San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay: Portfolio of Screenprints sequentially presents the San Francisco Bay from a continental view to local tidal marshes. Seven maps, a title page and colophon are included. The prints can be exhibited in a custom built portfolio box, framed on the wall or on platforms to create an exhibition installation.
The impetus for this portfolio was the 2012 Earth·Art·Science project that paired artists with scientists from the Santa Cruz USGS Pacific Marine and Coastal Science Center. Kent Manske, inspired by the field research and critical analysis of scientist Lissa McVean, began his own research on the San Francisco Bay, baylands and adjacent habitats. His research included the academic, the personal, the spiritual and the political; and information from local and national institutions: San Francisco Estuary Institute, The Oakland Museum of California, Save the Bay, South Bay Restoration Project, Google Earth and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Sketchbook and camera in hand, he hiked, biked and kayaked terrain he had not previously explored. San Francisco Bay: Portfolio of Screen Prints reflect his conversations with Lissa McVean about simplifying and distilling scientific data to aid understanding and improve intuition.
Each map traces the edges of water from a global perspective to a specific tidal marsh in Redwood City, California. This is where Manske’s home and studio is located, and where Lissa McVean conducted field research on the movement of water and sediment though the shallows of the San Francisco Bay. The maps were screen printed, flooding ink through hand-cut stencils, thus filling each page with blue ink/water. Hand-pulled prints on textured hand-made paper resulted in variable printing characteristics within each of three print sets.
The San Francisco Bay has lost an estimated eighty-five percent of its historic wetlands to fill or alteration. Environmental consciousness and restoration projects aim to reverse these trends.
Title: San Francisco Bay: Portfolio of Screenprints
Media: screen prints
Box: Clamshell box. Book cloth on book board. Screenprinting. 32.75 x 26 x 1.25” (83 x 66 x 3.2 cm)
Edition: 3
1/3 hand-made paper, Mexico 31 x 23” (79 x 58 cm)
2/3 hand-made paper, India 30 x 22” (76 x 56 cm)
3/3 Rives BFK White & Tan , France 30 x 22” (76 x 56 cm)
Year: 2012
Related Project: San Francisco Bay Artist’s Book