PSAs
that no one asked for
I sometimes screen print public service announcements, when I need some refreshing of my sanity. I started doing this early in the COVID-19 pandemic, going for father-son poster-stapling walks late on Saturday nights in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Durham, and Raleigh, NC, when the towns were nearly empty. Originals of most of these are archived by the Special Collections Library at UNC Chapel Hill.
COVID PSA
March 21, 2020
COVID PSA
March 28, 2020
COVID PSA
April 4, 2020
Lord Kitchener COVID PSA
Lord Kitchener, who was pictured on the original pointing-guy war recruiting poster by Alfred Leete (for Britain in WWI), seemed to me like the ideal anti-hero to suit accessories in a variety of colors.
COVID PSA
April 11, 2020
FAUCI COVID PSA screen print
April 18, 2020
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Close-up of the coronavirus-shaped dots used in the poster above.
PSA COVID disinfectants screen print
April 25, 2020. I'd nearly stopped screen printing this series of PSAs when suddenly a new one seemed relevant. The bottom half of this is lifted from a commerical disinfectant's warning label.
COVID art screen print
May 2, 2020
COVID PSA May 2020
May 9, 2020
COVID PSA restaurants food workers
May 16, 2020. I made this in frustration with prominent politicians who pushed economy vs health-caution stories, as if we couldn't rally together to support both at the same time. A friend who owned a deli kindly shared the take-out bags that we printed on.
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Aug 22, 2020
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Nov 14, 2020. "Toxic Campus Map". Unlike all the other prints on this page, these were never public-facing. I made an edition of 14 in frustration over COVID spread on college campuses, for a print exchange in a class I co-teach. One is archived in UNC Chapel Hill Sloan Art Library's collection.
COVID art virus vaccine 2021
Jan 1, 2021. "Hope". These prints were designed to change gradually over months – as the paper faded, the vaccine gradually appeared and the virus disappeared into the background. I made them as the vaccine was just starting to be distributed widely. To me they felt hopeful but required patience, like planting spring bulbs.
COVID PSA business restaurants
Jan 23, 2021
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Dec 30, 2021. "Remember the Children". COVID cases were just starting to spike again.
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Jan 24, 2022. I printed these in frustration together with an art class at Duke University – a reminder as new cases of COVID were spiking again across the US. This was also an occasion to share the motivations and methods behind some Python programming I'd done to create FM halftones (used for the black layer of the flowers and viruses) that felt like an improvement over what programs like Photoshop provide, and compare them to AM halftones (the mask), and discuss programming that printmaking students were doing in the class, taught by Bill Fick and Kelsey Brod.