In the fall of 1998 I spent two weeks in Tibet. I bought a large
book of handmade paper in Nepal to record my impressions and make
collages from materials gathered along the way. I also took hundreds
of photographs.
I
spent all of 1999 trying unsuccessfully to sort through the emotional
impact and to capture the spirit of Tibet. It was only when I tore
the pages from the journal, obliterated the writing and rubbed out
much of what had been done that the work began to reflect the experience.
Many layers of encaustic and oils gave the effect of yak butter
and smoke; a deep glow beneath decay and destruction.
When
the collages were complete, they were scanned and combined with
the photographs in Photoshop.
To give the same kind of texture to the final print, I spread a
skim coat of Golden Molding Paste onto a piece of dimensionally
stable spunbonded polyster. When it dried, I painted the surface
with a coat of gel medium mixed with pearlescent powdered pigment.
The final twp coatings were of rabbit-skin glue to provide a receiver
for the inks. To insure that the print heads wouldn't hit on the
surface, I put the substrate through the CODA laminator under pressure.
The final print was made on the Roland Hi-Fi JET printer with their
pigmented YMCLmLc ink set.
