Covid Art 30: Chrysanthemum on Wafer

This is one of the earliest monotype prints I made with experimental silicon wafers, around 1994. Barely visible, because this 12.5-inch square silicon wafer has dense grey ink, are two pages from a handwritten letter. The chrysanthemum is a 1930s photograph from France on black background cut to the 5.5″ size that is characteristic of many of my smaller silicon rejects. Why is this important? I was finding my ‘voice’, the colors, textures, opacity, and layering of documents that became the hallmark of my works with original antique documents. I was juxtaposing the antique photos with the state-of-the-art computer chips that were being developed in Santa Clara, California, Silicon Valley. I was working with found materials, before I acquired engineering drawings so that I could make my own plates. It is a seminal work.