That's all she wrote...

CLIPS FROM THESIS 

(how boring, i know. i put it on this blog for my professors to grade me, but please feel free to SKIP, i would)

Silkscreen poster artist Leia Bell studied photography and printmaking at University of Utah, frequented rock shows at a local venue, fell in love with the owner, began making promotional posters for his shows, and gradually established her poster empire. It quite closely resembles a fantasy I once had. I met her in Austin at the biannual poster show titled Flatstock. I traded her one of my reduction prints for one of her silkscreen prints:

There are literally hundreds of artists at this show, but I was drawn to her booth for reasons uncertain. Perhaps it is her use of vibrant colours, simple composition, literality, quirky font, flat depth, or her stylization of the human figure. Many, if not all, of these traits are referenced in my body of posters. For example, in my reduction block Raising the Fawn, these traits are what make this poster successful.

Last year I shared with the class my fantasy of finding a partner to start a band, printmaking company, and family with. It was my way of wanting to echo the dream team that is Seripop, a printmaking company from Montreal made up of bandmates and spouses Chloe Lum and Yannick Desranleau. They have become infamous for creating stunning silk screens that are illegible, which is oxymoronic considering the purpose of a poster acts as a means of communication to spread information to its viewers. Despite their shitty band and their illegible posters, my thirst to emulate their lifestyle has not yet been quenched. My fantasy prompted me to run a personal ad in Hamilton’s Alternative Weekly, View.  Though hotmail caught on to my dating game and shut me down.