The Prodigal
Thirteen
AFTER LUNCH, we went back to work. Gerhard seated us on opposite sides of a proofing table with direct, color balanced light. On the table he put a stack of my first Bacchanalia prints. I grinned as I remembered Melody, Bree, and Justin posing in and around a bathtub with Melody’s water jug pouring over Justin’s head and a glass of wine tipping off Bree’s tray. It had been fun staging that one when the three came into the studio. Kate had a stack of her prints in front of her.
We worked on examining the prints all afternoon. He watched over our shoulders. Once he pointed at something on the piece I was looking at. It was almost too small for me to notice. I needed to focus. I could almost hear Lissa in my head.
“Hickey,” Gerhardt said. “Between the blue and red layers.”
Part of our education had been learning how Gerhardt made seven color separations by photographing the artwork with different filters. That was what Erika was doing with one of my paintings while we worked at checking the prints. Normal offset color printing, usually called “process color,” uses four separations and four inks—cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Gerhardt’s art process pulled three additional separations for printing with a green, a hot pink, and a darker blue. The filters were adjusted so the colors were less saturated than in process color. Otherwise the inks would just get muddy and ugly. The prints we were examining—even with the original oil painting sitting in front of me as a reference—were stunning and vibrant. I was sure we’d never get this kind of result from an inkjet printer or giclée process.
By six o’clock, my eyes were crossing. Kate and I had each managed to spot a dozen problem prints which were eliminated from the batch of keepers. I thought it was a little funny that after we had each spotted the problems, there were exactly eighty-one prints left. What had Clarice told me? One printer’s proof, five artist’s proofs, and seventy-five signed and numbered. I suspected that Gerhardt had already checked these prints and left a few for us to find errors on. I just hoped we’d speed up the process a little as we learned what to look for.
“Opa, dinner,” complained Erika. I was glad she was doing the whining so I wouldn’t have to. I was tired and hungry.
“Ja, ja. What?”
“Catfish!”
“Ach. Ja okay.”
Kate and I didn’t even comprehend the English they spoke. Gerhardt closed up the shop and we went out to Erika’s VW minibus. The thing was ancient and painted up like you wouldn’t believe.
“We can call our driver,” I said, looking at the rickety vehicle.
“No, no,” Erika said cheerfully. “Just pile in. You’ll love this place. You got to experience grits this morning. Tonight, you get hushpuppies and catfish. We’ll make Georgians of y’all in no time.”
I squeezed Kate’s hand as we struggled to hook seatbelts into the right connections. Gerhardt was quiet as we headed for dinner, but Erika was on her own turf now and jabbered away, pointing out local sites, talking about how Bibb City got its name, and showing us where we’d turn to get back to the Doubletree. Then we pulled into the parking lot of a shack with a big sign out front that said “Ezell’s.”
We do have catfish in Nebraska, but no one fixes them deep fried and spiced the way Ezell’s does. Add to that the crisp, hot hushpuppies with bits of corn and jalapenos, a side of coleslaw, and I think we ate for two hours. They just kept bringing the fish and the hushpuppies. If you think having fish for dinner is a healthy alternative, you haven’t eaten at Ezell’s. I was surprised the salad wasn’t deep fried. But the flavor was better than anything I’ve ever had—at least anything that came out of the water. Kate was packing it away, too.
Tuesday was more of the same, only more intense as we got down to more work and fewer lessons. Erika was our room service again and hung around a few minutes while we sat to eat. Having heard us talking about coffee, she’d brought Kate a latte and me an Americano with our breakfast. I gave her a ten for a tip again and she hesitated.
“If y’all hadn’t tipped me that yesterday before I knew you, I wouldn’t take this today. But since now I know that’s the way y’are, I’ll just shove it in my pocket and not tell anybody. See y’all later.”
It was a long day. After I went through my first print, I had eighty-seven copies left that I thought were good. I went back through them a second time and couldn’t find an error anyplace. I was sure there must be one somewhere that I hadn’t found. I finally called Gerhardt over and confessed that I couldn’t find the error.
“Gut,” he said. “We have a few extra good ones of this print. After they are signed, you can decide to destroy the extras or release them without a signature. Here. This is the next one.”
Kate and I each managed to get through three prints, including a break to watch how Gerhardt inked the press and pulled the yellow plate of my new print. He said it was the last one, save the two extras I’d sent down. When the paper came off the press with just yellow ink on it, it didn’t look like much. Yellow is so hard to see against the paper. Gerhardt ran 200 copies once he was satisfied that the color density was right. After he cleaned up the press and set up the cyan plate, he inspected all the yellow pages and threw out six of the 200. He just pulled them and dumped them in a recycle bin.
We’d been in Doc’s printmaking class all semester and one of the things I’d learned was how expensive art paper for prints was. Then I tallied up the fact that Gerhardt was starting with 200 of the first color and I hadn’t seen a run yet that ended up with more than ninety in the stack. Half the pages were being trashed. I was thankful for whoever it was that was sponsoring our work here and figured that giving him or her number one of seventy-five was a small payment.
When the cyan was laid in, we could see a difference in the print. Not only were we seeing yellow and light greenish-blue, but some spots of green were showing as well. With the magenta plate, we could see the picture and tell what was where, though my fingers wanted to reach in with paint and touch up a few spots, add highlights and shadows, and maybe mix some richer colors. It was desaturated. That’s when he started pulling the deeper colors he used in the process. First the green, then the blue, and finally the hot pink. With each successive color, the artwork became more vibrant and filled with intensity. By the time there were six colors on the paper, it looked like the painting.
“Now the miracle of black,” Gerhardt said. I know I didn’t use any black paint when I painted this image. It was the three teens, peeking around a drapery. I’m sure I mixed some black paint into a color to tone it down, but never any straight black. Still I watched as Gerhardt inked the press and the first sheet came off with the black added. The colors just popped off the page. It was brilliant. The shadows were deeper without going muddy and by contrast, the colors and highlights seemed brighter. Gerhardt looked at the first copy, shrugged, and said, “Too bad.” He tossed it in the recycle bin and made adjustments on the press. I’m not sure yet what he saw, but he sent us back to our work.
At eight, we called our car and went back to the hotel. No dinner out tonight. We were exhausted. We ordered room service and barely made it through a light dinner of salads with some interesting greens in them before we crashed.
And so the week went. We ate dinner in Gerhardt’s kitchen Wednesday and Thursday nights and didn’t get back to the hotel until ten. We worked straight through Thanksgiving, pausing only to call home and chat with the family as Melody, Lissa, and Wendy had dinner with Lexi, Jack, and the boys. After our chat, we went back to proofing the prints. When Clarice arrived at the door on Friday, we had each proofed and accepted thirteen works.
“Good work!” she said when she saw our results. Somehow, I’d expected to do so much more. A week and we only had thirteen out of twenty editions ready. Plus, Erika had photographed the separations for Ralph and Lissa at Fifty under the watchful eye of Gerhardt and they’d run the print of Lissa at Fifty. Ralph was in the middle of the red run when Clarice arrived. Both Gerhardt and Erika had been stunned by the last two pieces. They started talking about Ralph the minute Clarice walked through the door. Clarice, however, was all business as soon as she’d bussed Gerhardt on the cheek.
“Now, tomorrow Tony should proof these two editions so they can go back to the vault. How many did you decide, Tony?” Clarice asked.
Gerhardt was surprised when I told him I only wanted a total of thirty. He’d hemmed around and I got a strange look from Erika. He went through drawers of paper, looking for what he considered the right one then sent Erika out to get a different paper stock from the supply house he used. As soon as Gerhardt handed me a sheet of the soft, bamboo-based substrate, I knew the real genius of the man. Everything had to be right. He’d chosen a paper that would capture the nuances of these two paintings.
“Just thirty, including a printer’s proof and four artist’s proofs,” I said. “These are going into the vault with the originals.”
“A legacy,” Gerhardt said. “It will bring my name to the public long after I am dead. I questioned such a limited run, but working with these two artists has convinced me that they are here for many years to come. In fifty years, these prints will be worth thousands each.”
“When we finish the proofs, I’ve asked Gerhardt to sign each one with me,” I said. This time, Clarice was surprised.
“That is unusual. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of that before,” Clarice said. “Are you sure?”
“They wouldn’t be worth anything without him,” I said.
We discussed the process some more and Gerhardt pulled the black plate on Ralph. When the first sheet came off, we hung it next to the original and examined the two side-by-side. We checked different distances to see if the changing effect matched on the two. It was beautiful. Gerhardt finished the run as we started crating the originals of all forty-two pieces for shipment to the galleries where we’d be exhibiting.
“Tomorrow, you two take a break,” Clarice declared. “You’ve worked hard all week and you fly back to the rush of Seattle on Sunday. Perhaps Erika can show you something to do, or you can sneak off to your hotel room and do whatever you want. Gerhardt and I will take care of the rest of the shipping tomorrow after you’ve selected the prints of Ralph and Lissa. Tonight, dinner at the Meritage.”
Dinner at the Meritage Café was fantastic. It’s listed as casual, but we still felt underdressed. I ate a filet mignon that was fork-tender. Kate had a rack of lamb and we shared bites of ecstasy. The steamed lemon pudding cake with blueberry coulis was a fantastic dessert. Now all I had to do was figure out a special day for Kate tomorrow.
This trip was the inspiration for my idea of taking each of my special ladies away for a week to have one-on-one time where we could really connect. It had been wonderful with Lissa at Opens. In spite of the fact that we competed every day, we still went out to parties and dancing and made love at just about every opportunity. This week with Kate, though, had been twice as difficult as competition. We’d worked hard. We slept, cuddled together in the incredibly comfortable bed, but had only made love twice. We were just too exhausted.
And now I had no idea what to do for fun with her. I kept going over all the things that Kate loves. The nearest zoo was Atlanta, which wasn’t out of the question, but seemed predictable. We were a week early for the Columbus Symphony Orchestra’s holiday concert. I couldn’t find any dance venues that didn’t run a risk of Kate being carded and refused entry. I needed some help.
“Uh… Erika, what would you recommend Kate and I do on our day off tomorrow? I’m like a fish out of water down here.” Kate and Erika looked at me then turned to each other to whisper together.
“Don’t worry, baby. We’ve got it covered,” Kate said as she kissed me on the cheek. Huh? Kate and Erika had it covered. But I was going to… Shit! When one of my girlfriends tells me to relax, I know better than to question it. Kate had it covered.
Of course. before anything else could happen Saturday morning, we had to go to the studio and proof my two special pieces. We were there early and it didn’t take quite as long as the other editions. There were only thirty in each edition instead of the eighty-one of the others. We took the time to sign the final series in soft-lead pencil. Clarice and Erika documented the entire process with photos so there could never be a question that this was Gerhardt’s work. Then we ceremonially gouged huge scratches in the plates and the film so that they couldn’t be used again. That was downright frightening. I offered Gerhardt the printer’s proofs when we were finished.
“Nein,” he said flatly. “The printer’s proofs must reside with the rest until the edition is released. Your signature on the certificate of authenticity giving the printer’s proof to Erika or her heirs is all that is necessary. I will be gone. We might all be gone. It is our legacy.” Erika was standing with Kate and I saw tears in her eyes as Kate hugged her. Then we packed up and got ready to leave on whatever adventure Kate and Erika had cooked up for us.
While I was getting ready, I noticed that Kate was in a whispered discussion with Gerhardt and Clarice. She kept shaking her head, but finally shrugged and came to join Erika and me.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing.” Yeah. Right. I let it drop. Kate would tell me when she was ready.
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