on physical & digital tactility…
Last year (2020) when I still had my studio in Gainesville, FL I video documented my lo-fi screenprinting process. I guess it’s not really that lo-fi, but I like the idea of doing a lot without a ton of specialized equipment. When I really learned to screenprint at the University of Tennessee, I was spoiled by an incredibly nice printing space. That said, they also taught us on-the-fly DIY techniques (coating screens with credit cards, baby oiling white paper for transparent separations, crop-mark registration techniques, etc…) that I still lean on heavily today when I print and prep digital files. I really enjoy teaching this process to designers, as it opens up a whole new world for them in terms of coupling their hand and digital skills—plus it’s just damn fun to get your hands dirty trying stuff. No matter how much control you have in the digital space, manually printing the separations always puts the mind in a mode of “I wonder what will happen if…” with test prints, unexpected overlays, etc…
I had posted original snippets in stories on instagram, but realized the time limits were too restrictive. I finally got un-lazy and put the full length videos on my laptop, using Premier Pro to cut them all together into one piece. As I say in the caption, I was shocked to see it was over 40 minutes long! That said, it was fun to make and was also interesting to reflect back on—it also feels like something I own now because I’ve taken the time to document and archive it properly (even write a little about it here). I have my setup here in Italy almost complete (now a garage studio)—this gives me motivation to finish the thing and print again. I also had the idea to do a “the hard way” series for IGTV for other stuff like loading cameras with film, maybe some black and white processing (need to order the kit tho 🙄), changing oil in motorcycle, fixing bikes, etc…who knows! I’m a shy guy when it comes to sharing on social media—even though I feel it’s important to share process, but I’m working to just get over myself and use the social tools as intended if that’s what I’ve decided to do. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to use platforms like Instagram differently, but nothing ever felt right or authentic. I really dislike that facebook owns IG, and I’m honestly still trying to come to terms with that. I really wish they would have remained independent. I’ve actively been having conversations with other creative professionals about this. The prevailing opinion seems to lean towards not overthinking it.
Getting off instagram was part of the reason I started this blog back up, but now I find myself using them in tandem—and I’m feeling surprisingly pretty good about it. I worry less about rolling tons of time into the design/ image quality on my IG posts (because nobody gives a crap—really—they’re probably only seeing it for literally one second most of the time) —and— I’m doing that over here already. In fact, when I make a post here I have everything I need for IG already prepped if I want to use it. The difference is… I’m actually learning from my process here and building something that’s both cohesive and creative for myself (sounds selfish—and it is). That said, when I roll significant time into something there’s a sense of satisfaction that I can actually hang onto + build on. With IG, you post and it’s literally consumed by the feed immediately. I’m lucky to be in a space where I have time to leverage my creativity to build these posts…one might argue IG is faster for doing things on the fly. This may be true, but I wonder what the trade off would be in terms of time if you look at post time compared to mindless scrolling time with IG 🤔. I suspect they would be comparable—for me at least when I allow myself to get sucked into the IG content void. I’ve rambled on more here than I expected on these loose ideas. I’ll need to think and re-visit this for more focus, but this is here for now—ciao.
✎ + 🎨 + 🤲