rd world art factory and sold on street corners or hotel lobbies throughout the civilized world.

My point? The same reasons that make Walmart so successful drive the mass proliferation of reproduction digital art. People are generally stupid…make that ignorant…of the process that makes the product they want to buy. In too many cases, they just don’t care. Why should they? Consumerism doesn’t place a high value on knowledge, craft, or quality.

They want it cheap, yet with perceived value. A limited edition print, complete with a certificate (“It’s real art Martha, it says so right here”) the giclee gives them that.

They want it to match the couch. (“my goodness Martha, it looks just like a photograph”)

They want it to go up in value and make them rich, just like the art snobs in the mansions. (“this is a Limited Edition Giclee Martha, not one of your friend’s little paintings. My friend Bob bought one by this artist for $300 and another one just like it sold for over $3000 on ebay….)

We (I) can make fun of those uninformed art buyers all we want, but lets face it. By being in the print game, we selected an art category that was originally set up and continues to be the poor person’s entry point into fine art ownership. Nobody is paying 10 million dollars for a print of a shark in formaldahyde in a tank. And ‘print’, even though you/we fine art people want to ignore it to the detriment of the entire field, is still and always will be joined at the hip with commercial printing applications. So the general public doesn’t quite get it when you start splitting hairs. And the commercial side just laugh as they make bank. And fine artists who never cared for the limitations of converting their art for a traditional print run flock – no, they stampede – to giclee because they don’t need to do a damn thing and the print looks exactly like their original. So why would they give a rat’s ass whether google differentiates between a hand pulled limited edition print and a limited editon print. they are selling their art.

In other words, if you got into this to get rich, well, I think that should be a required course at art school – reality 101…

So stop whining, keep producing, keep getting better, keep exploring new ground. market yourself, market your product. Stop treating and teaching print as some half dead archaic form…..

Giclee and digital printing may be here to stay, or not – in my other life, as a commercial screenprinter, writer, and member of the Academy of Screen Printing Technology, I’ve seen it take out wide swaths of traditional screenprinting production since it’s introduction around 1995. But with this relatively quick takeover (large format full colour work, short run full colour, display graphics, short run textiles, etc) in just 13 years, comes the growing realization it is not the end-all be-all, that certain areas it cannot compete, that issues with quality and longevity remain, that it is not the ‘single print solution’ that it is sold as, and that with the technology comes high cost and high maintenence, and 3 year obsolescence cycles. We predict that many of the upstart companies that have invested heavily in digital will price themselves and their competitors out of business. the companies that use it in conjunction with screenprinting and offset will continue to grow and survive.

We screenprinters embrace certain parts of the digital workflow without question – computers and inkjet printers have made the preparation of artwork and film so much easier and more precise and AFFORDABLE.

the trick is to take the best and evolve your work.

I think it all comes down to the local printmaker, within their circle. You have to value your process, and get it out to ever increasing amounts of people. Take the time to explain or demonstrate the process. Above all, produce the best work you can.

OK I got to go. Take care Mike. Printmakers, it will come back around. The best solution is to make work that digital can’t.

note 1: I do these things called ‘flatstocks’ with the members of the American Poster Institute – these are the gigposter artist I was talking about. We get together with 100 or so of our members and put on shows. almost 95% of the attendees use screenprinting for the posters. the noobs that show up with digital prints quickly figure out that they don’t sell. this may not be ‘fine art’, but it sure is people art. And it is spawning a resurgence and interest in screenprinting amongst young designers and artists like you wouldn’t believe. this is refelcted in University and college screenprinting courses – most teachers I surveyed in an article I wrote for Screenprinting Magazine – ‘I ain’t no fool I’m going to school’ report line-ups for signup.