The Power of Prints,  by  Peter Foucault, Artist

The exhibition Un/Equal Freedoms: Expressions for Social Justice features the work of Elizabeth Kellogg, Byron Medina, Daisy Mejia, Kellina Miller, Cecilia Lopez, Sage Stanley and the Mayor, seven talented students from Summer Ventis’s Advanced Printmaking class at California State University, Sacramento. Each print interprets the theme of the exhibition in a unique and empowering way. I was honored that each artist shared with me their own intentions and back story on their image, providing some insight and personal experience with the social issue they were responding to. Their works reflect the ability of a print to help viewers gain recognition of topics and issues in our communities. We may not have the same life experiences, but those who do can see they are not alone. Others will internalize such images as part of a growing understanding of what is happening with their neighbors. This was how I came to each of these images.   

Mental health issues are explored in Kellogg, the Mayor and Miller’s prints. The Mayor’s artist statement elaborates that mental health is a community issue not a solitary one. During the Pandemic this issue has particularly come to light. Due to the stress of isolation and socioeconomic uncertainty, many people are experiencing mental health issues for the first time or existing problems have been exacerbated. To make matters worse, many people have been avoiding hospital visits or seeking help. Kellogg’s print “Forget Me Knot” has a very strong graphic image and clever conceptual play on words to convey the impacts of struggling mental health on memory. 

A carefully considered selection of colors and materials to convey an emotion is illustrated in Kellogg’s choice of vibrant yellow to symbolize anxiety and Stanley’s pink layer of chine collé tissue paper that references the idea of a happy home as a gift. Also, Lopez chose to print her piece “You Are Valid” on pink, white and blue paper to reference the Transgender Flag colors.

This collection of work reminds me of the power of the graphic image to share an idea or message. The power of printed words, a slogan such as Black Lives Matter, that in recent times has radically helped shape social change. There is a relationship to postering/prints in the Black Panthers Movement in Oakland and across the country. I also think about how print can become propaganda. This is referenced in Medina’s “Not Allowed, Prohibited Sensitive Man” and Mejia’s “If You Don’t Like It: Don’t Watch” which reference archetypal male gender roles and selective media and cancel culture.

These prints also fall in line with the history of social issues being addressed through the medium of printmaking, especially through D.I.Y. strategies in screen printing (that can be done at home and not tied to a conventional print studio), in the creation of posters, broad sheets, and wheat pastes that have helped put a magnifying glass over social inequities. I think of the role these (and protest signs) played in last summer’s protest marches for BLM and the murder of George Floyd. Many people from the students’ generation (and possibly some of the students) were involved in these movements, right in the thick of things. 2020-early 21 was the perfect storm for these protests: Covid lockdown, mass unemployment, political division and unrest brought social and racial inequities to light.

Ventis also informed me that the student work was created in a hybrid learning mode. Process demos and critiques were orchestrated through Zoom and students had studio access to use presses and supplies on campus. During this period of Shelter In Place and purely distance learning modes, I was glad they were able to still tap into the collective nature of working and creating in a live print shop.

For me the local business NorCal Screen Printing in Sac was a lifeline during the pandemic as they stayed open as an “essential business” and allowed me to keep getting screens burned and materials purchased. I could still continue to make prints at my home studio and keep producing art at a time when procuring supplies and especially in person-hand off of screens was difficult or impossible. It helped me keep going in my studio practice.

The messages conveyed through this curated selection of student prints reminds me that printmaking is an essential community service and the print as a megaphone for social change is still alive and well in Sacramento.