When I started work this semester, I wanted to continue the narratives I had been doing of political stories that interest me, like the hair-braider who was told by the feds that she couldn’t braid hair in her shop unless she bought expensive sinks and equipment and took expensive cosmetology classes or like the state employees who were outraged that they had to fill out a detailed 31-page health assessment in order to avoid fines. I planned to work in monotype because it’s a new medium I wanted to explore that I honestly didn’t know much about.

I naively believed that I could make additive prints by painting my stories on my plate. But this has proven difficult. I am learning a new medium which gives various results depending on the absorbency of the paper and the moisture of the pigment. I am trying different combinations. I had to put away the idea for now of working in any kind of detail and focus instead on getting background color where I want it for each piece. I am having luck with this.

Currently I am mixing different printing techniques: I use monotype for the ground and linoleum print for the design. I have been creating prints of surveillance cameras. Because the monotypes are a bit of an unknown at this point, they are proving to be spontaneous yet vivid backgrounds, a little out of my control. I am never quite sure what I am going to get, depending on the paper and pigments that I use. The block prints, on the other hand, are predictable and controlled. The prints have been evolving as dark order over happy bright spontaneity. This is reminding me of our society: people going about their daily lives, traveling, making many voluntary and peaceful transactions with each other, contrasted with the overlaying grid of the cameras recording our every move. Control and State power over the fluidity of spontaneous order that comes from what might seem like chaos.

I will continue to do these commentaries on our surveillance state in mixed media using various printing techniques.