Chemistry

I am an artist.  And I would call art a science (and receive a lot of support for that claim, no doubt), but I would not liken myself to a scientist.  Sure, my process may be scientific, and my methods are based within the firm constraints of physical science and chemistry, but to call me a scientist would be to give me too much credit for being aware of said scientific approach.

Over the last few years I’ve experimented with many chemicals in my printmaking.  Some were approved printmaking chemicals, some… not so much.  I’ve observed with a scientific eye the effects of many chemical interactions.  I’ve stored copious notes in my mind (perhaps I should write a few of the more successful ones down) on the results of pairing certain chemical compounds with certain solids, reconciling these reactions with my (if I do say so myself) not small knowledge of the physical properties of printmaking metals.

I can look at a plate and know with reasonable certainty the stiffness of ink necessary to draw the most clear image from it.  I can gauge the potency of an etching acid by taste (which isn’t hard, it simply requires a basic flaw in one’s sense of self-preservation).

I got into printmaking for many reasons:  I’ve an incurable affinity for bygone technology.  I like playing with positives and negatives in color and form.  I can fluidly work forwards and backwards (a lefty trait if there ever was one).  I find painting too immediate, but still tend to think in a two-dimensional aesthetic.

But, if my memory serves, the prospect of applied chemistry was not a ranking factor in my decision to pursue printmaking.  I barely scratched by with a “D” in high school chemistry.  I have a firm understanding of the physical and natural sciences, and the first chapter of the chemistry book, I’ve got that down.  But, like algebra, chemistry always flew right over my head.  I suppose it’s because I could not observe the chemical reactions on a molecular level (thereby truly ‘seeing’ the science), and I was just expected to take somebody’s word that an oxygen atom had just jumped off of one compound and joined another, and that’s why this beaker’s smoking.

Yet here I am.  Reading a college chemistry book for fun.  It’s truly one of the most extraordinary things that it took so long to figure out that we learn better when the desired knowledge is paired with something we enjoy.

Waitaminute!  We did know this!  We had oral tradition, we used music to teach our history, our legends, and our values for millennia.  That all ended with… let’s see… proliferation of the written word.  Yeah, that’s right.  And the major impetus behind that was… was… Crap.

It was the printing press.

Well played, irony.  Well played indeed.

So I’m no scientist.  I’ll never be a chemist.  Even if I use chemistry and a scientific method in my art.  I’m okay with that.  I’ve stumbled onto a few tricks that are paying dividends in my own printmaking in all my years of groping in the dark.

But what then am I?  Using scientific principles not for the sake of science, but to further my own happiness, perhaps bringing me wealth and fame?  Stumbling into the field of chemistry with no clear sense of direction in hopes of turning base metals into gold?  Using only the loosest understanding of physics in a vain attempt to make art that will allow me to live beyond my own finite years?

It would appear I am a Alchemist.  I can live with that.

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