Swoon woodcut print and “papercut,” Mercer Street near Broome
Street in Soho.
“Grandfather”
on the right was Swoon’s first Papercut. November 27, 2003

“That’s a woodblock print (above). See I was
just printing last night (shows the black ink staining around and under
her nails) I do a full size piece of plywood, 4 by 8. I carve it either
with an exacto to get the fine details or with a Dremmel. The Dremmel
because my hand and my whole wrist is getting really tired from all
the carving. I’ve been carving for years. Between the paper, the
wood and the linoleum.” (Links to linoleum
and woodcut
printing techniques, and Dremel
Tools)

Could you talk a bit about the printing process. I’m
imagining you walking around on top of the plywood to make the impression.
What sort of ink? Water or oil based.

“I use a huge roller, and etching ink (it’s oil
based but I just clean it up with olive oil) and spread a sheet of paper
on top then step on it a hundred times like mashing grapes or doing
the twist. Depending on the paper type wetting it first can be useful
for better saturation, contrary to what you would think with oil based
ink.”

You do all this in your apartment. How do you deal with this chaos
in your living space?

“My brother is visiting and he looked into my studio
today and said wow, you must be a very strong person mentally, and I
said why, and he said because if I had to deal with that mess you’ve
got in there (meaning a four foot stack of prints and then some) I would
just break down and lose my mind. So that’s what my house
looks like.”

Are they portraits?

“They are all portraits… This one is my grandfather. That was
the first of these I ever did.”

Grandfather
In making these, Swoon cuts several layers of paper at once,
creating what I would call a very limited ‘print run.