Main Street, Wyoming Classics; 106; Art of Paper Marbling

You. Open a fine old book and often you'll find colorful swirls of marble painted with totem western artist from Caspar. You made that reverse in turned it into or putting it on clogs. Tres sculpture. The art of marble people. The main street clothes. If artistes were distributed on a per capita basis there wouldn't be many in Wyoming with its

small population. And there certainly wouldn't be any who pursued the obscure art of paper marbling. Thankfully that's not the way it works. Wyoming often provides a refuge in an unclouded workspace for creative people. And so for many years Casper native Tom West dripped paint in trays of liquid with an eye dropper and drag rakes and combs through it to create colorful and complex patterns. Marble paper was once used in the front and back of books but west of all sorts of ways to make art of it. Clocks frames and trays. He also knew the history of his craft and had thought deeply about the aesthetics involved even connecting marbling to chaos theory. Tom West was another of those unique people you find when you knock on doors along Main Street Wyoming. He passed away a few years ago but I'm grateful to be one of the people with a piece of his art hanging in my home. Rude I would.

Think the wheels us sing a song about our homes just a little lower than extremely low. Down the road. The means to be a member of the same street less chance road backing. You know. Well you got your feet down in the. Main Street. My grandfather used to have a lot of old books and I think a

lot of us have encountered warbling first as the endpapers in old books and I used to look at those and I mean really look at them with a magnifying glass trying to figure out just how it was done. I was thinking you know we couldn't really draw that that's too complex. I just really had no clue how it was done but I was fascinated with the patterns. I'm just fascinated with it. And in I think 1986 I reconnected with an old friend of mine from college who happened to mention that his girlfriend was a marble or that's the first I'd heard of marbling being done and being done now. And do you know a person who actually did it and knew about it. And I ask Well does she give lessons. And she did. And I went down to Taos New Mexico which is where they're living and took a work weekend workshop farmer and I was hooked. Mark decided I'm going to treat and what this is this is a solution

of aluminum Sulphate. I'm going to brush this in the paper. To be sure that the whole thing is kind of consistently damp but not really soaking wet. And wearing gloves because this is the same essential. Solution as pickling alum which anyone who's used that knows is a desiccant which means it dries things in. It would really do a number on my hands if I didn't have the glow after I got the paper. Treated. I'm going to just slide it between some waters to remove the excess moisture and also keep it damp because if the paper is damp it's going to be easy to handle. What I'm trying to print with it. Came through one more sheet. Seventeenth century is essentially when marbling arrived in Europe from what is now the country of Turkey. The Ottoman Empire. And that's the kind of

marveling which is called watercolor marbling or ever from the Turkish. And it became quite an art form in Germany and from there spread to the rest of Europe and was most connected with the book arts. As I said earlier. And was used extensively up until about the beginning of this century in bookbinding and at that point changes in the way books were bound in the numbers of books that were being produced made it supposedly impractical to use hand marble paper as part of book binding. One thing I've recently learned that I didn't know is that throughout most of the 19th century even books were frequently sold without bindings and you would buy a book and you would take it to a book binder and have it down do you know in the leather of your choice you know.

Genuine Cobra skin with marble face and paper is perhaps the soul that practice sort of ended at the end of the 19th century that had a lot to do with with the demise of marbling as a commercial proposition. Oh the liquid in the tape is full size in Marley and what it is. Is a. Mixture of water. That's been thickened with. Carotene which is a seaweed derivative. And it makes a sort of the consistency of unset Jell-O instant enough so that the panes will float rather didn't see. And I'm just going to start by dropping color under the surface. Color has to be kind of mixed up each time because it tends to settle really fast since it is. Pigment in water with. Very few additives in contrast of commercial panes which have various additives to where. They can brush more easily and stuff things that are positive for Peter for instance in

color and for native from our lawyers. And with the eyedropper and just going to drop. Series and its colors pretty pale in her first since. The first gets put down in the tank. But it will intensify as it gets squeezed out with other colors. And just using the dropper to put a whole series of. Drops of coke. All around. You notice everything is taking place right in the service you shouldn't have any people sinking. To what do you attribute the revival of the marbling. I think a lot of the interest started with the sort of general revival of interest in crafts that happened starting during the 60s. More specifically it seems like since the late 70s in through the 1980s there's been a renewal of interest in in the small press printing in letter press printing

in fine printing. And I think marveling as traditional one of the traditional book arts kind of went along with that. And it's only now that the marbling sort of breaking out of of specifically that book arts context into some other areas. Right. I am. Sure. We have actual marbling set up as part of the art program and some of the

cast for school so they have their own equipment. But I also have gone to schools where I have taken the equipment set it up and the kids have marveled for a day two days. You know her however and it's great. It's good for kids it's one thing that you know they can get really satisfying results right away but they can also each time the marble they can see. Well if I used that color instead of this color I would have something different in other words it's not something that you do as exciting and then is over. It's something that they can see you know they can go on with if they want. And just because of the nature of the process it's really involving And that's also a good thing for kids. And then you know kids are approaching without a lot of inhibitions I mean they don't know what you can and can't do. They don't know this. Hundreds of years of marbling tradition that's hard to break out of sometimes So the elders do things and I mean

they'll do things that are phenomenal that I'll think well that couldn't possibly work but it does. And you know I always steal some good ideas from kids. The cat wants to be more bold. From Australia from Britain. With this kid he is probably interested in is the Oxcart in the paint. Ox skull is a dispersant. That I use in the painting it's just. A fluid that comes from the gall bladders of cattle. It's used as a dispersant and it also is part of the chemical reaction that will bind the color to the paper. And hopefully the kitty will not want to take a swim. You can Mr. Steve you're particularly. Yes some design I tell people that you know cat hears on the marble paper are a mark of authenticity. No no it's my moral paper. The behavior of liquids in this surface tension phenomenon is such that what do you get regular.

Things happening but with a certain degree of unpredictability. In other words they're figuring out through mathematical theory that randomness has a pattern to it. Randomness isn't really random in the sense of like you know total for an organized chaos. Things have patterns to it and to figure out the mathematical models for these things is a fairly sophisticated and has to do a lot with you know I think it's Boolean algebra or untraditional kinds of thinking in both math and physics but there actually you know defining some of these seemingly random things like occur in liquids on the surface of a marbling tank. And when they can define those mathematically they can get that math to behave on your computer screen in a certain way that you have computer marveling through the chemistry the

physics the math to marveling is it was a pretty amazing thing that I don't really understand a lot about that. That certainly suggests a lot of different approaches for. Computer software that Marvel through. These rakes are made in such a way. That they fit in the tank. And. Against the rim of the tank. And holding it against. This side of the tank and read across. And the teeth are spaced so that then when I bring it back. If I shove it up so it rests against the other room of the tank. This past world bisect first pass. OK so it started to change from the. Round circles the drops of color into her. Own pattern. And this is her way of just kind of spreading out the color. Blue. In preparation for whatever. They're really going to end up with.

And. You kind of. Figure out the order you you rake in comin. In your lower kind and you get come out with this works exactly the same way except up and down in the tank instead of back and forth. You know all these patterns have names. From when they used to use the paper for finding in the 19th century this one just too is called a cascade. Pattern. If I bring it back. Like. That. Bisecting that first pass it's now called the feather pattern. And I'm going to repeat that across and back past A. Leader or a. Song if you were. Working through bookbinders. And had to do an additional. 300 companies talk about the time. I get really bored. But just one more voice to make a living and doing addition papers and what you have to

do is remember. Of course the colors you use the order in which you have. Used the colors. And then. The particular Combs and rakes you've used and in what order you thought it was possible to get. A paper it wouldn't be a photocopy identical but it would be the same. Paper throughout the the edition of 500. And again when this was used. You know in the last century for bookbinding that was the thing is that new suppliers would have catalogs and you pick patterns and you would. Be sure that those patterns would be consistent. Throughout the run. If this is a column which simply means it has a. Finer. Tooth spacing. In when the two spacing is that fine. You just want to bring it in one direction you don't want to bring it up and back. Because it would just sort of undo what you did if you tried to do it two directions. The pattern is looking a

little less defined as I get it. Combed out finer. But when you get it on the paper that definitional be more apparent. And one thing that I had to think about when I started marveling that I really hadn't paid too much attention to my school is color theory. The use of dark and light colors next to one another for contrast just with certain colors look like next to one another. I have choices of what tools I'm going to use at any point if you know what I want to come out with. This I think will just do a can you have a look. He becomes Mr. Trump we're met. On the street where you cascade into a. More curvy temple do. You know any. And that's probably about as much singing a comin to a kid's movie take another step or two. But even though the colors will never physically mix with one another. If I get him combed out to find it might turn out. So

we look to your eye like it was mixed in it's the same as mixing every color in your paintbox if you do we kind of come up with a muddy brown. America is probably where the most exciting things are happening but there is a lot of marbling going on in in Northern Europe and in Italy. The Marley originally came to America. We're sure through Britain and there's still a lot of marbling Beantown in England and in all the countries that were part of the British Empire Australia and South Africa and marbling in France Germany. The originally marbling came from Turkey to Germany and they're spread out all over Europe. There's also a Japanese kind of marbling called sooner gushy which is probably the origin of marbling both European in Asian in particular. The two form

sort of departed from one another at one point. But there is also a tradition of swimming I gosh when they were swimming out gosh the Marvel years both in this country and of course in Japan and other countries. So all I can get right up. Through salt. You'll notice that the color looks somewhat different on the paper than it did on the tank. Sometimes you can get real surprises. Last step in this process is going to be to rinse the paper. Just do that to get the size that's come out for the paper. And if there's a little excess color that will rinse off it basically the color will. Stay on the paper it's been. There by a chemical reactions that we don't get any. Color coming off appreciatively and then we're going to just hang it up to dry.

Who's going to be ready to use for whatever. Musically and why only the humidity we have that will be dry in about 10 minutes. This is Tom West's home and studio. He's serious about modeling. But as you can see he's got a whimsical side too. It's not the sort of studio you'd expect to find in a town like Casper or the sort of life. The idea of content is what really interests me about art. And the kind of innovation both technically and intellectually is interesting and I think the standard you know like I say moves in middle of standard Tetons maybe interesting maybe pretty decorative but you know what isn't the kind of art I want to round me and. I think there are other things that to me. Tell me more communicate more

say more. You have roots here in Casper but is there any other reason reasons involving your art that you would want to be located here. I like Casper and I shouldn't say that in such a defensive way probably I do. I do like Casper. I have friends from you know the coasts that come to Casper just because they think it's so weird. And do you know I can understand that. I can see that. She grew up in you know a metropolitan area it's definitely a different kind of place. And I don't know I you know having grown up here I'm sure has an awful lot to do with why I feel comfortable here. There's also the thing of in a town the size of Casper. I personally I think can make an impact on certain things. I do a lot of work with the Nicholas and art museum. I am able to go around to schools and to talk to kids and to work with kids things like that in other words I feel

that I'm really a part of this community probably because of its size partly because it's you know I know people in the community. Because I grew up here and I feel that I'm a part of the community can have some input into the community and this community nourishes me in those ways too. I have a following of people here who like my work and are into my work. So you know it's kind of a comfortable place to live all around. It's not the kind of market you know to talk about art as a commodity in the marketplace. Did you get much encouragement from your teachers your art teachers in the schools of Wyoming. I didn't. Feel that opportunities were closed off. But I didn't feel a lot of encouragement necessarily I think back in those days what I remember of our classes were just you know you sit around and cut linoleum blocks or you you know draw and there was not a lot of

direction given to it. Not a lot of. Emphasis on what ideas could be behind art things like that but you know I had fun doing it and. I always liked it. Where did you get your education. After I graduate from high school here I went to Occidental College which is a small liberal arts college in Los Angeles and spent four years and got a undergraduate degree from there. It was interesting time it was on 1066 to 1970 which was the place to be was in L.A. in the 60s. And so I gained I think more just from being there than I did academically. What was happening in a lot of colleges at that time were was the authorities the establishment of academe was backing off of a lot of the three Rs type of stuff in favor of independent study in favor of all of those things that happened during the 60s. That changed academic life and consequently

there was a lot of experimentation in various ways. Going on but not a lot of the nuts and bolts like over say color theory and in figure drawing things like that might have been there but nobody was paying attention we were all too busy and I wore marches and in you know social activity. Because the political content of some of your work caused you any problems. It hasn't really. It's usually you know if you tell teachers beforehand that you know some of the pieces I am going to be bringing to show the kids have a kind of political or social points to one and that can engender you know really good discussion. Part of the important thing to me is that business I was talking about a little earlier is that art is really a form of communication and if we get into a debate you know on that. Why did you choose this idea. And you know isn't art supposed to be pretty and something that's not going to cause controversy. I mean that's a good opening for a

lot of thoughts about what art is and does in can do this piece is called Reagan-Bush memorial. It's typical in construction. Typical of the clocks I make and I think I picked up the techniques used in building these clocks when I was building architectural models for several years. This particular. Piece the Reagan Bush memorial started out as just an idea that gosh you know these people plundered America for a number of years and they deserve to be demoralized for it. Is that equally The idea came about as a contrast between an official kind of monument and a reaction to that monument. Which in this case is the graffiti on it. This is a obviously a pretty pointed piece politically. I

usually take this piece when I go to talk to school groups because it can sometimes engender some pretty good discussion about the role of art about you know what art can and can't say some of the graffiti on this clock is pretty down and dirty. In terms of political points in it in general. Good discussion. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh.

Uh. The idea of Wyoming art if people think of Wyoming art it's sometimes very specific to that kind of realistic it's thetic. We had everyone's well at the new collation museum there are complaints that when we show Wyoming artists. And you know I would say that 70 percent of the artists shown are from Wyoming. But what the people who ask that mean is Why don't we show what they perceive as being Wyoming art which again is that realistic you know Westerner kind of mountain scene as thetic. Someone just recently told me that one of the software companies is working on a program so that you can marvel on computer which theoretically you know did the math of it. It is right there the chaos theory explains some things that happen in marbling and that's something that fractal you know

fractals as something that happens and marveling that happens on the computer screen so be interesting to see. I was joking earlier that we could you know when they come out with these programs we can throw away our marveling tanks and just do it on computer. In the not too distant future computers will be able to make these patterns and no one will have to get paid out as close. We'd be able to tell. I hope so. All. The time West modeling tank the hands of the artist are still essential.