Tuesday, April 20, 2021

anti REP/anti DEM

Total new burn-out.

The mask and wax sitch has numbed everyone. Pandemic burn-out. Quarantine burn-out. Zoom burn-out.  The mask/vax print bombed. It's making fun of a serious issue; and the wrong crowd was digging it. 

So I changed gears.

Right now Joe and Kamala are trying their best, but losing sleep at the direction we're going is a logical transition. The border is still a mess while the tides of nuts are getting stronger as $millions pour in as donations. According to New York Magazine, the well-of-science Republican representative Marjory Taylor Greene, "on April 10, she announced that she had raised $3.2 million in the first quarter, which is a record in fundraising for a House freshman during an off-year election quarter."

OOO-kay. Make-an-artpiece time. 

Here's my latest creation:














It's a diptych, a stencil print. An edition of five, if that many. Bridges to accommodate the bowls in the a, D, R and P; the design work is silent and compensates for some of the quirks I expect. The piece has to look seamless or will fall flat.

It's a tiny piece, with the print surface being a 2-1/2-inch square. It has to be small. I have another, similar file in the works, a 5-inch square for each print surface. I think if it's big it will lose its message in sensationalism, very much like anti MASK and anti VAX did.

The digital print lab opened my eyes to something interesting, since I had built the files as layers in the application so they would line up. I copied the layers, crop lines registration marksand sent out the three files. 

The phone call from the digital rep came quick, since the RIP couldn't read a few visible layers among eight hidden ones. So, that was fixed and sent out. I got back proofs this morning, the burned (digital cut) plates will be coming in later.

I'll be looking for tiny hinges for the final framing, but right now I'm thinking about the design and how it will translate to the files and hence, the printing. 

Interesting, large and public is the work of other stencil artists. Banksy is the leader of the movement, and there are others: (left) DotDotDot from Norway  and Christian Guémy (C215),  an established graffiti artist from Paris. 

                                                                                                                         

Logan Hicks, left, is a former screen printer from New York. Note the fine hand-stenciling work.





Interesting is that among the artists I found, the female stencil artists are not afraid to highlight women's issues. 

The online art site Wide Walls (https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/10-female-street-artists) highlights ten, lists them as street artists and also points out that they are among the few that have broken through the traditionally all-male art practice. Shown here is a mural-in-progress by South African artist Faith 47.

Also surprising--I might not have looked hard enough--I found that very little typography is utilized in the work. 

I'll report on my endeavors soon.

STAY SAFE!



[Thanks to Befront magazine for the report: https://befrontmag.com/2016/06/21/the-7-most-influential-stencil-artists-of-our-time/]