My Love and Hate Relationship with Silkscreening by John

I attended a party at the beginning of this semester that had silkscreen artwork on display and it changed my perspective about the art form.  I wasn't enjoying the Art 70 class.  There were so many steps to follow with a bunch of new vocabulary that I had remember or risk being corrected. It's not paint, it's ink!  They're not paintings they are prints! I don't like to get dirty either but the more tidy I tried to be the dirtier I would get. I was counting down til the end of the semester cursing I would never print again.

Attending this party was almost like a higher calling.  I probably should have been more social but I couldn't believe the quantity and quality of the silkscreen collection of Liechtenstein and Warhol museum replicas.   It was the bold primary colors that gave life to thick outlined shapes and figures.  The bendy dots enhance the frame with a comic book tone that caught me eye the most. This is where my idea for City of Angeles 2.0 was conceived.   I learned that it doesn't have to be perfect.  I can paint outside the lines and I don't have to know how to draw.  There is no right or wrong.  I was impressed by the command presence of each print.  I like how each piece can command a board room or a museum wall by itself but to see so much quality prints at once made me feel drunk on creativity.  I felt a sense of drunkenness of inspiration overflowing with possibilities. It was as if each print was an enhanced frame within comic book strip. It was this moment that gave me a better understanding that I don't have to learn how to draw or paint. 

I still wasn't sure if I liked silkscreening but after investing so much money into equipment and supplied, I began to explore the idea of enrolling in the Advanced Printing class.  The moment that made me appreciate silkscreening during my final project phase.  I was struggling to create a composite concept that could be combined with my final project in Photo 37 Portrait class.  It was a creative risk but I wanted to combine an original concept for my final but also for real world application.  My company is tasked to record video and audio interviews of television show creators but I am experimenting with a portfolio of narrative portraits expressed in silkscreen and digital prints.