Gallery

MATTHEW DELORME’S WOODBLOCK PRINTS

Currents and Grain

At home in the studio, smaller prints, including wood engravings, can be carved, inked and pressed on one of two small presses.
Large-format prints require a big press and a little help. Master Printer Chris Shore at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, CT, helps Matthew DeLorme with paper handling, inking and pressure before prints are hung to dry for four days to allow the oil-based ink to cure.  At home in the studio, smaller prints, including wood engravings, can be carved, inked and pressed on one of two small presses. They are then run over with a traditional Japanese baren and a glass baren to ensure the best ink transfer. Blocks may require a couple pressings to achieve the desired result.
Words: Steve Duda. Artwork and Photos: Matthew DeLorme

Flyfishing and woodblock printing share a strange common ground. Both are old technologies that persist long after more efficient tools arrived. Both reward patience over speed, observation over force. And both ask the practitioner to commit; once the cast lands or the blade bites into wood, the outcome is largely set in motion.

There’s an overlap between the two.

Matthew DeLorme works inside that overlap, but on his own terms. He’s quiet, but there’s always music somewhere around him. He can seem serious, even a little imposing at first, but that gives way quickly to humor and a kind of offbeat warmth. The work holds those contradictions too—disciplined, but slightly feral; steeped in tradition but pushing against it.

Woodblock printing is a strange choice right now—slow, irreversible, resistant to polish—and that seems to be part of the appeal. DeLorme, 51, says that before he makes a single cut, he sees the finished image in his mind, “Ink on white paper.” From there, the work becomes an act of reduction—finding the image in the block and cutting away everything that doesn’t belong. Like fishing, it’s a matter of reading what’s already there.

Back to Issue 17.4