About the Element
I have to admit, that the appeal of the element "iron" for me was the opportunity to use the visual pun of "iron"ing clothes, and then doubling that by using a Soviet Constructivist style, mentally to make the connection with the "Iron curtain." Iron was used in Soviet iconography to display the importance of the industrial worker. Iron must be carefully refined by labor intensive processes before it can be used in its industrial applications. Grain served a similar role in Soviet Iconography, it too needed to be refined by labor to have utility. The workers of these two industries are represented in the most recognizable form of Soviet Iconography, the "Hammer and Sickle," of the former Soviet flag.

Visual pun aside, Iron itself is an extremely useful element, vital to our human history (working iron into tools marked a significant step in the evolution of man, as did the refining of iron into steel, which ushered in the industrial revolution,) our industry, (Iron is the element from which the most things are made,) and even our nutrition (Iron in our blood, in the form of hemoglobin, carries essential compounds throughout our bodies.)

About the Print
The print is a woodcut. It began life as a photo collage, and was significantly altered in Photoshop. Stencils of the two states were made, and these were used to transfer the image to the block. I only use blocks supplied from my father's cabinetmaking business, and I will frequently leave planer marks, tablesaw burr, and other relics of his process to show the link between his art and my own. The block was carved as a "reductive" block, where the lightest color was printed, and then the block was carved again, and the darker color printed overtop. I carve using japanese methods and tools, but I ink and register using western techniques. I ink using a brayer and Daniel Smith water based relief inks, and I register using a lithographic pin registration system. The prints are burnished with a bamboo rice spoon. The image has been printed on Hosho Pro handmade kozo fiber paper.

About the Printmaker
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Iron
by Steffan Ziegler

Symbol: Fe
Atomic number: 26
Atomic weight: 55.845