Todd Chilton and Professor Gary Barton, Visual Arts

Intaglio printmaking is a process that carries with it a tradition of hazardous chemicals and solvents that is not only dangerous for artists and students, but also for the environment. As an artist, I am concerned with the negative effects of working with these substances. In our day of increased health and safety awareness, as well as environmental consciousness, certain traditional methods of printmaking are being replaced with safer, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly processes. Traditional techniques are expensive, and it is difficult to continue working with these processes outside of a university with a well-equipped shop. The dangers and expenses of setting up a personal studio with the necessary chemicals, solvents, and appropriate safety equipment often outweigh the benefits of doing so. In the past, non-toxic methods were cumbersome and impractical. Recent innovations, however, have made non-toxic techniques equal, if not technically superior to traditional intaglio processes. Additionally, once the facilities are up and running it is significantly cheaper to maintain a non-toxic shop.

The main danger in intaglio is the traditional etchant, which is a solution of nitric acid diluted to the appropriate strength. Even at its weakest level for etching a zinc or copper plate, the solution is still dangerous to the skin and eyes, and its vapors are corrosive and harmful to breathe. The non-toxic alternative to nitric acid is ferric chloride. Ferric chloride is an industrial chemical that is available in bulk at a fraction of the cost of nitric acid. Although it is not completely benign, it gives off no harmful vapors and produces only minor irritation, if any at all, if it comes in contact with the skin. One should be aware, however, that a ferric chloride solution will stain almost anything it comes in contact with yellow.

The process of etching is much the same as with nitric acid. A plate can be etched lying flat in a tray full of the ferric chloride solution, but the tray must be agitated as the reaction produces sediment which will clog the area and prevent a clean line from forming. Two answers for this problem were employed. One was to add a certain percentage of citric acid powder to the solution. Not only does this get rid of the sediment, it speeds up the etching process. The other answer was the vertical etching tank that has been developed for this expressed purpose. Instead of etching a plate flat, the plate is suspended vertically in the tank full of the solution so the sediment will fall out as it is being etched. This tank then acts as a storage container and helps to keep the print shop clean as there is no transferring of ferric chloride solution from storage bottles to trays and vice versa.

In creating an image on a plate in the traditional method for line etching, an acid resistant ground, usually asphaltum, was spread onto the plate and allowed to dry sufficiently to draw into. This kind of ground requires a solvent such as kerosene or acetone to be cleaned to prepare for proofing or printing. I experimented with non-toxic acrylic grounds. There are a few products that are manufactured and marketed as acrylic grounds, but the most cost-effective and best performing ground out of the ones I tried was an acrylic floor wax product called Future. Future can be found at most grocery stores and is more durable and easier to apply than the Z’Acryl product that was designed for this purpose. Future can be cleaned from the surface of a plate when preparing for printing with warm water and Comet cleanser or a mild ammonia and water solution. A line bitten with a ferric chloride solution into a copper plate with a Future acrylic ground is of the same, if not better quality than the traditional and toxic techniques.

While there are other non-toxic methods I researched and experimented with, these two are the most significant changes that can be made to the intaglio shop on campus. In helping to transition the shop from traditional methods to non-toxic processes, I prepared a number of different solutions of ferric chloride of various strengths to be used in the different intaglio processes and helped other students learn how to use the new etchants and grounds. These solutions can be used with both copper and zinc plates and I have had good results in creating images using only non-toxic processes. Change can be difficult, but in this case the alternatives work just as well, if not better than the traditional methods. The methods with which I have experimented are not only safer for the artists working with them, they are better for the environment. There is less hazardous waste produced and fewer hazardous products are purchased for use in the shop.