Acid is usually a tool associated with chemists, but one professor in the Ohio University School of Art uses the liquid to teach etching and create works of art.
Art Werger, whose work is now on display at the OU Art Gallery, draws on a copper plate by scraping away the resistant treatment before submerging it in acid. The process, known as etching, uses acid to bite a design on the plate that he then covers with ink.
That ink falls into the grooves of the copper plate and then, similar to a stamp on paper, a press imprints the ink from the copper plate onto the paper.
The etching process is one that Werger, 53, has come to know well, although he still finds it unpredictable.
Etching is a medium which is really beyond your control because you are working with acids
he said.
That uncertainty combined with the chance to learn something new keeps Werger interested in etching.
For the past 25 years, Werger has been expanding on the same series of prints, which feature scenes viewed from an aerial perspective.
Some of Werger's larger pieces, ranging from 24 inches by 18 inches to 28 inches by 39 inches, can take up to six months, while one smaller stream-of-consciousness piece can be completed in a day.
Karla Hackenmiller, the chair of the etching department in the School of Art said that Werger's work is well known - it was featured in an issue of American Artist magazine - but his teaching is good and comes natural to him as well.
In his beginning etching class he will make a print from start to finish. He starts with a clean plate and at the end he will have this beautiful print she said.
Carrie Lingscheit, a second-year graduate student in printmaking, also has witnessed Werger's process.
Just coming to help him print has been really beneficial. It's a really amazing source for technique she said.
Even though Werger is a teacher, he is still exploring the complicated art of etching.
I take whatever I have learned and try to push it so that I am on the edge of my capabilities. It's like tightrope walking on what you are capable of doing
and you just might go over the edge
he said.
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Culture
Jane Adams
