Lost Imagination.

Screen Prints for Change

While this wasn’t my first time screen-printing, I found it to be a more unique experience than the others that I have had. Last year I took Printmaking 1 with Arturo, and before that I tried it for the first time at a camp in the San Juan Islands in Washington. Camp Nor’Wester was a true camp. We slept in Tipi’s, weren’t allowed any technology except for maybe a flashlight, did activities like archery and kayaking. When we were at the crafts cabin they offered screen-printing in the same manor that we practiced the other day. Back then however our designs weren’t really meaningful, just pretty images. That is what set this day apart. Seeing everyone band together to help one another and work as a team with cleaning and hold screens down mad this experience an enjoyable collaboration of classmates and friends.

I had a fun time seeing everyone prints and unique styles, giving me a view into the interests of my fellow classmates. Everything from GMO farming to my own project on Imagination; styles that were simplistic and elegant to illustrative and complex. For my design I wanted to play with the idea of children today and the threat to their imaginative abilities. Even though I’m only 22 years old, I see a difference in how children are growing up now compared to my own childhood. When I was little phones were landlines, and cell phones were flip phones with no games or internet. This mean that to be entertained I spent most my days outside playing with friend, or even inside playing with dolls, horses, stuffed animals, and friends you name it. I find this to be important in the process of living. The imagination is a phenomenon which every being has the ability to experience. Ever look at a child playing and find yourself missing the days when you could change your reality for time into a magical kingdom or whatever you pleased and believe it? This process is what makes artists, creators, designers, and many more types of individuals. Its was lead to children playing out side and becoming interested or curious in their environment, leading to scientists, environmentalists, physicist, chemists, astronomers, and explorers.

Today children have iphones, ipads, gamboys, kindles, and computers to entertain them and not take away the need to explore ones creativity and imagination. Many of these gadgets are portable and are used by parents to fill the need to entertain ones child. While I am not a parent and can only imagine how tiring it must be to entertain a child I still will stand by my belief that it is important to exercise their ability to play and create because before you know it that time to play with your child will be gone. I believe that by playing with your child or getting them outside will create some kind of chain reaction, leading to them possibly doing the same when they have kinds, or at least sparking the in an interest like science. Playing outside also helps promote active children who are healthy.

For my deisgn I wanted a simplistic yet clear design. I used props from characters in children’s book to aid my design, as well as a simplistic font to make it seem out of a story. I used the hat from Peter Pan, one of my favorite stories of all times which compliments so many of my beliefs of imagination because it is all about a boy who never wants to grow up. Then I have the crown Where they Wild things are, where a boy imagines a world of monsters who he befriends and plays with, then the Dr.Suess’ cat’s hat. And Finally the wand which play on many different children’s stories like Cinderella, Pinocchio, Wizard of OZ, and Sleeping Beauty. I tried to portray these objects as beat up or left behind, like they were evidence left behind at the scene of the crime. The victims of these crimes being the character who were lost along the way due to the fact that they are being forgotten. They are being killed by technology.

Looking back now I wish I had created maybe one more layer to add a splash of color or smudges that look like blood, and make the objects on black or a navy blue. However I am very pleased with the way which it came out and the dimensional look it has. There is no right or wrong time to wear this shirt and if I had printed it on a smaller shirt that was my size I would wear it all the time, but sadly it is on an XL shirt. For now I wear it as a shirt to sleep in which I find funny because it talks about imagination and when we sleep we dream, our dreams are the imagination becoming alive for a short time and becoming our reality.