Inking Up! for Social Justice - Small Things Can Add Up

It's been a long time since I posted. I am always waiting for a better moment, a better photo, a clearer thought. Now so many things I want to share have piled up. 

Here's the latest:

First and foremost, I want to share the latest broadsides for Environmental & Social Justice programs. I cannot sit idly by while hundreds and thousands of people, including children, are imprisoned at our Southern border. I cannot abide the attacks, both verbal and physical, on people coming here to seek a better life. If we can each do something small, it will add up to something big. 

These four broadsides were created in collaboration with Rick Jones (NY state). We worked together on theme and content, and then Rick made these beautiful stencils for a two-color print. I printed them on my Vanderook 4 through a process called pressure printing. 

                                     

We picked the quotes through a back and forth process, and Rick had them translated in Spanish through various friends. We were thrilled to be able to print these design in two languages. The type was handset for the English, and Rick had photopolymer plates made for the Spanish.

One of my favorite things about this work with Rick was his addition of the burlap scrap to add texture and definition to the skirt below. 

It's been a learning and rewarding process to collaborate across space, and with Rick in particular. He has talent and caring and a willingness to let me print by the seat of my pants! 

We are asking for donations, either directly, or through us, to either R.A.I.C.E.S. (Refugee and Immigration Center for Educational and Legal Services), or to the Florence Project (Florence Immigration and Refugee rights project), or the ACLU and in return 

we will send you one of these broadsides - you choose! 

And as a reminder - 

you can donate any amount for a broadside. 

We do not ask the amount - it is totally up to you. 

We pay the shipping from our own pocket, 

it does not come out of the donations.

This collaboration with Rick Jones are my 4th and 5th Inking Up! for Environmental & Social Justice projects. If you'd like to know when the next one happens and what it looks like, follow this blog, or my May Day Press Facebook page. I am trying to do one or two a year. It's been a rewarding experience for me to make work and give 100% to a worthy cause, no strings attached.  

Thanks for reading, and for caring. I'll post again, sooner than later.

Catherine Alice Michaelis: Imprinted & Unbound

 Pressure printed clothing, including my baby brother's little 

blue outfit and Bill's grandmother's christening dresses. 

 My unofficial autobiography . . . Sola.

Lots of eco-printed paper! 

My show is half over at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art. It's been a thrill every day I am there to meet and interact with patrons and staff. I could not imagine a more kind or caring group of people to work with. Bainbridge Island Museum of Art

The Pressure to Print

Pressure printing was the way I created all my image work for this latest edition. Learned from Kathy Kuehn two decades ago, pressure printing is my favorite way of getting ink onto paper. Over 30 print runs, front and back, went into this piece.  

It is titled Sola: A Mythical Story About A Real Girl. I nearly titled it Sola: A Real Story About a Mythical Girl.  They seem equally true. Sola learns to see herself in everything and everything in herself. It's a condensed version of my own healing and transformation.

I was fortunate to be commissioned to create a piece for the "Just One Look" exhibit now showing at the University of Washington Allen Library, Special Collections. The request and theme of the show pushed me in unexpected directions that yielded so much. Without this opportunity, I would not have been able to know the end of my story.

If you can't get to the "Just One Look" exhibit at the UW (and really you should - or look for the catalogue - the show is loaded with incredible work) then visit the PSBA members show in Tacoma at UPS this summer! 

Long Hours — Short Distance

A proof printed over a proof. My favorite prints are often the ones that never make it into my books.

I feel I have been moving at a snail's pace lately, so there is a snail in my latest book. If I were a mollusk, this would be me. The book is so fresh that the ink is still wet on the cover and not a copy yet bound. But by this time tomorrow I hope for both book and box to be done.