THE SILVERPOINT SERIES
The Silverpoint Series spans fifteen years, with over one hundred images, and is divided into four major categories: flowers, objects, windows, and animals. There are a few cultural concerns and some subtle political comments. The Silverpoint Series was an adventure, an open door into a graphic world in the stream of consciousness.
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History
With a boom of popularity and the widespread use of graphite in the seventeenth century, the necessity of metalpoint (the use of various metal wires for drawing) was eclipsed. Metalpoint, unlike graphite which transfers easily to almost any material, requires elaborate surface preparation. For whatever other problems the metalpoint medium of the Renaissance encountered, its use in combination with modern industrial materials serves as a superior means toward the achievement of perfect draftsmanship. The images of the Series are a journal of the discovery of technique, materials, surfaces, textures, and the degree of line and form wherein the dimensions of media and personality blend into a reflection of an encounter which produces an individual style.

Technique
Consistent with the past is a prepared ground, or gesso, and of course, the silver wire. The early silverpoints of the Series have lighter images because the sterling wire I used was too hard; the gesso cannot be pressed or it will scar. It was later in the Series that goldsmith Mike Deak pulled fine silver into wire and annealed it to the right degree of softness so that a darker image was achieved. The same process should be applied to sterling wire. Had the sterling wire used earlier been softer I probably wouldn't have experimented with different types of gesso. By putting metal in the ground the silver wire made a darker image. This new richness of tone was pleasing to my eye. I returned to some of the earlier images and a second phase of the Series began.

The Hard Edge and Color
The darker image illustrates a potential side of silverpoint that is not traditional. Through experimentation with materials, the ultimate precision of "hard edge" could be explored...not in black and white values, but in tone ...in color. Enthusiasm bred more images. With a few of the silverpoints, I began to combine the medium of painting. (If this level of the image was isolated, and then heightened by an oil glaze, the integration of these three elements - silverpoint, tempera, and oil - would be the equivalent of the "Flemish System" of the Old Masters.) Some silverpoints were done on canvas panels to give support to the brittle gesso. I laminated vellum paper to cotton canvas, for a more responsive surface than the usual surfaces of wood or fiber panels.

A Story Behind Each Silverpoint
In time, the silverpoint will oxidize. It is this embellishment that gives silverpoint so much of its elegant beauty. There is a story behind each silverpoint of the Series...the subject matter, its origins, its meaning...in relation to the others in the Series, its ownership, and indeed, how each will fare in its own journey in the history of art, but....

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Copyright 2012 Howard Hack. All rights reserved.
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