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.

What the Plants Say

I have been working on this little book Root, Leaf, & Flower for a quite a while. The boco printing was done a year ago, but the letterpress just added. I haven't sewn one together yet, but all the pages are ready now.

I had some different thoughts about it when I first started the boco printing process from the plants. And it took me a while to realize those ideas were a dead end for me.

It started with the idea of a sampler – each plant isolated on its own page. But the result for me is much more than a sampler, it is a song. Each print is unique, the gesture of the plants expressive with hidden images and colors revealed.

I have worked out the stitching on sample papers, but I am not ready to reveal that one yet. And for those of you that have it, this book: Root, Leaf, & Flower will be akin to Plant Dyes from the Kitchen. (below) Plant Dyes from the Kitchen was also published in the fabulous book Thread Loves Paper by Emily Marks.

On My Very Own Silk Road

From my first attempt botanical contact printing on silk.

Not sure how far down the road I'll go with bo-co printing on silk, but I am having fairly good success so far and feeling more encouraged as I go.

Today, rain. But the vat is calling me back.

Mothing Around

So many stacks of blocks to get to!