ART OR IDIOCY? (original) (raw)

The following is an interview I conducted with Carl Baratta, Isak Applin and Oli Watt over email about their collaborative woodcut prints, which are featured in the exhibition They Pass Unseen In the World at SideCar.

Isak Applin, Carl Baratta & Oli Watt • What's Time to a Disappointed God II • 2012 • woodcut on paper • 24 x 24 inches

**ERIK WENZEL:**Can you tell me a little about the process, how the collaboration came about and so on?
Were there any historic precedents you were looking at or specific artists/groups? I guess it tends to be a common read with wood blocks, but the images I saw made me think of German Expressionism. Particularly with the wild nature imagery.

**CARL BARATTA:**I'm waiting for some paint to dry (my dog licked some of a new painting off and now it's repair city USA/ bummer city, USSR). [Baratta paints with egg tempera—dogs can’t resist.]

Anyway, to answer your questions: I can speak for the process I have with those guys but Isak and Oli can explain their collaborations. Isak and I pass wood blocks back and forth. We both draw on them and talk about ideas for moods and composition. Sometimes we draw on un-carved areas and hand it to the other guy, as a guide to what we think should go next. But we don't always follow what the other person drew. Since we both draw and carve, Isak tries to draw like me and vice versa, same with the carved drawing marks. What ends up happening is we still kind of look like ourselves when carving/drawing but it creates intermediary marks that look like both of us, so the image is unified.