Silk-Screened Comic, Downtown Providence

In 2004 I was in a group show at Myopic Books in Providence. It was a book arts show, and in honor of our opening me and the six other artists in it co-produced a limited run of handmade books that featured some kind of folio or comic by each of us.

My contribution was this little silk screened comic about a young couple who gets kicked out of their home and goes searching through the downtown for a new place to live. If you were around in 2004 (or if you’ve listened to Reconstructing Providence) you know that this was a bad time for artists. Dozens of my friends had recently been evicted from their spaces under inhumane and possibly illegal circumstances; having a stable and affordable place to live was definitely on my mind.

As you can probably tell, I’m a pretty lousy printer. I have no patience for lining things up or for the repetitive nature of the process, but it really took this project for me to figure that out! Even though just about nothing came out right in this project, from the color mixing to the way the ink sat on the butcher block paper to the almost complete illegibility of the text, I’m still attached to this project and feel proud of some of the drawing. I’d like to tackle the comic medium again at some point, sans printing.