This project, with papermaker (and printmaker, retired head of printmaking at Glasgow School of Art) Jacki Parry recreated James Watt’s letter copier process: I made ink using Watt’s 1780 patent recipe; Jacki made linen rag paper, which before the arrival of cotton in the UK was the key ingredient in good quality paper.
Artist friends were invited to make original artworks (‘letters’), writing or drawing using Watt’s ink: a copy (print) was made, which was then exhibited.
A ‘photomechanical’ print was also contrived by inkjet printing Watt’s ink to create the original ‘letter’.
The project included a public demonstration with associated technical presentation (lecture) as part of the June 2019 Glasgow Science Festival
Subsequently the presentation was developed and given at the two day Rethinking James Watt (1736-1819): Innovation, Culture and Legacy Conference at the University of Birmingham and as part of the annual RPS Historical Group research seminar at Sheffield’s Hallam University. (Watt was a friend of Thomas Wedgewood who had experimented in photography c1800; for some years, photo-historians have been searching for proof of correspondence on this subject)
Historic Environment Scotland produced a short video piece on the scope of the Birmingham presentation:
L-R: prints by Dominic Snyder and Liz Lochead. 30 artists and writers took part. The work created is in the Archive of Glasgow Print Studio.
Jacki Parry’s piece, echo-ing her 1980s It’s Raining Again etchings
A number of photomechanical prints were made. The above illustrates the two stages: on the left is the original artwork/‘letter’ inkjet-printed with Watt’s 1780 recipe ink; on the right is the copy print on to damp linen rag paper using a screw press. Most of the Victorian screw presses in existence were sold as letter copy presses. Watt also designed a rotary press: examples can be seen Soho House Museum in Birmingham and the museum of the Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.
images: Roger Farnham
The printing was quite experimental. On the top is a process mistake, but one which artist Claire Barclay preferred to the subsequent (partially) recovered image
The made-portable screw press on its travels.
A reflection of the current building in Glasgow’s Trongate which has replaced that which Watt had his workshop in the 1700s