What's in my art studio? — Ed Epping

A basic premise of all the work I am most intrigued by: the work examines that quality or condition which has been overlooked by most. I attempt to use that as a guide for choosing what I focus on in my imagery. So, I use words and images as partners where the word does not caption the image and the image does not illustrate the words. I privilege idea over medium because not all ideas work successfully in every medium. That often requires me to learn a brand new tool that best accommodates the image that I wish to produce, and hence I have many tools in my studio. This has permitted me to bring together processes that are not typically partnered and in that relationship build richer surfaces. The debossing and embossing of text and image into paper, like the pyrotechnic drawing, embeds the word and object into the ground...becoming part of that plane that then supports other marks. It is not surprising to find manual/electric type on inkjet printed images that have been debossed and burned...perhaps even machine embroidered. Each tool, each process brings with it a set of conventions that are enhanced by these pairings.

Bottle Jack Press

This is the second version that I made. In lieu of a bigger press, this 18 x 24” press bed with a 6-ton jack does just fine for debossing into paper. I found the plans online (now there are many DIY versions) and made the second to improve on the first. I was and remain attracted to its simplicity and low cost construction.

Takach Etching Press 30 x 48”

After a few years of using the smaller press, I decided I wanted to have a larger press bed for bigger sheets of paper. This is one of the finest etching presses made in USA and became available from a neighbor. Capable of more evenly distributing pressure than the smaller press, it permits debossing/embossing, chin collé and, of course, etching. 

Wood Burning Sets

These two wood burning sets have different styluses with different degrees of fine detail. The older set, Detail Master VI/Sabre is no longer widely available and when I needed finer stylus work in my pyrotechnic drawings, I found the Razertip SK online. The lines it burns into the paper I use creates a beautifully rich sepia tone. I am attracted to the fact that the scorched mark is in the paper and not on the paper.

Perkins Braille Typewriter

I use language in much of my work and various electric and manual typewriters to reflect the different voices/time eras present in the text. I also wanted a tactile language and located this Perkins Braille typewriter on eBay several years ago. That there is language within some works only available to a few readers builds a kind of privacy into the language and its meaning.