“Everyone” is an artist..”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPnGPIMUnus

want to see more amusing music video rubbish? click here…

for those that would prefer to see work of quality there is plenty on offer at www.youtube.com/offcuts on the video log enjoy…

After moving into their new home in Crowborough, east Sussex, my parents had inherited a printer’s block. This block portrayed the exterior of their new house. My father wanted to have the block printed. Where did one go to have such things done he enquired of his gardener? His gardener (who incidentally, was given more to multiple cups of tea, and frequent fag breaks, than something so laborious as actively gardening.) suggested an artist friend of his that may be able to help.

So off my father traipsed to the artists’ far-flung studio in Stonegate. There were a number of canvases stacked around the space, mainly unfinished nudes. On looking at the block the artist said that yes he could recreate the image. However, it was likely to be very costly. My father had by this point, told the artist that he had a daughter in London. The artist suggested that it would be far more sensible, and straightforward, to pass the task on to me. There were loads of printers in London, it would be easy enough to take the block to a print shop, any print shop, and have it done. And this is how I entered the story…

My father gave me the block over a lunch date one day. He told me the story of the artist and his studio. I looked the block over. I had never seen one before. It looked for all practical purposes to me like a stamp. (As in the kind one dabs on an inkpad and then approves or rejects things with). I said I would get it sorted. Inwardly though, I wasn’t entirely certain where I could get it sorted. I did deal with quite a few printers, but they all used digital presses. I really was quite unsure where I would find a place that had printing presses from before the digital age.

Days passed, weeks passed, months passed. I was on another lunch date with my father. How was I getting on with the block? Had I found somewhere that could print it? Not yet, but I was on the case I assured him. And I sort of was. The weekend before I was strolling along the antiques arcade in angel, and had spotted a man selling small stamps, and stamp pads. They looked suspiciously like the printers block I had been carrying around. Of course, due to Sod’s law, this was the day I had taken the block out of my bag. I explained my quandary to him. Was he the man who could print this block for me? Without seeing it, he couldn’t promise anything, but agreed to try the following weekend if I came back.

By this point, it was getting closer and closer to my father’s birthday. I had to get these prints done before then. I had convinced myself that getting the prints would be as straight forward as taking the block and some nice paper to the man in the antiques market, walking away with the prints a few moments later. Of course it could not be that easy. On the Saturday before my father’s birthday, I visited the man in the market and showed him the block. He was very impressed with it, So much so, I was even a little weary of him not giving it back to me.

“Lovely block that is”
He paused “ Not sure what I can do though, awful lot of detail, you should take this to a printers really… something like this needs a lot of pressure on it…. I’ll give it a go though” Gingerly he shined up the iron of the image, rolled his roller full of ink and then rolled over the block. He pressed hard on white paper bag, counted softly to himself and then removed the block. And with an almost audible intake of breath I leaned forward to see the result… the result was.

Well…

It kind of looked more like one of those Rorschach inkblot tests, than my parent’s house. I must have been noticeably disappointed. The man was very apologetic. He folded up the smudged image he had printed for me, and slipped it, and the block, into my bag.

The next morning at work I briefly researched central London printers. I didn’t know how to tell which ones would have the press I was after. It didn’t seem to be something that came up under services. In the end I called the one that had art deco font in its logo, and a by-line saying it had been running for a great many years.

A friendly sounding chap named Tom answered the phone. I explained that I had this printer’s block, probably from the thirties (I guessed this judging from the age of the house) and was at my wits end as to where I could get it printed. Could he help me? I was surprised when he said I could come down that afternoon, but once again I had left the house without the block. I said I would come by at lunchtime the next day

When I pressed the buzzer the next day at the grey windows of the address he had given me, a gruff man who acted as if I had interrupted him greeted me. I asked for Tom and he grudgingly held the door open for me to come in. After shouting out various windows at various people to find tom, he concluded that he must be on lunch and I should come back. I explained I couldn’t’ come back as I was on lunch. I was patiently persistent, and painfully polite. Finally he wore down. I showed him the block and asked him to give it to Tom. Please would he call me back when he was in? As promised hours later tom called me. He had run off four prints. He apologised that I couldn’t pick them up immediately, but explained that due to the nature of the printing, the ink had to be left to dry for a couple hours.

I showed up at the end of the day to collect the prints. I had legged it to get there before closing and had just about made it. Tom was the last in the office, waiting for me. I saw a few of his colleagues walk out the back door. Tom was clearly the oldest in the office. I guessed that he may be the only one who knew how an old fashioned printing press worked. After paying for the prints I was about to leave, but then he asked me if I would like to see the press itself.  I was genuinely curious and so followed him down some winding stairs to where all the printers where. Beyond an army of massive digital presses, all frenetically printing at great speed was one dusty old-fashioned printing press. It looked like a wind up tin toy in a room full of high tech robots. Tom showed me how it worked. He clearly took great pride in it. I remarked that it looked like one of the presses one sees in 40’s films, with montage sequences of newspapers flying out on conveyor belts. He seemed to like that.

On riding the bus home with the prints, my success at acquiring them faded. I now hazily recalled my father also saying he had wanted the cat in the picture, to be changed to a rabbit. This was because my parents had no cat, but they had had the garden terrorised by bunnies. Time to put my skills with the artists’ software photo shop, to work. At home I sat my girlfriend, looking up various woodcut pictures of bunny rabbits online. I selected a few and emailed them to myself.

At the end of the following day I imported the bunny pictures, and the scanned print of the house. I found the bunny that matched the style of the picture best, and then set about resizing it. I asked the storyboard supervisor at work for his advice on perspective. Did I need to scale the bunny down or up? He was happy with the size but less convinced by the placing. We moved it to his satisfaction and then were joined by the production manager. She paused before saying
“That’s nice… have you cut and pasted the bunny in?”

I was disappointed she could see through my visual trickery.
“What it needs is some drop shadows around the bunny .a little more shading. “
The storyboard supervisor then roped in our background designer. He explained what needed to be done. As the background designer was also a mate, he was happy to help. It didn’t hurt that he loved the image, I told him to keep a copy.
Within minutes I had the final doctored version.

I took my new, (and enlarged on the company a3 printer) print to
John Lewis. After settling on the frame the salesperson seemed to be staring at my print for a very long time. She was from Crowborough. She recognized the image. She asked if this house was near the warren. She called over her colleague, who turned out to be from Wadhurst, a nearby village where my aunt lived. They had both been to the best beech, (the pub and inn my aunt and her boyfriend used to run.) on numerous occasions. We happily bonded about the pub and the village.

And here I am today with the frame wrapped and ready to go.

A lot of story for a simple present. if you want to see it properly, click on the picture below…