Potato Printing

-STRAW-

With all the five-letter words out there in the world to choose from, why STRAW? 

Growing up, I loved the game Boggle. I’d play it with anyone, anytime. I knew which letters to look for and how they could be broken down into several word combinations. Finding the word STRAW on the game board, was a game changer, especially if the letters were all tightly connected. STRAW: sat, rat, art, tar, war, wart, warts, star, raw, was, wars, arts, tars, start, tart, tarts, saw, rats, tsar… I knew the moment I read the details of the assignment, that my word would have to be STRAW.

Process: Given that we needed five different letters, I picked up six potatoes. After cutting each in half, this would allow for seven mistakes. My first instinct was to create the prints using a relief approach. I learned fairly quickly that this isn’t the best technique when it comes to potatoes, as it’s fairly difficult to create sharp lines. (2 half-potatoes gone.)

Using just a paring knife and my best judgement, I set out to create my letters by cutting away the outer pieces of potato. I started with T and then moved to A. I quickly realized after carving R that asymmetrical letters present a new set of problems. A couple of Rs and an S or two later, I had it figured out. (3 more half-potatoes gone.) Happy with my results, I started the printing process.

Printing: I chose a dark blue tempera paint from the cupboard and worked through a few practice prints, in order to determine the right amount of paint needed to create a smooth result. A liberal lathering of paint created the opaque look I was striving for. To my own surprise, I only had to attempt the task once. I worked carefully to create two prints as identical as possible, and found printing STRAW the second time much more stressful. 

Reflecting; Looking back, the entire process took about an hour. (I had the moral support of a few Kindergarten colleagues, which helped.) Over the course of my life, I’ve had a lot of experience with printing. From 2008 – 2010, I operated an Etsy shop, selling hand-stamped stationary. Printing is second nature; I don’t overthink it and I move on quickly from anything that doesn’t work. As an extra bonus, I know the pressure needed in hand-stamping to create a decent print without the outer edges ever touching the page. Without this experience, I think the process would have taken me much longer.

The Mechanization of Writing: Although I’ve always been aware that pre-letter press technologies require considerable effort, it wasn’t until I engaged in this process that I began to appreciate the challenge of maintaining consistency in text. Bolter (2001) speaks to the mechanization of writing and its popularity being linked to clean and clear text, as well as efficiency. While this is true, the art of hand-crafted text has been largely lost due to the advancements in print technology. In addition, I’d argue that the appreciation for hand-crafted print material has also faded. I experienced this firsthand while running my Etsy shop. I’d often have requests from brides wanting 100+ items hand-stamped within days of placing an order and with ridiculous offers of compensation. Until you engage in a hand-crafted art, whether creating text or something else entirely, you don’t fully understand the effort and time that must be committed in order to create an excellent product. Efficiency? It’s an impossibility that doesn’t even come into play.

References

Bolter, Jay David. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print [2^nd edition]. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

A sample from my Etsy shop: