Digital Printing Price List
Q: What draws artists to Magnolia?
A: Since 1981 artists have come to Magnolia's studio in Oakland, California, to explore a full range of printmaking techniques and to work collaboratively in an experiment-friendly environment. In particular, although we continue to explore traditional printmaking, the staff of artists at Magnolia is especially devoted to developing and playing with new technologies.
Many artists, therefore, come for our pigment-based electronic printing facilities and for the electronic expertise and innovations of artist Donald Farnsworth. Our current work with tapestries is an outgrowth from a collaboration with John Nava for his commission for the new Cathedral of Our Lady of Los Angeles. The technology that we developed for Nava's piece has become a project on its own, one that has attracted artists from around the country.
Q: What role does Magnolia play in the creation of the tapestries for the Magnolia Tapestry Project? Are the tapestries woven in-house?
A: Working with the weavers, we begin by selecting the 8 or 10 weft threads (color, composition and weight). These threads are woven in all accessible combinations to create over 3,000 possible color swatches. We then select a minimum of 250 colors (and a maximum of 510 colors) that will make up the weaving palette(s) from those available swatches. Using a computer and spectrometer, we create and organize an electronic lookup table based on the weave structure and color of the swatches. Next, we develop a digital weave file that, when woven, tests the accuracy of our projected set of colors. Once an accurate color table is achieved, we can prepare an electronic weave file of the actual image to be editioned. Working with the artist, we translate an image (or multiple collaged images) into the colors available to a specific palette of a set of threads. Once the electronic file is ready, we send it to a small, family-owned mill near Bruges in Belgium. There the looms are prepped with the correct weft colors, after which the electronic file is "punched" and the file is woven.
While for commercial projects the weavers might assume more agency or take creative license, in the case of the Magnolia Tapestry Project they play the role of technicians, with an emphasis on realizing each tapestry to the exact specifications of the artist. Ultimately, the artist retains complete control over the content, development, proofing and realization of his or her edition.
A poorly prepared file will not weave. The structure of the file is as important as accurate lookup tables and color identification. Each pixel in a file structure is a request for a specific weave pattern. A pixelated weave file will call different colors to the surface of the tapestry, sending others to the back; if done in excess, this creates too much tension on the warp threads, causing them to break. If one thread of the 17,800 warp threads breaks, the loom comes to an immediate halt and the broken thread must be found and repaired. The hundreds of tests done for the Cathedral project and the subsequent tapestries we have woven over the past five years have helped us perfect our technique in making weavable files.
Continuous research, testing and pushing the limits of electronic Jacquard weaving have produced many successes and as many false starts. Our most recent push in collaboration with the mill has been to add 2 extra shots to the 8 shot weft, creating hundreds of hours of effort on our part as well as months of work at the mill programming the patterns necessary to entwine two more threads into the thousands of existing weave structurs. The results have been worth the effort, pushing our color space to over 500 colors and enabling us to add the option of metallic threads. See the latest tapestries by Ed Moses, Squeak Carnwath, Enrique Chagoya and William Wiley.
Q: How many stitches are there per inch of your tapestries?
A: An 82 inch x 82 inch tapestry has 17,600 threads (ends) in an 8 color warp. We use 60 shots (threads) per cm (152 threads per inch) in the repeating 8 color weft. In a 10 color weft we use 70 to 75 shots per cm.
Q: What are your tapestries made of?
A: Mostly archival cotton with some viscose, which is a cellulose/cotton product. In one palette we use a shot of blue acrylic. The black and white (grayscale) Bruce Conner tapestries are woven with 5 shots of wool and 3 shots of cotton in the weft. In 2008 we started weaving a few tapestries with a wool (not cotton) black weft thread in an effort to achieve a darker black.
Q: Do you weave custom tapestries for artists?
A: Sometimes. Click this .Pdf link to read more about custom tapestry orders: Custom Tapestry: FAQ Please note that as of January 2008, we are not accepting submissions for custom tapestries for at least the next six months.
Q: What papers do you print on?
A: Digital: pigmented inkjet; we print on everything from Japanese kozo, various rag papers, canvas and backlit film
Etching: Various rag papers (chine collé with Japanese kozo)
Lithography: Rag papers, i.e., Arches, Rives, BFK, Somerset, etc.
Q: Who draws the overlays/plates used to make prints at Magnolia?
A: The artist draws and creates all of the matrices from which we pull our prints. We do not employ "chromatists" to draw for the artist. We approach printmaking with the intent of preserving the integrity of the artist's hand.
Q: Are fine art prints at Magnolia created by photographing and reproducing paintings?
A: Artists working at Magnolia enjoy a full range of choices and printmaking techniques. When we founded the studio in 1981, our focus was on traditional print media. At this time artists worked fully within the print medium: drawing, scribing, or using any number of printmaking techniques to make the matrices necessary to create an edition of original prints. As time has gone on and digital technology matured, we have developed, concurrent with our work in traditional print media, a wide range of digital techniques that we place at the artist's disposal. We regard photography and other optical/digital techniques as vital tools available to the artist. This sometimes involves photographing and printing pre-existing images in new formats and on new surfaces. At Magnolia, however, we continue to produce prints that are limited edition originals, not posters.
Q: Where is the original?
A: At the end of the printing cycle there exists a stack of curated, signed and numbered prints referred to as "the edition". Though many matrices and materials may be used to create the edition, only the stack of prints included in the edition comprises the artist's finished work. The prints that make up the edition are understood to be a series of originals.
Q: Generally speaking, are pigments better than dyes?
A: We think so. Dyes are synthetic, often unstable and sooner or later (usually sooner), they will fade. At Magnolia we have a deep concern for permanence and durability. In both traditional and digital printmaking we use pigments, not dyes. Historically, pigments (derived from minerals) have stood the test of time. From the paintings of cavemen to the first Gutenburg Bible, from Rembrandt to Sam Francis, all lasting images have been made with pigments.
Pigment is a finely ground, particulate substance which, when mixed or ground into a liquid to make ink or paint, does not dissolve, but remains dispersed or suspended in the liquid. Pigments are categorized as either inorganic (mineral) or organic (synthetic).
A pigment, such as red iron oxide (rust) is simply an oxidized form of iron. One could leave iron, lead, or gold in the sun for a million years and they would never change color or change into another substance (much to the consternation of alchemists). In contrast, man-made synthetic and vegetable water-soluble dyes can fade rapidly, often within one to six months.
Q: Can Magnolia’s digital work be classified as either Iris or giclée prints?
A: No. Magnolia’s digital prints have been made using either a thermal or Piezo technology inkjet printer, both of which use six colors of pigment.
Pigment cannot (as of Jan, 2003) be used in an Iris (aka giclée) printer. An Iris printer uses charged plates to direct four very fine streams of red, yellow, blue and black dye onto the paper surface. The stream of ink is so fine that a liquid dye must be used. For many years the four-color Iris printer produced the best visual results. Today the far more permanent alternative to the Iris printer is an inkjet machine that uses six colors of pigment.
Giclée, French for "to spurt," was initially used to describe dye-based Iris prints done at Nash Editions in Los Angeles, California. This trendy term for an Iris print is quite an international embarrassment as the vernacular use of the word in France is "ejaculation" (rather apt for throwaway prints destined to last no more than a decade).
Unlike pigment, dyes dissolve when mixed into a liquid. Dyes are organic (not mineral). Although most are synthetic, derived from petroleum, they can be made from vegetable or animal sources. Dyes are well suited for textiles where the liquid dye penetrates and chemically bonds to the fiber. Because of the deep penetration, more layers of material must lose their color before the fading is apparent. Dyes, however, are not suitable for the relatively thin layers of ink laid out on the surface of a print.
-Donald Farnsworth
