Garden Guard

Introducing one of a few new giclée prints that will be available at my upcoming exhibit (as well as on-line). The idea for this piece came to me whilst on a garden tour a few years ago, I found this neat stack of pots in a potting area and thought of the natural predators that protect this person's garden. The American Toad brings back fond memories of my own childhood, they were easily found... and it was amusing to watch them hop around eat insects. My brother was a big fan of "Frog and Toad" are friends I remember him carrying around a giant red bean bag "froggie" as a child. But I digress. This Toad will rid the garden of as many pests as he can eat-up, and therefore became the focus of "Garden Guard".

I have had some questions about giclée prints, and would like to share explanation by Paul Grecian:

What Kind of Print is This?

For some time now, giclee (pronounced “zhee-clay”) prints have been the preferred choice of artists wanting to create reproductions of their original artwork and of fine-art photographers wanting to make original representations of their images. Artists working in paint, charcoal, pencil, pen, pastel, or other 2-D media are able to reproduce their original works with great fidelity and museum-quality longevity. Indeed, these giclee reproductions may be printed on substrates such as watercolor paper or canvas which very closely match the look and feel of the original works.

Giclee prints are made using professional art printers and advanced computer controlled color management. The inks used in making these prints contain various color pigments. Prints made with these pigment-based inks are very long lasting (archival) and durable, much more so than dye-based prints. The longevity of pigment ink prints depends on the papers used, how the finished piece is framed and its display environment. The expected time period before some change in a pigment ink print may be seen can range from 75 to over 200 years. These estimates are based on research done by the independent labs of Wilhelm Imaging Research, Inc., considered the authority on the subject.

Museums around the world have been making giclee prints a part of their permanent collections. Included in this list are: The Metropolitan Museum (New York), the Guggenheim (New York), the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), the Philadelphia Museum, the Butler Institute (Youngstown, OH), the Corcoran (DC), the National Gallery for Women in the Arts (DC),the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts (DC), the Walker Art Center(MN), the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, the New York Public Library Print Collection, the High Museum (Atlanta), the California Museum of Photography, the National Museum of Mexico and the San Jose Museum.

Recent auctions of giclee prints have fetched $10,800 for Annie Leibovitz, $9,600 for Chuck Close, and $22,800 for Wolfgang Tillmans (April 23/24 2004, Photographs, New York, Phillips de Pury & Company.

"Garden Guard" © Beatrice Bork