I made the plate for this etching in 1999 or 2000, while I was living in Venice. During those years I did several etchings that adhered to a certain principle. I drew one freehand line as straight as possible. Under that line I drew another, following as closely as I could the one above it. Each successive line followed the line directly above, imitating all the curves and shakes. These imperfections, or deviations from the original line, became more and more prominent, each line being an interpretation of what came before it. I was gratified at that time to come across the writing of John Dewey on the subject of rhythm in his Art as Experience (1934):

Rhythm is an “ordered variation of changes.” There is no rhythm “when there is a uniformly even flow, with no variations of intensity or speed,” when “variations of pulse and rest do not occur.” “Variations of intensity are relative to the subject matter directly experienced. Each beat, in differentiating a part within the whole, adds to the force of what went before while creating a suspense that is a demand for something to come. It is not a variation in a single feature but a modulation of the entire pervasive and unifying qualitative substratum.”

Ten years later I came back to this plate. Looking at it again after a long time I perceived the strong influence of Venice; the texture calls to mind water and fabric. I was unable to decide on one color for an edition, so after printing many color proofs, I chose ten combinations of colored lines on colored Japanese papers. The prints evoke the light and surfaces of Venice. The title of the series, Tessuto Veneziano, means Venetian textile or texture.