October 17th, 2009
Last week I spent a few days in New York for the wedding of some dear friends.
I lost track long ago of just how many trips I’ve made there over the years, or how many months’ residence would equal the sum of all my days spent there (plenty).
My memories and souvenirs reflect this. I have whole sketchbooks devoted solely to Manhattan; boxes of still-good Metrocards and train schedules; miles of film negatives and a mental Rolodex stored to the brim with makeshift maps, habitual errand circuits and addresses of favorite haunts.
Every time I visit, it’s hard to string together a cohesive narrative of the adventure afterward.
Instead, my memories of New York are always a series of brief impressions; moments caught like fireflies in a jar.
Maybe it’s because each day finds me all over the map of the city, alternately in teeming crowds and completely alone;
or because I’d rather remember the best events and forget the worst (I’ve got a whole long list of those, too);
or maybe I owe it to the very nature of drawing and photography—whatever the reason, this trip was no different.
And every moment is another thread woven into a huge, neverending tapestry that tells the story of my very own, personal New York.
And for me, that’s the best thing about it.
April 4th, 2009
Jessica Spring and I have been having a high ol’ time with our Dead Feminists series thus far, celebrating positive changes happening around the country with the first two prints we created. At the same time, we were shocked and dismayed to learn that Proposition 8 had passed in California. Now, I know that people are extremely divided on this issue, so in the interest of respecting others I’ll try not to open any worm-cans here (this is an art blog, not a soap box). But we wanted to express our thoughts on the matter, so Prop Cake was born. The quote we chose made the issue seem like…well, a piece of cake:
There is nothing complicated about ordinary equality. —Alice Paul
The initial idea for this piece came almost immediately; Jessica looked over at me on a drive home from Seattle one day and said, “How about a big, pink wedding cake?” I grinned from ear to ear, and started sketching as soon as I got home. The design didn’t come together so easily, however. Everything I came up with looked more like an ad for Modern Bride than a political poster. Frustrated, I pushed my sketches aside and took a few days off to think.
And then I went to San Francisco.
It was my first trip there, and my first thought as I passed through the residential neighborhoods, with rows and rows of candy-colored stucco houses, was “Wow, these things look like big frosted cakes!” And the lightbulb turned on, at last. I spent three days walking, driving, and riding around the neighborhoods, camera and sketchbook in hand. I made pages and pages of notes on architectural detailing.
When I arrived home, I got right to work. This time, finally, it all came together.
Alice was right—it really was a piece of cake.
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Prop Cake: No. 3 in the Dead Feminists series
Edition size: 108
Poster size: 10 x 18 inches
Printed on an antique Vandercook Universal One press, on archival, 100% rag (cotton) paper. Each piece is numbered and signed by both artists.
Colophon reads:
Alice Stokes Paul (1885 – 1977) continued the work of the suffragists, and helped form the National Woman’s Party to demand equal rights. The NWP engaged in militant demonstrations and the first picketing of the White House; these “Silent Sentinels” were mobbed and imprisoned, then force-fed while attempting a hunger strike. Public and media support for their cause grew and by 1920, women secured the vote. Alice Paul continued to work on their behalf, writing the original Equal Rights Amendment in 1923.
UPDATE: poster is sold out. Reproduction postcards available in the Dead Feminists shop!
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