printmaking
WITH COMMUNITIES IN GUANAJUATO CITY AND QUERÉTARO
One of my commitments was to intentionally return to my long love for printmaking while building relationships with the people who call these places home. In each of the workshops, I learned a variety of printmaking techniques, including monotype, relief, and intaglio.
These experiences weren’t just bucket list adventures. I shared four months in Guanajuato City, connecting with local artists while learning about the significant printmaking history of the region. The first workshop was co-taught by Guanajuato-based printmaker Hugo Anaya and Portland artist and professor Mandee Schroer.
The second workshop was during a shorter time in Querétaro with Alejandra Castro to be introduced to the artwork of different Mexican artists and (re)learn engraving on linoleum. We created inside of Dirê Nikkhö's Studio 20, a collective space aimed at arts and design.
Summer of 2023, I left the city of Baltimore for a six-month immersion that included community engagements throughout México in the cities of Guanajuato, Oaxaca de Juárez, Guadalajara, and Querétaro.
TECHNIQUE
Various printmaking technique
DURATION
Summer 2023
PLACE
Guadalajara & Querétaro
FACILITATORS
Hugo, Mandee, and Alejandra
The return to printmaking through community-based workshops required rigor, grace, vulnerability, humility, and openness.
My father was an artist, designer, and poet. The breadth and depth of creative expression naturally flowed through my entire childhood and became something I’ve had to both protect and nurture. Printmaking as an enduring art form—much like my life—brought me back to my emotional body, present and committed to feeling through every impression. Some of my favorite moments were:
Being introduced to a different technique every day, with the space to begin again and again and again.
Feeling the warmth of the sun and the winds flowing across the rooftop where we worked in the Guanajuato studio.
Having limited timespace during the workshop in Querétaro because it created an opening for compassionate free flow and emergence, without judgement.
printmaking creations living in spaces
of home, everyday life, and storytelling.
my intaglio piece “change might be my only devotion” alongside my poem "devotions as radical reinvention" featured in the zine, Intersections, by Olivia Harriette.
my monotype creation framed and existing in homeplace as a reminder of the moments I’ve trusted process and kept believing in life.
me, being a lizard and sunflower in the park, entering a journaling process and carrying my linoleum printed tote bag.