Our first project was to get us considering what print can be. In the time of COVID, working at home seems to be both convenient and taxing. Sometimes it's hard to think of ideas. Sometimes it's hard to use all parts of your mind when you really don't feel inspired most days.
I started with something completely different than this project ended up as. I looked to things - objects - that I could identify with and that were important to me. I have a pendant of a petroglyph that I acquired from a Mi'kmaq artist. I took rubbings of it with a sage crayon I made by boiling sage. It looked nice. But I felt anxious about it.
I didn't feel like it was my work, it felt like a rubbing of someone else's work - which is what it was, essentially.
I realized it was exasperating my anxiety. I met with my instructor that week and this is when I felt some changes occurring. She got me thinking outside the box, and soon I'd ripped up my petroglyph rubbings to be used for my next print. My inspiration was sparked, and my idea was to try to show, through print, how anxiety feels. I used spray ink, and little pieces of paper that came in a wrapper in the mail. I also used the ripped pieces of my petroglyph rubbing strategically to create a more solid negative space. Then, I pressed it.
And I tested. A lot. I also read and researched various artists and their processes.
Testing is a fun process, because there's less expectation. You're not really 100% certain what you're looking for, but you make exceptions and modifications as you go, and that becomes your "process". At least, it did for me. In the end, I only came up with one image I really loved:
Again I looked to my instructors for advice. They suggested perhaps there's a way I could combine the images to create a unique display. I loved this idea, so I started really considering my layout. Could my test images add to my final image, to create the idea of what the anxiety of working at home feels like? I experimented with layouts, edges, lineups, and eventually I came up with this print that seems to perfectly express what working at home feels like for me:
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