private collection Seattle, WA
Portrait of the artist Madeline Cass. Madeline was my studio assistant 2012-2013.
“Madz” is another in a series of images composed of code-generated spirals whose number of wraps is related to the average value (lightness/darkness) of a corresponding area in a reference image. I wrote the initial version of the current state of my code in 2018 and continue to change/edit/modify it frequently because I want new or different capabilities. I’ve been using MS Visual Studio for coding since around 2003, maybe.
I’ve modified the “Spiral Image Generator” MANY times since I first wrote it. I don’t keep earlier versions, so the code kind of matures organically. I tried to describe my early spiral image process on my web site.
The Madz print is from four blocks printed in order: Gray, Yellow, Red, Blue from least transparent to most transparent pigment. I designed each color/block so that the spirals were cut away from each block (the opposite of my “Linda in Black” mokuhanga. This radical and not-obvious (to me) idea was to allow the uncarved areas of each block to appear through the cut-away areas of the other blocks while the overlapped printing areas could interact to produce additional (secondary) colors (orange, purple, green, plus several browns and blacks). In this and other prints made in 2023, I varied the weight of each spiral from start point to end point so the average density of each spiral remained but the line thickness changed from thicker to thinner.
I generated and re-generated spiral designs for each block, adjusting the spiral diameters, densities, line widths and shapes until the result appealed to me. In the block plans mocked up below, the white areas have been ‘carved away’ and the blocks ‘brushed up’ with the colors they print.
