Unwitting Collaborator, part IV

This one i know the original author. The dot pattern is from when I helped Brian Borlaug install his "Reagan is Turning 100!" show. Brian isn't a screenprinter, but wanted to screenprint directly onto the walls of the gallery, which took a bit of troubleshooting but eventually we figured it out. This print is a combination of relief and screenprinting.



This was part of the Quotidian encounters show curated by Christian Salcedo Ward.

Screen Demo

The assignment for my 370 class was to do a three color screenprint with overlapping, transparent colors, making the stencil on the screen with screen daring fluid and screen fill. This demo print is not to the same standard that I've been trying to stick to for demo prints. I've been trying to make all of the demo prints at least a little exciting, but this one I did a little last minute.

At Minona

Gary Spisak started a donation based coffee shop in his studio at Cal State Long Beach. It's called Minona, after the street he grew up on and an African goddess of fertility. Minona is open whenever Garry feels like having it open, and the offerings besides coffee vary--once he had vegan Guiness ice cream.

Gary invited me to do a piece on the windows of Minona, so I screenprinted these figures. Screenprinting on glass works out ok, and it's easy to clean the ink off and start over if you mess up, but the ink takes quite a long time to dry, and it easily squishes out while screening because none of it is absorbed like it is with paper.

These photos reveal just how little of a photographer I am:

In the corner

This print (or this diptych of sorts) exists both as a 2D regular print, and as a 3D relief print on fabric.



Perception of scale operates in such a funny way. Seen two dimensionally, the figures are imposing, frightening in their strangeness and read as large, even looming. But three dimensionally, when they are in our space with us, they are pathetic, the viewer suddenly wishes to protect them.

Claire

This is another print in my ongoing portrait project series. I need to come up with a better name for the series than that, too.

As I've improved with screenprinting, I've increased the size of the image. One of the issues with doing a larger stencil is the ability to have even adequate pressure over the entirety of the image, which is no small feat. There's a reason why doing a large even layer of a single color is the hardest thing to do in screenprinting. Doing small runs, printing only one image in an evening (and printing in the evening when it's cooler and less likely to dry rapidly), and overcompensating with the ink are remedies for the difficulty of pulling a large even layer of ink.



This is from a photograph of my little sister Claire Taylor, who is also a printmaker and artist, taken at my second oldest brother Blue's wedding. Claire says is looks both like her and our brother Orson. It's a big family we have.



Here's one of the ghosts: