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-The best definition of a printer
that I've ever heard anyone give was John Cage.
He said printers were just like musicians.
The composer is writing the piece,
but the printers can put a lot of flavor into it.
They add that element to my work
that I can't put there myself.
Every artist knows that.
They can't get there by themselves.
My name is Marcia Bartholme.
I am what's known as a Master Printer,
and I have had Beta Press,
which is a fine arts press, since 1992.
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I grew up in Renton, Washington
and went to the University of Washington.
I had a degree in social work.
I then went to work for a print dealer in Seattle.
Larry Dillon and I became a framer working for him.
I left that job
and I ended up working on a fishing boat in Alaska.
From there to working on a charter boat
in the Virgin Islands, where I met my husband
and we came out to California.
I had an opportunity to go visit several print publishers
around the Bay area, and visited Crown Point Press,
where I ultimately ended up working.
I learned to print at Crown Point Press.
Catherine Brown was responsible
for creating this studio in the Bay area.
That really brought a lot of artists to etching.
I started as an assistant,
so it was very much on the job from the very first day.
Learning how to assist in the studio,
watching the other printers.
I paid very close attention to what everybody else was doing.
I worked on several projects with Dick Diebenkorn,
Indigo Horizontal,
and started the green image was the first time
I was in charge of a project with him.
That image required five printers working on the plates
to get five prints a day.
This is a picture of John Cage and myself.
We were actually branding prints with these teapots.
I worked with John Cage for five years.
I started as an assistant,
but then I became the lead printer on his projects.
He changed my life.
Probably the most original art
I ever participated in was with John Cage.
I worked at Crown Point Press from 1980 until 1987.
My husband and I moved up to Seattle in 1990.
At that point I had two children,
and in 1992 I went back to work
and started a press, Beta Press.
By then I was a very good printer.
I had a good skill set
for thinking through complicated prints.
I could really help artists get a lot out of plates.
This is the blue plate that they had executed.
This edge on the stool, there's that dialogue.
You see how there's no black line there anymore?
That line got dropped out.
When you're really cooking along, it's very gratifying.
-Marcia came from Crown Point Press.
She brought all of her knowledge.
She literally raised the bar on printmaking
for the Seattle area at the time.
Lots of people benefited from that.
Lots of artists benefited.
Lots of artists got to see really good printing,
original print printing.
-When artists come in to work at Beta Press,
they don't have anything.
We start by making plates.
And then the artist starts working on the plates.
You're going to be painting with acid
or you're going to be drawing with wax.
There might be a project that results in multiple plates.
Then there's the proofing part of a project.
This is Michael Gregory.
He was rather famous for these tulip paintings.
Working out the printing order of the plates you've made.
This is a proof.
Proofing is fine tuning the colors.
You can see how we do pull downs for the color.
Then finally you get to a print
that is acceptable to the artist.
And that is the okay to print.
You've got all the ink colors just right.
You start printing the image.
And you print.
And you re-ink.
Each plate gets pulled one time through the press.
So if you have a five-plate image,
you're going back and forth.
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And then you clean off all the residual ink off the plates
and you start all over again.
So if you're pulling an edition of, say, 25 prints,
you do that 25 times.
Whew!
Those prints are the originals
because the image does not exist outside of the plates.
It is an original medium.
It's not a reproduction.
An original limited-edition print
is just what it says, original.
I've worked with Fay Jones.
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I worked with California artists Michael Gregory,
who did some really beautiful prints with us.
James Lavadour.
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Judy Hill.
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I did a project with John Grade.
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Did projects with Bob Jones.
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I did a project with Robert Helm.
Pretty significant portfolio project.
Jacob Lawrence was 1996.
That project lasted about eight months
by the time we had finished creating all the plates
and executing all the editions.
Every artist is very different in the way
they have a working style.
I think prints are very important
because they're a very democratic way
in so many ways for people to start collecting art
or to keep collecting art.
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-More about Marcia and her work
is available through Studio E Gallery,
James Harris Gallery, and Russo Lee Gallery.
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