Sangre de Cristo

Joel Salcido, Sangre de Cristo, chine collé, a la poupée polymer photogravure, edition of 24, 2012.

"The first thing I noticed when I entered the storage room inside the Tarahumara Indian Cusarare Mission, high in the Mexican Sierra Madre, was the "open wound" in the adobe wall, and then I noticed the crosses."

Joel Salcido, 1984


A good photograph captures moments, but a great photograph creates epiphany. Sometimes those greater moments have the power to become icons in our lives.  When Joel Salcido captured the moment of Sangre de Cristo twenty-eight years ago at the Tarahumara Mission using film and his 4 x 5 Hasselblad camera in a dimly lit storage area, it had a slim chance of capturing his vision. Yet, the strength of Joel's image has endured and this fall as we considered creating a photogravure etching together, Joel chose this photograph.  A polymer photogravure is a way of creating an etching starting with a photographic image.  The point of making an etching with the photograph is the ability of the etching medium to enhance both the visual and conceptual elements of the image.  Working with Master Printer, Tracy Mayrello, Joel found a way to transmit that moment in the Tarahumara storage area of the mission using the etching technique of a la poupée, selective inking.  The ediiton of 24 was signed today, December 3.  The image is 6" x 5" and is a chine collé  printed on Kitikata with a  15" x 11" Fabriano Artistico support and are now available at Flatbed.

Joel Salcido, well-known and collected photographer located in Austin, Texas, has had years of experience photo-documenting remote peoples, disaster areas, and the cultural turmoil on the border.  In 1991, he left his post as photo editor of the El Paso Times to pursue commercial and editorial photography.  Since then, he has produced work for galleries and publications like USA Today and Texas Highways.  Sangre de Cristo  is the second etching he has created and co-published with Flatbed Press.  For information about Sangre de Cristo's price and availability, link to Flatbed here: Sangre de Cristo.