Fish
image size 3" x 3"
paper size 5" x 4-1/2"
printed with archival inks on acid-free paper

People expect fish to smell, but how about the paper on which the original linocut was printed? I was working as an assistant at a fine-art print publisher that was affiliated with a handmade paper mill. (If you live in the Pacific northwest, or anywhere near a commercial papermill, you are probably all too familiar with the sulfer smell of rotten paper pulp.) Things were slow, and the papermaker offered to teach me to make Japanese-style paper, if I would use up the rotten abaca pulp. She assured me that the smell would be gone when the paper dried. What she didn't tell me is that it would take several YEARS for the smell to dissipate! So the original linocut, Fish was printed on very beautiful, but very smelly paper. Don't worry, the inkjet edition is printed on cotton paper from England.

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