Descent

Jared Wickware

This engraving is best explained in the artist's own words: "Ascent” and “Descent” were my first two copper engravings. I signed up for an etching class at CCAC, and the instructor Jeryl Parker (at the time he was partnering with Kathan Brown in creating “Crown Point Press” in Oakland - now deceased as of 2015), in response to a pen and ink drawing of mine (see below) suggested I might like to do engraving. His instruction….”Here’s a plate….just engrave the shit out of it”. I think it was the absolute best direction.

I took instantly to the engraving, but by the time I was working on my second plate I’d fallen victim to a sort of culture shock and had a couple of very bad years (hence “Descent”….not to be confused with lineage), and then one day I left both plates, “Ascent” and “Descent” on an AC Transit bus, and never saw them again.

If there are four prints of either one, then I am surprised. I have a copy. My sister in New York has a copy, and now so do you. There never was an edition. At that hazy time in my life, it didn’t seem so tragic. “Descent” had been therapeutic for me, so in that sense it had served it’s purpose. Recently I have prepared another plate with the same dimensions, with the idea of re-creating that print for the 21st century, though at the end of the day it’s likely that only the plate dimensions will be recognizably the same."