L'escalier (The Staircase)

Judith Rothchild

Judith Rothchild presents the viewer with a kind of mystery - stairs and a doorway beyond which a staircase, built around a central column, appears to rise up to infinity, all surrounded by a dense black. The artist uses the values of Notan, the mezzotint qualities of black to grays to white to create a quality of light from an undefined source, reflecting off the surfaces and establishing the substance of the composition.

Rothchild commented about mezzotint, the medium she prefers: "Preparing the plate with the mezzotint rocker is long and meditative, but I have the satisfaction of knowing that the plate will have a rich velvety texture that will be an ideal surface for drawing. Once the plate is fully rocked, which can be up to fifteen hours for my largest works, it is very responsive to burnishing but has too much burr to print well.

The skill of the process is to bring up the image slowly, caressing the forms with the burnisher, occasionally printing proofs. At the same time, the surface of the plate evolves; the roughness becomes soft velvet and the plate is finally ready to return all the hours of drawing one has put in."