Amazing Mr. Moon., 1989-1990

The Library very much appreciates the following additional information, which was supplied by email from Shaun Waugh on 23 July 2009:

"• On the topic of the print making. The poster was a hand-pulled serigraph, printed here in Christchurch. (I cannot recall the name of the guy who pulled the squeegee right now, will get back to you on that). Two colours, black and matched pms blue. Each poster is unique, as the colour ramp or gradation of the sky from light to dark at the horizon, is a hand-crafted technique. The printmaker must manually 'tend the blend' as the inks tend to smooth out the tonal gradient with each pull. When fresh ink of different tones is laid side-by-side, the print tends to show random cloud like forms as the colours first coalesce. We produced the poster at 2 sizes. A3 (quantity 500) and A2 (quantity 250). Used a good quality 160gsm offset-litho printing paper, coated, semi- gloss.

The production values of design and print were unusually high as the goal was for the poster to be signed by Mr Moon, then sold, with the idea in mind that they be mounted or framed.

Aside from the aesthetics of the cloudy colour-ramp effect mentioned already, Serigraphy delivers an ink film build about 10x the thickness of offset inks, hence the colour tends to retain its fidelity for a very long time.

The colour of offset printing, by comparison, somewhat ephemeral.

The other layer of significance around the choice of serigraphy was that it was the last form of commercial printmaking to still be viably hand printed up until that time.

So the work has inherent hand-made craft value in printmaking terms. Which was important to me, as a designer, at the time.

• Artwork. The artwork I made by a combination of handpainting of black Rotring Pen Ink onto translucent mylar and handcut "rubylith" elements. The filmwork was hand 'stripped' to 'lith' film using traditional darkroom techniques.

The stencils were made by photoprocess, onto aluminium frames stretched with high threadcount (200 threads per inch) synthetic screen fabric.

I supevised the print production right up to handover of finished stencils to the printer.

Finally, Mr Moon is balancing on a two tiered "Rolla-bolla", with up- turned glasses supporting the second tier. Essentially planks of wood balanced upon a central rigid cylinder (wrapped in thin grippy rubber sheet) that rolls/rotates laterally. The Rolla-bolla planks have strips of skateboard grip tape on them to minimize slippage. Balancing on the Rolla-bolla thing is bloody difficult, juggling daggers as well multiplies the objective risk of injury considerably.

His shoes were hand-made by 'The Last Footwear Company', and his costume was made by my partner Chrissie Terpstra.

The background silhouette is a pastiche of Christchurch landmarks and icons, the Port Hill, Edmonds band rotunda (now a restaurant) by the Avon in the city, and a punt being punted on the avon, and the Cathedral of course. Christchurch is where John was newly settled to from the UK, and where he and his young family were living. He often performed as a busker on the streets of ChCh city at that time, and at the Arts Centre Market buskers pitch of a weekend. So he was an extension of that theme of city landmarks and icons. The foreground silhouette of John, uses the white of the paper to make his eyes pop out and the glinting on the sharp edges of the blades. Back in the day, he sold quite a few, though interestingly, some parents felt that the poster was too ominous for their children to have hanging in their bedrooms, with the piercing eyes and flashing knives, fearing the image might give their kids nightmares. Others took exception to the use of stars (a form of pentagram) in the night sky, suggesting links to the occult. Spooky Possums! The thought was that it should convey a sense of danger, expressing the risk involved in the performance, and position John as a Christchurch performer on the world stage. The blank area at the foot of the poster was to allow space for custom event details to be hand written or stuck on. I recall from my student days at ATI in the early 80's that friends and I 'souvenired' a few choice NZSAC posters, and they featured as decoration in many flats in the city at the time. Trust this is of some interest."