Soda Spring by Eva Pietzcker - Davidson Galleries

Soda Spring most likely refers to one of the carbonated mineral springs found in the mountain ranges of the American West, where Soda Springs occurs as a place name across California, Idaho, and Oregon, and Pietzcker has drawn on the western American landscape in earlier prints. The composition renders the site through Pietzcker's mokuhanga vocabulary: [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations for water surfaces and atmospheric depth, flat colors keyed to cherrywood blocks for vegetation and rock, all printed by hand with a [baren](/glossary/baren) onto absorbent [washi](/glossary/washi). The water-based pigments characteristic of the Japanese method produce a soft, layered surface different from the flatter saturation of oil-based Western woodblock. Pietzcker's American West subjects reflect a body of work that locates landscapes outside the traditional Japanese pictorial canon within the specific material practices she studied during her 2003 residency at Nagasawa Art Park and her subsequent 2004 stay in Tsuna-town. The print continues her interest in particular places observed firsthand rather than generic landscape types.