I haven’t uploaded a lot of my latest work (and by latest I mean my last semester of school). I tried to make a series about identity issues. This is my first edition of the series out of (so far) 2 – which is bad, real bad, like I don’t even want to talk about the second one. If you can’t tell, it’s a canary wearing a mask of a woodpecker. It’s an 8 x 8 woodcut with screen printing and some monotype screen printing.

Oh school. How I [somewhat] miss thee.

Every Friday the lawn gets mowed and as a responsible dog owner, I make sure the yard is picked up. I got a friendly reminder from the mama this morning:

Yesterday was just a typical Monday. Woke up at 6:30am, got ready for work, patted the dog on the head, drove 25 minutes on the freeway, then sat at my desk doing various things until a meeting, then drove a to a strange land called Orem, to a guy’s garage that I hardly know, and screen printed posters for the upcoming Modest Mouse concert. Orem is far. But worth the drive to hang out with Travis Bone and help him print one of his many amazing concert posters.

Almost every week this summer at the Twilight Series, a free concert on Thursdays at the Gallivan Center, I bug Travis or one of his helpers with numerous questions – how did you start? What’s your process? Where did you go to school? etc. etc. etc. Last Thursday, one of my many questions of the day was – are you pretty busy?

“Yeah. So busy I have to bug people.”

“Oh? You could always bug me!”

And he did. And I probably bugged him with more questions as he printed and I racked – what was your degree in? Did you build this table? Where did you buy your ink? Do you like Quentin Tarantino films? Ever heard of a movie called Hump Day? How do you pronounce Bon Iver? Are your parents proud of you? etc. etc. etc.

Then at 11:45pm, I walked away with a little somethin somethin for my help:

Mind you, leaving at 11:45pm means getting home at 1am. But once again worth it. Travis is 27 and has been screen printing for about 5 years. Five years ago he was 22. I am 22. So let’s just say I’m pretty inspired and motivated by Mr. Bone and can’t wait to help him again!

Letterpress collagraph experiment . My key wasn’t entirely type high so I drew in the rest. More demo days please…

Last night I went and saw The Cove. Sitting in a dark theater by myself and crying wasn’t what I had planned, but it was definitely worth seeing. Playing at The Broadway now.

Exactly 33 years ago, my parents married. They were 21 years old and in love. How did they meet? I’m glad you asked.

The Vietnam War was getting bad and my Uncle, a white guy in the army who married my mom’s oldest sister, moved the family from everything they knew to his hometown -Caste Dale, UT. Now something you should know about the mama and all of my Aunts and Uncle – they’re all deaf but the youngest sister. The only deaf school in Utah at the time was in Ogden so the kids journeyed north for school. Now, a few weeks before this my dad had no job. He received his last welfare check and knew he needed to start looking for work. One day coming home from school at Weber State University, he turned left to the deaf school to see if they were hiring. That left turn changed his life, as he likes to put it. My dad was an RA for the boys dorm and this is how he learned his fifth language, American Sign Language. Him and my mom were the same age and older than most of the others and once she got the courage to talk to him, they started dating.

One day, my dad got down on one knee and signed, “Will you marry me?” Even though she was mostly confused on why he was down on one knee, she answered, “Ask my parents first.” So my dad hired a Vietnamese translator and drove 3 hours to Castle Dale just to be shot down. My grandparents justification for declining was that they were both goats in the Chinese Zodiac which meant they’ll butt heads. But somehow when they heard my dad had a house they agreed to the marriage and moved in with them with 3 of my mom’s siblings. As newlyweds, my dad had 5 extra people in the house to take care of, none who spoke English or spoke at all. This is how much he loved her and still does today.

Happy Anniversary!

Letterpress and I have been keeping busy. This past week we’ve been spending almost every minute together working on the final project – Welcome to the fold. The main objective is to have the paper fold at least twice and a minimum of 4 runs (colors). My graphic design portfolio has a weak section in product packaging so I thought this would be a great opportunity to be able to print and build something original. I think I came up with this from the idea of tea bagging John McCain. It somehow warped into tea for Printmakers instead. In the order it is in the photos it goes: In Case of Intaglio (peppermint tea), Stress from Relief (chamomile tea), Mental Screen Block (chai tea), and Under Letterpressure (green tea). It’s a shame you can’t smell them.

I am exhausted. I made 120 of these little guys to total an edition of about 30 each for a class exchange of 22. There are two mediums I left out because I couldn’t think of a good title – Lithography and Monotype. So here’s the deal: If you can think of a title for one of the mediums I will give you this featured set of tea bags. This equals 2 giveaways! The winner will be chosen by me on the basis of cleverness. Whether or not I will actually make more tea bags for this series isn’t likely – but possible. Contest ends, oh lets say in 2 weeks so August 20th. Winner will be announced the next day.

Oh and I’m not assuming any of you want an actual set, but it makes it fun if you get something for participating, right?

PS

Letterpress and I are taking things to the next level. That’s right folks, the Intermediate level starting August 26th.

A question on everyone’s mind: Does Michael Cera act the same in the real life?

Answer: Apparently.

I was at the Broadway the other day to see Away We Go and saw a poster for Paper Heart starring Charlyne Yi, a writer/musician/actress, and her quest to find love. It appears to be a documentary but it’s hard to tell. I researched it and even Wikipedia is throwing me off:

this film combines elements of documentary and traditional storytelling.^[1]

This film was at the most recent Sundance Film Festival and my brother was really lucky to see it. He couldn’t tell if it’s a documentary or not either, but still recommends it. And with that, and finally being able to see the trailer, I want to see it. Coming to a theater near you, or a theater in a big city near you, August 7th.