Love Seeds

Love Seeding
Digital print
20 x 30 inches

We don’t always have angels posing for us on Tuesday nights. Sometimes it’s just a goddess who’s in charge of an upcoming holiday, like Valentine’s Day, for example. I’m not sure everyone realized what she was up to while in this pose, but her spell worked pretty well on most of the men and at least half of the women.

Black Choker

The Black Choker

I’m spending more time in the Etching Studio and slowly learning how to combine various techniques. And trying improve basic skills like inking and wiping a copper plate. This digital image, based on a scanned etching, which was based on a drawing from a Tuesday night drawing group, combines soft ground and drypoint techniques. The original etching is 6" x 5". The digital print shown here is 12" x 15", which doesn’t include a 1" border of plain white paper all around.

New Etchings

Female Study
Copperplate etching
6" x 5"

Stack of Pillows
Copperplate etching
5" x 6"

These copperplate etchings (soft ground method) are based on charcoal drawings done at the famous Tuesday Night Drawing Group at the famous Argos Gallery & Etching Studio in Santa Fe. I scanned the etchings, then made digital prints of the etchings.

Charcoal to etching to digital. Or, Tinker to Evers to Chance. That’s an expression often used to characterize a process that happens with smoothness and precision . . . if you’re old enough to remember the three baseball players who became famous for their skill at making double plays for the Chicago Cubs in the early 1900s (491 double plays between 1906 and 1910).

I wouldn’t know who they were except for the fact that nearly 50 years ago I worked with a copy writer at an advertising agency who came up with a campaign for a client called “Great Combinations.” One of the combinations featured in the series of ads was Tinker to Evers to Chance. 

Their fame was equally due to a poem written by a New York Giants sports writer after watching the trio play against his home team Giants. The poem is known as Tinker to Evers to Chance. It’s also know as Baseball’s Sad Lexicon.

These are the saddest of possible words:

“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,

Tinker and Evers and Chance.

 Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble, 

Making a Giant hit into a double.

Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:

“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

A gonfalon (line 5 of the poem) is a pennant or flag, or, in this case, the National League championship (represented by a pennant). The poem was so popular that it was credited with getting the three players into the Hall of Fame. 

For almost 50 years I’ve never been able to forget their names. You probably won’t be able to either, but good luck with that.