INSPIRATION

“It’s a Juno!”

I could’ve never imagined that these would be the most beautiful words I have ever heard. My spouse and I decided to wait until birth to discover the gender of our child. So, when she arrived, these are the words Justin used to announce the birth of our amazing baby girl.

Secretly, we were both hoping for a girl. 🙂

I am very proud to come from a long line of matriarchs, and I want to share that power and passion with a daughter of my own.

As I reveled on this amazing birthing day in the weeks weeks leading to the day, I received an email from Intuition Ale Works asking me to participate in a pop up shop they were hosting to bring awareness about Equal Pay Day. It was perfect!

This new batch is dedicated to my daughter (and all the phenomenal, strong women in her life) with the hope that when she is a woman, she will not have to bring awareness to equal pay. It will just be. One day, she will not have to live in fear of any repercussions for speaking up for herself and other women. One day, she will have the same rights and opportunities as the little baby boys her same age. She is my future and I hope that…

#thefutureisfemale

TECHNIQUE

One of my favorite tools to use when monoprinting is fashion magazine ads (side note: some of my favorite magazines to pull ads from are Porter, Vogue, and surprisingly Wall Street Journal Magazine). Especially the ones that feature bold beauties. With countless pages of these strong females and an invitation to an equal pay day event, I decided that these ladies would take center stage for this batch and offer inspiration to Juno as she aspires to blaze new trails and navigate this crazy world.

I chose some of my favorite quotes from some of my favorite female leaders to mount on the front of the original monoprints. Here are a few examples from the collection.

Most of the original monoprints above are what I call “ghost” prints. A ghost print occurs when there is paint left from the first print on a gelli plate alllowing you to create an additional print. For example, the last time I set up a booth at the Riverside Arts Market (RAM), I brought along my gelli plate and paints. I got a great ghost print at the booth. I started by using a brayer to apply a layer of purple paint to the plate. For this technique, it is better to use a high quality paint. For this print, I used Liquitex’s dioxazine purple professional heavy body acrylic paint. Using the cheap stuff results in low quality prints.

After applying the paint, I put the magazine page, image side down to the plate, and burnished with a spoon. When I lifted the paper, this is what was left on the gelli plate.

This is the ghost. I let her dry completely before asking a little friend at the market to pick a color for her background. He picked green off the color wheel and I went with it. So, once she was completely dry, I applied a layer of the green paint (Liquitex light green BASICS acrylic paint) using the brayer again. Then I put down a piece of cardstock and burnished with a spoon. Slowly, making sure I picked up all the paint off the plate, I lifted the print…

My little friend gasped in awe and yelled “It’s magic!” Yes, monoprinting magic 🙂

But what happens to the magazine page with all the paint from the plate that leaves the ghost print behind? That is what I decided to use for this batch. I searched for all the original ladies I could find (17 total) and got to work adding my own #thefutureisfemale washi tape.

CREATION

The end result was LOVED by everyone at the Intuition event and the following Riverside Arts Market. So many customers bought cards for their daughters, moms, aunts, and friends. All planning to #sendlove to the fierce females in their lives. That is what I love about this company – each card tells multiple stories. It starts with me, next onto the letter writer, then the card receiver and all the people they share it with. Cards hold the written memories and histories of our lives. I am glad my work is a part of that.