Over the last few years I’ve developed a strong relationship with risograph printing. I was first introduced to the process by Boya Sun at the 2018 DesignerCon in Anaheim, CA. Boya’s use of vibrant pinks, stippled gradients, and variation in registration convinced me I was looking at a screen print poster, but somehow each print was only $35. I asked how a 5+ color screen print could be so affordable and Boya generously put me onto riso.
When I returned home, I was disappointed to find the closest resource for riso printing was in El Paso. But three years later, Risolana opened its doors at the PCA Social Enterprise Center in Albuquerque's south valley. The space serves as a public resource for community members to access risograph.
After collaborating on a few print editions with co-founders Karl Orozco and Michael Lopez, I was invited to help process artwork for participants at Risolana's monthly Thirty Under Thirty workshop. The workshop provides a low barrier-to-entry opportunity for participants to see their art translated into riso. Participants pre-submit their art files and during the course of the workshop collaborate with staff as we walk them through the process.
Sustainable art practice, dialogue, and education are priorities I acquired as a production screen printer at 111 Media Collective. When approaching the Risolana staff I instantly felt like we were pursuing the same values. The organization of services, equitable education opportunities, and curated collaborations are fundamental to Risolana's creative community engagement. If you are interested in getting involved, I highly recommend checking out the Thirty Under Thirty workshop held on the 30th of each month. Click here to learn more.
Instructional infographics are like someone who’s always spewing random facts they read on the internet to compensate for a lack of life experience.
Take the Which Wich? menu for example. When you walk into a sandwich joint for the first time, what do you want? You want a sandwich experience curated by a professional. A professional that says “Hey! We’ve made every sandwich you can imagine, but here's our favorites." Give me creative limitations based on taste-makers expertise. I don’t want every option, just the endorsed options. Instead, Which Wich? slaps you with this hodge-podge grocery list of ingredients and fill-in-the-bubble options all set to 3 pt. typeface. So you’re basically in somebody’s house and they step out the kitchen like:
“You like sandwiches?”
And you’re like, “Yea, wanna make me one?”
And they're like, “I read this article about 500 ways to make a sub with just 12 ingredients.”
And you’re like, “Ok. Which one we making?”
And they’re like, “I don’t know.”
The problem with infographics is they signal a process is too complicated to be intuitive. But if the process is too complicated, shouldn’t it be simplified instead of dumping the responsibility onto the consumer? I'm not endorsing Subway but at least someone is there walking you through it… sometimes they’re coherent… still beats a pamphlet.
I started satirically using infographics in my personal projects to vent. Graphs, numeric values, pie charts, all give an implied sense of order. Like oh wow this disjointed emotional mood board makes sense now cuz it’s numbered. Peppering in a few diagram elements parodies the expectation that art should have meaning. The demand for thesis doesn't benefit the artist, it benefits viewers who need everything defined.
I like the label lines and magnification boxes in particular. They signal a PointA-to-PointB eye movement that’s trained into our psyche. When I started making GRP cut-and-sews I wanted to find a stitch that provides the same functionality on garments.
I started with the obvious straight stitch. It’s straight. It looks like a line. However, the straight stitch doesn’t flex with tension. When I sewed the straight stitch into jersey (a knit fabric with is made to flex), the straight stitch would snap in random places when the shirt stretched.
I tried using a zig-zag stitch which flexes with the fabric, but the end result looked more like a scribble than it did a label line.
I told Laila about it and she put me onto her cover stitch machine. The cover stitch machine sews loops that are only visible on the top half of the garment creating the illusion of a straight stitch but with the flexibility of a zig-zag. So now I can make diagrams on fabric.
My brother would drag my mom and me to skate shops trying to convince her to chip in on a pair of skate shoes. I’d walk the aisles comparing skateboard graphics or watching videos. I could never tell if the music was playing on the video, or if the video was muted and a CD was playing in the background. Right as I was convinced that the two were in sync, one would go off beat, or off cut. I couldn’t look away until I knew for sure.
The first few months my chick and I were dating neither of us had a car. We lived pretty far apart so we basically only saw each other on campus until she got picked up by her mom or my bus came. Eventually her dad gave her this dusty ‘04 silver Mustang. She became one of the cool kids who parked in the unpaved lot behind our school. I’d wait for her in the morning, carving out little doodles in the dirt with my foot. Her car didn’t mean anything to me while we were together. It was a tool we could depend on but nothing special. It wasn’t until after we broke up that I became fixated. Her car was a bookmark to cold winter mornings waiting for the warmest person in my life at the time. I still see those ugly ‘04s and wonder if she’s behind the wheel.
Swing is something I learned to identify from J Dilla beats during my brief stint making music. I was introduced to music through DAWs and drum machines, so the swing of acoustic sound was a novelty. To break from the default quantization, one has to go out of their way to make a digitally mixed track sound human. Dilla is known for pushing this to the extreme, manipulating each 4-bar loop to sound slightly off kilter from the rest. A drum loop that repeats perfectly is easy to forget, but the same beat slightly altered on every loop creates infinite anticipation.
Why are we obsessed with creating patterns?
Why do we lose interest once a pattern is established?
What returns our interest once the pattern breaks?
Maybe the mind’s limited capacity forces us to create patterns so we can focus on other things. I expect to breathe, not because I know there is enough air, but because I need to shift my focus toward other necessities in life. Establishing the pattern leads to expecting a definitive outcome. Receiving that outcome leads to trusting the pattern. Trusting the pattern leads to forgetting the pattern exists. A shift in outcomes leads to revisiting the pattern. You only notice the ground when you’re tripping on it.
This month I am participating in the group show Printed Matter hosted by Sanitary Tortilla Factory in Downtown Albuquerque. The show is curated by Diego Garcia, an STF resident artist. Diego flexed his rolodex organizing a wide range of printmakers featuring established artists such as Henry Morales alongside emerging artists such as myself and Jesse Littlebird.
The show’s emphasis on archived work from Albuquerque creates a timeline of printmaking evolution and culture. Delilah Montoya’s featured prints date back to the 1970s and document the transition of halftoning from a manual into a digital process. Diego and Delano Garcia feature an archive of gig posters timelining punk and hip–hop influence in Albuquerque.
Opening night was further fueled by Bucket Exhibitions who broke out the tortilla press for free relief printing. They hosted various hand-carved, laser-cut, and AI-influenced blocks for participants to mix and match. Karl, Ellie, and their crew of illustrators always bring a magnetism to any event they attend. Even the novice enthusiast is pulled into the printmaking process witnessing the simplicity and accessibility of relief printing.
The history, diversity, and accessibility has made this show one of the most interactive art events I've attended. The closing reception will take place Friday, March 29th from 5-8pm. Thanks Diego and Sheri for providing the space and curating a story greater than our individual narratives.