2005 tallman printing on lead

One Step Printing on Lead with New inkAID™ Product

In 2005 I was Artist-in-Residence at Harvard University’s Countway Library of Medicine, one of the world’s leading medical history collections. I incorporated photographs of their anatomical specimens, medical artifacts, rare books and manuscripts into my work.

The images used to create “TallMan” were based on photographs taken in the library atrium. The lighting was difficult to work with and created artifacts like the triangle-shaped highlights in the detail from the digital file (shown above right). I decided to print these images on lead because they were essentially shades of grey, and lead is widely used in medicine. The lead came in a 15″ roll which had wrinkles and artifacts of its own. I precoated the lead with two coats of inkAID Clear Gloss Type II and printed the 12″ x 40″ images on the Epson 9600. With a Coda laminator I adhered the lead to 1/2″ Gatorfoam and wrapped the soft lead around the edges. As a finishing touch, I silver leafed the triangular light artifacts.

My work at Harvard culminated with an exhibition in their galleries from November to February.

A PDF file of the exhibition catalog with essays about the collection and the art can be opened in your browser or downloaded. You can also read a PDF file of Valerie Russo’s article about the exhibit.