Seattle 2021
As I walked the streets of Seattle, I asked locals for their favorite monikers for their city, and featured these names on the poster. Often depicted by drone or plane in the air, I instead photographed the Space Needle from ground height, just as anyone else would see it. Since its inception at the World Fair, the Space Needle has been a source of buzz, reflecting ideas about space exploration and alien life. But for the people who live in Seattle, the Needle is just another landmark, so I wanted to depict it plainly.
I designed this print online, before hand-printing a set of originals using the screen printing process.
Check out more Seattle Photos!
Sacramento 2022
I was born in Sacramento, but by the time I was four, the polluted city air had impacted my health to the point my family had to relocate. We moved to Jackson, California, and I didn’t see much of Sacramento until much later in life, despite my mom making the hour-long commute to the city daily.
Sacramento has always been interesting to me. Despite being California’s capital city, and the center of California’s political life, Sacramento doesn’t even come close to California’s top destination. It flies under the radar in comparison to Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and other popular California cities.
When creating this poster, I photographed the Tower Bridge, the city’s iconic yellow bridge near Old Sac. Even as someone who was born there, I had to research monikers for Sacramento — I didn’t know what the city was known for beyond serving as California’s capital.
You might notice a typo in the small text on the Sacramento poster. Even through multiple examinations of this design, no one caught this mistake until after I had permanently printed them. I use this to exemplify the reason I chose screen printing in the first place: it’s an exercise in accepting imperfection.
Initial sketch
Hand painting on vellum
Post expose/blowout
Boise 2022
It was difficult to find a go-to landmark for Boise. Many people recommended the Capitol building, but with similarities to the other state buildings around the country, it didn’t feel unique enough to Boise. I settled on the Boise Train Depot as the primary landmark for this poster. The historic building sits atop a hill overlooking the Capitol building.
Additionally, it was difficult to choose a moniker — Boise is mostly known as the “City of Trees,” but so is Sacramento. I settled on using alternative monikers for Sacramento, since Boise really only has one. These details reflect Boise’s under-the-radar position. When it comes to top-visited cities, Boise is low on the list, despite being Idaho’s largest city.
In the text of this poster, I channeled the attitude of a local toward the boom of California transplants in the city.
Real Live Girl 2022
I was inspired by Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol with this piece. I wanted to make a statement with this piece. I created this artwork digitally and printed it on vellum. With the size of the print, I had to tile the semi-transparent paper in order to size the image properly.This screen print required 3 people to print. The size of the screens were not large enough to print the black from top to bottom—I had to use two screens to print the black horizontally. This print required 5 screens for a 4-color print.
Sahara Desert 2022
This print comes from a linoleum block, meticulously cut away to create a motel sign I encountered in southern Idaho. I cut two linoleum blocks to achieve the two-color print.
I later used my same design to screen print many stickers on sticker paper. With the thickness of the paper, it was difficult to achieve a perfect print. I knew it would take too long to cut out each sticker by hand so I opted to find another way. I used a Cricut cutter to read my digital file and cut the same path on a screen printed sheet of stickers. I then coated them with a protective layer of clear coat.
