I am a hoarder of materials.

Not in a chaotic way. In the way that an artist who grew up feeling like nothing should go to waste keeps things carefully, in flat files and portfolios, for reasons that aren't always clear at the time. Just in case. Just because throwing them away felt wrong.
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These are from college art school. More than fifteen years ago.

They're print proofs from an etching class, specifically from a piece I made called For the Greater Good. I made them on copper plates using a technique called intaglio etching. Here's how it works: you coat the copper plate with a hard ground, an acid-resistant wax-based coating. Then you draw directly into the ground with an etching needle, scratching through the wax to expose the bare copper beneath. The plate goes into an acid bath, and wherever the copper is exposed, the acid bites into the metal, carving your lines permanently into the surface.

The longer the plate stays in the acid, the deeper and darker those lines become.

To see what you actually have at any stage of the process, you have to make a print proof. You ink up the plate, wipe the surface clean so ink stays only in the etched lines, press it against paper, and run it through the press. That proof shows you exactly where you are, what's working, what needs more time in the acid, what to add next.

The panels here show the progression. The first proof is light, just the initial line work. The next two starts to show more depth. After several proofs and adding aquatint, a technique where you use the hard ground to in the lightest areas, dip it in the acid do another coat for the next lightest and so on until you get the darkest darks for what is still exposed, creating tone and shadow across larger areas rather than just lines.

Print proofs like these are practice. They're process. They're usually thrown away.

I kept mine. I kept all of them, actually. Filed in a portfolio that moved with me from house to house for fifteen years without ever being opened.

Now they're in Weave of Life.

I couldn't have imagined when I made them. The iterations it takes to get to a finished piece, all that process, all those proofs, it turns out they weren't practice after all. They were just waiting for their final form.

Yes, this probably confirms my hoarder-like tendencies when it comes to materials and supplies. I'm at peace with that.

Weave of Life is a large-scale modular installation growing panel by panel, story by story. To follow the project, subscribe below. To inquire about the work, reach out at nancy@nancyfritzart.com​