I did not know what Petra had in mind while she was combining watercolor with the inkjet prints. It was obvious that she was applying the paint in thicker, more saturated layers. As it turned out she was thinking of Concertinaed and transferring the ink or paints using water. And she wanted to work larger, incorporating transference into her process as she contemplated the deliquescent identity.
She asked me to cut her a piece from a roll of Stonehenge 250 gram printmaking and drawing paper; it was approximately 50 inches x 60 inches. She proceeded to lay it out on piece of cardboard on top of a work table in the center of the basement half of the studio. She sprayed it down with water and then picking up one of the smaller inkjet print/watercolors from the grid laid out on her worktable she carefully sprayed water onto the smaller piece of paper and laid it paint-side down onto the larger sheet of paper in the same configuration.
After applying pressure to each print with her bamboo baren, sopping up the excess water pooling in the ripples of the paper, and allowing the paper to just sit for a while she carefully removed each sheet of paper -much less saturated as when she began - to reveal what had been left behind.
While the paper dried Petra foraged through the piles she found on the tables and stools in the studio. There she found the prints and scraps of Melusine's writing Franzi and I had printed out and used bits of in Signs Left Behind. She sprayed down the larger sheet of paper with water once more, then the printed side of the pages with the writing, and carefully laid them face down onto the painting she had begun.
Smoothing them out, blotting up the water, allowing them to sit awhile, removing the larger sheets before adding another layer.
The next warm and sunny day Petra did something new. She moved the large sheet of paper from the basement half of the studio into the greenhouse where she hung it on the 'clean side' of the wall. There she began to paint with watercolors in a vertical position. After a while I went in and she pointed out to me what she was doing.
On the exterior wall behind her still hung the sheet of mylar I had used in my playing Elegy and Concertinaed in December. She photographed herself looking at the reflection of the painting drying on the wall.
Petra took the painting back to the studio table in the basement and continued transferring prints of the shapes from Deciphering Elegy she had sprayed with water. Some of the areas of the transferred shapes and the Sütterlin script she painted back into.
And then began adding layers of very thin acrylic gesso with a slightly blue tinge and employing Franzi's quick dry-hair dryer technique.
Eventually bringing it back to the wall.
And then she told Franzi and I what she wanted us to do.