proof

Proof.

Classes at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln introduced me to Lithography and Intaglio (or Etching). Lithography is drawn on treated Bavarian limestone. Heavy heavy expensive limestone. The kind you work with in school with provided for school equipment. Not the kind of tools I would have in my bachelor apartment after graduation. Ha.

In etching class I learned how to combine vine ash and linseed oil to make a cool black. Bone ash and linseed oil makes a warm black. And you smoosh it together with a metal spatula on a hard smooth surface.

In Intaglio (or Etching) a metal zinc plate is coated with a melted rosin that resists acid and left to cool. Then one draws a design by scratching through the coating. The plate is put into an acid bath tray for a specific amount of time. The acid eats lines into the metal. Light lines if you take the plate out after a short time. Dark lines if you leave the plate in longer. Much trial and error. Learning by doing. And you rinse acid off with water in the sink. So when you click on the above image, you will notice the lines are irregular and bumpy. Some people like their etchings to have a gritty texture. Others are super careful and attentive and can achieve some incredible line work.

For awhile I admired the rich darks that Rembrandt was able to get with his etchings. The etching I did above is called Night Road And Lights.
The impression is 5 by 7 inches on BFK intaglio paper.

When a design has many lines in it you can do what Rembrandt did. With a cardboard scrap you pull a thin coat of ink across the prepared metal plate. Then you scuff the plate with a stiff mesh fabric called a tarlatan. You end up with ink in the etched grooves of the plate. Usually the un-etched smooth portions of the plate are buffed to a shine. But, because many lines will hold much more ink, one can choose where to scuff and where to let heavier amounts of ink remain on the plate. It is that dirtiness of the ink that will create the awesome velvety atmosphere that Rembrandt did. In Night Roads And Lights I wanted the night sky to be a dark as possible. You can only see the road where the headlights illumine and barely see the dim lights ahead. That, my friend, was done on purpose!!

Experimentation. If your ideas aren't working out do something desperate and hope. I did a deep etch and changed the edge of the rectangle. I like abstract and grit and there is room in the world of intaglio for such results.

You will notice that my steps above resemble the style of Arthur Geisert. In the summer of 1977 I moved to Galena, Illinois to work for Geisert. I inked and pulled proofs for him in his hillside studio, that required me to climb up up up his many many wooden steps. 

 

Geisert is an artist who includes lots of detail and humor. The caption reads: "Arthur amuses himself, building steps in the backyard." I pulled eight proofs of "Steps." It measured 5 by 7 inches. Thanks to David Lange for sharing the one he has below, as I have no photos of my early work.

Ga-chun-gah!!

In keeping with whimsy while in Galena I did an etching called "Compress." It measured 6 by 9 inches.

Circa 1977. Arthur Geisert did a four-plate hand-colored etching called "Noah's Ark." His images are full of detail and humor. Three minute video. This work is in the Reinhold Marxhausen collection at Concordia University in Seward, Nebraska. Geisert was an alumni, class of 1963, a friend of my father, and a skilled printmaker.

Summer spilled in to the fall of 1977. See more of that by clicking on
http://karl-marxhausen.blogspot.com/2015/02/chicago-art-institute.html

I chose to stay out of college one semester and worked in Galena until Christmas. I found out I was required to finish my schooling at UNL, as my parents were paying for the education they wanted me to have. I returned to Nebraska and stayed with my parents at the Columbia Avenue house. In the spring of 1978 I took a semester of classes across the street at Concordia Teachers College. And in the fall of 1978 I returned to the UNL to complete my Bachelor in Fine Arts degree.


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Thanks to David Lange (Illinois) for his photos of my etchings in his private print collection. More on Lange http://cee.illinois.edu/faculty/davidlangehttp://cee.illinois.edu/faculty/davidlange

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remember this

 All of a sudden, something from my past, speaks into the lives of those close to me. (ABOVE) my 1987 journal. Remember this, Karl.

In 1974 my dorm room is on the basement floor of Heppner Hall, my first year at the University on Nebraska, in Lincoln. I am 19 years old. On this day I remember being all uptight. Students were making jokes in our room that bothered me, but instead of saying something about it, I stuffed my anger down inside. As I sat on the bed I swung my fist against the wall. Later, after the students had left, my roommate Jeff Taebel said to me, "You need to do something about that." or something to that effect.

Fourteen years later, in 1988 I am taking classes at the Bible Institute of California in Anaheim. (ABOVE, photo standing by school sign with Hispanic class, photo of class in session) I have been taking part in a night class called New Hope, where I am learning about co-dependency, how unhealthy it has been to not feel my anger. I am learning to choose other ways of acting on my feelings. Letting go, letting God handle things that work me all up, let him be my peace. I am 33 years old. My wife and I went to visit my parents during Christmas break in Seward, Nebraska. (The following entry in my journal recounts the inner turmoil I felt)

"I feel angry at Dad for trying to control my life. I thought he had released me from expectations with my art skills. But today Dad opened the issue again. 'Why can't I market my abilities in the states and not end up going abroad?' he asks me. He still believes in what I can do with art, He sees himself as aggressive and me as laidback like Mom. He thinks if I wait too long, my ideas WILL NEVER BE FULFILLED. He sees himself trying - failing - succeeding in motion. And see me in a standstill - neglectful use of my abilities."

"The idea of my wife and myself going ahead for missions bothers him. I explained that he and I are two different people. His efforts work for him. But I am different. And it seems he can only see it from his method of working. And that, if I don't get busy producing and sending and marketing my stuff, that (I will be cursed, in a sense). I will have to suffer the consequences!!!" Immediately after that He controlled, by refusing to show a video promo he had earlier offered to show me. My Dad has to work out his own co-dependency. And I have to work out mine.

 "But I'm angry because I thought this issue had been resolved. Now it's like my peace is being shaken up all over again. It's almost like Dad wants us to be enemies again...I really appreciated my talks with Mom this visit. She's smart and is working out her co-dependency. Dad thinks she has the problem, but he misses his contribution and his own co-dependency. I feel Mom is right on track. I DON'T LIKE BEING CONTROLLED." (December 29, 1988)

Two years pass, my wife and I are still living in the trailer behind Betty Larsen's house in Gardena, California. Her son, Larry, is a classmate of ours at LBIC. (ABOVE, photo front of Betty's House, Betty, Larry, and a drawing of our trailer/home)
During chapel time today, a black five-member drama team from England called "The Acts" does some of their acting for the meditation.

That night, after school and after our jobs, we joined our friends from England back at Betty's house, where they are staying tonight. In photo ABOVE, Brenda and Lurissa from Canada. Jackie, Carol, Marva, Verletta (Mum) Malcolm from North Hampton. Maureen from South Hampton. Victor Gibbons, Karl Marxhausen, Jan Marxhausen.
    
It was during the prayer and singing time, that happens on Friday nights, that the spirit of God ministered to me as I lay on the floor. During chapel earlier today I felt a knot in my stomach. I asked for prayer concerning that knot. What happened as I lay on the floor, was that a tremor began in my stomach. It then moved up my body to my chest. Then I burst into tears and sobs. After a bit, a deep peace came over my being. I felt like I was sleeping on the bottom of the ocean, so still. Then after some time passed, the cycle repeated, with a tremor that began in my stomach, and which moved up to my chest. Again I burst out in tears and sobs. Soon, a deep peace and rest came over my whole body. And then, the cycle occurred again. The group prayer time had ended long ago. Everyone was off in the kitchen, while I was laying on the living room carpet all by myself. God was having his way with me.

These brothers and sister in Christ were witness to the work God brought in me. The recurring cycle of sobs and peace went on for THREE HOURS and ended around 11 o'clock at night. This was the SAME NIGHT my father Reinhold Marxhausen was making his second appearance on the David Letterman TV talk show (January 17, 1990) There was a sense that pent up grief was being poured out of my heart and was being replaced with joy and God's healing activity. (In the photo BELOW, my brother Victor Gibbons and me in Betty's kitchen.)

It is now 2013. The youth group is reading verses about people in chains and darkness in the book of Psalms. The verses seem like they are written for today. It could be us crying out from our own situations, where feelings are repressed, where anger is stuffed down and held on to, where bitterness towards others smolders. I am 58 years old. I share some of the anger I felt at Dad those years ago. Our group takes turns hefting up a potato sack with a heavy heavy stone inside, the symbolic weight of our own resentment. We talk about forgiveness, letting go, crying out for release, and being open to receive help from One outside our realm of control. We look at the artwork I brought tonight. Students describe what they see in their own words. (My 36 by 24 inch painting on tempered Masonite from 2000, BELOW)

We read verses of an anxious suicidal man in disarray who becomes clothed, calm, and in his right mind. I share how God made a way in my life. Releasing new feelings, songs of hope and joy. How destructive ways of thinking were broken off and his glitter sparkle matrix did something I was unable to make happen. (Collage, Airstrike, 1998, BELOW)

Marvelous, O Lord.
You are that strong. You show me the way to walk in forgiveness. A way closed off that You opened for me. Precious butterfly Holy Ghost. Releasing tears and pouring in peace and joy and altering my reality. Jesus, you, so kind, so able, so generous, yeses through You, You are making. Remember this, Karl.

free spirit

In the new year 2012, I have been enjoying music by the tUnE-yArDs.

Watch video of You Yes You, four minutes (above).
More works by Merill Garbus, click HERE
More about her, click HERE
http://www.tune-yards.com/
Watching her sing on stage reminds me of my second year in college.

Being an art student I put together and pulled off a few "free spirited events."
The year was 1975. I was enrolled in the Centennial Educational Program, while at the University of Nebraska, in Lincoln.

One Saturday morning I staged an impromtu happening in the Nebraska Student Union lounge. My roommate Bob Winkler (above) and I stacked blocks of scrap wood and invited others to do the same.
This was what an art student with lots of zeal did when he was out on his own. The memories do not stop there.

Our dorm room on the second floor of Love Hall became an art project itself. From the paper strips that hung from the ceiling (right) to the flattened refrigerator cardboard boxes

boxes I dragged from off-campus and lined our walls (left). To draw and build on, of course. Obviously influenced from the "basement wall" I grew up with in my parents' house. (See a clip of their wall, click HERE.)

Friday nights when students were out visiting their friends on our floor, Bob and I talked fellow students to enter our room to see the hung ceiling and watch their response to it. That same year 1975, I had found a way to pull the paint layer out from our room wall. Very carefully I stuffed portions with small piece of tissue and resealed it (left and below).

Here is another memory about Centennial. That same year I organized, scripted and filmed a 40 minute super-8 movie as an independent study project at Centennial. The story followed a traveling salesman as he went from room-to-room with his suitcase. Each room presented a different odd scene. He met a scuba diver, a troupe of human flowers, a foosball champion, and many others. Fellow students in Centennial were asked for their ideas and many acted in the film. All the scenes were shot within Centennial. My advisor gave me full credit for it.

Centennial was in the (north) Love Hall end of the John G. Neihardt Residential Center. I remember setting up a number of "peoples concerts" to showcase the musical talent from our dorm and the Neihardt complex. I borrowed sound equipment from the Nebraska Union. There was a concert held in the Neihardt snackbar in the basement of our dorm, and one in the lounge of Raymond Hall, because it had a grand piano there. There was a concert also in the South Crib Room of the Nebraska Student Union. Here is a list of some of that talent. (I have added current available links where I could find them.) Jon Swift on guitar, Tim Roper 1  and 2 on violin, Jeff Binder 1   and 2,  Ray Walden on piano, Jim Williams on piano, Rick Nelson on guitar, Tim Booth on piano, Vicky Thomson on piano, Dave Mosley on piano, Steve Petersen on guitar, Pat Collins on guitar, Brian Nyquist vocals, Mark Willy on piano, Bob Popek, Jeff Taebel 1  and 2  on guitar and 3, Paul Marxhausen 1  and 2  on guitar, myself on piano, and others.














One more memory.
(below) That's me kneeling on pages torn from












a discarded phone book. (In photo, Jon Swift is seated second from left, and Tim Roper seated just above my kneeling figure) In the darkened space Dan Swinarski (above, left) cast light on the dancing strips of paper for all to see.
With a free spirit and in total silence, the community watched and enjoyed the spontaneity of the event.

follow the process

One of the things I loved about ceramics in college was the sensation of muddy slip and texture of grog, clay which has been fired then ground up, sitting in an encrusted bucket of liquid grit, oh yeah!!
 

 (above and below) Here are close-ups of a 1978 "floor piece," from my senior year at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I had my own 10 by 10 foot studio space on the second floor of Richards Hall. The 24 by 36 inch paper was taped to the floor, and I was dropping bits of texture right into the paint. Look closely and you will see sunflower seed shells. A "whole-other-wonderful" strategy was in place to savor and excite.

 
That "strategy" or "process" was about being physically engaged, reaching over, mindful of the taped edges, precarious steps across the image, looking down, hurling liquid color, drinking in silence that surrounds me, the intermittent cooing of birds from the eaves of Richards Hall outside my window, the sharpness of the temperature in the room, the charged excitement I felt within this Nebraska winter, immersed in the piano and vocals of Billy Joel from my Radio Shack cassette player. Independent, wide open and moving about in my studio space.  The swirl of it all, focused, creating, doing, moving, being intentional, occasionally stopping to assess what the image looked like. An entirely different mindset from "landscape painting." Enriched, hands-on, visceral.

       This morning, sponge in hand, my eyes creep over gridded particles, taking in the general appearance, and hand dabbing liquid pigment on raised grit, my eardrums awash with the jazz music of Spyro Gyra (above). That same "process" is taking place here twenty-two years later. A large heavy support is centered on a stool and rotated as I sponge. There is a balancing act, muscles wrestling the support, and an awareness of my studio space. The underlying grid, made earlier in the gel medium, resurfaces. Selective sponging the grit is key. 

   

 

In this video you can see the "intention" for yourself. I am watching as I dab. Surely my father worked in a similiar manner, that is, experimenting with materials, and expecting to be surprised by something new. Working from a calculated hunch. Setting the work aside. Coming back, drinking the image in, being open minded. Assessing "which results" I like, entertaining what to do next, moving forward with the next hunch.