IRTF Cleveland Liberation Lab Live / Screen Printing Event
I created these two designs for the Liberation Lab Social Justice Teach-In held on 04/11/26 at Cleveland State University. Our keynote speaker this year was Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad, on tour for her book, The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde - reflecting on these writers and the connection of Buddhism’s universal truths on justice and liberation. In this spirit, we screen printed these two quotes live the day of the event - one from Baldwin and one from Lorde.
Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without & know we cannot live within. - James Baldwin
Revolution is not a one time event. - Audre Lorde
Participants got to choose from a selection of bright and poppy risograph backgrounds that I printed beforehand, all plant-based and abstracted - created from photos I shot at Minneapolis-St. Paul’s Como Conservatory. The text itself was recreated here for screen printing from real life wood type letterpress printed blocks.
Special thanks to Allison Polgar for assisting and to everyone who came and printed with us. It was a true joy of a day.
I used some of my Boost Fund grant from Assembly for the Arts to subsidize this art activation event.
With the risograph backgrounds leftover from the event, I printed more of each phrase to sell - with 50% profits going to IRTF Cleveland:
Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without & know we cannot live within.
- James Baldwin
Revolution is not a one time event.
- Audre Lorde
I also created a couple other textual designs. One, I have always loved from Lorde. The other is sometimes credited to Pablo Neruda, but my digging also came up with Octavia Paz. Either way, it’s been phrased and paraphrased in many iterations across cultures and times.
The work of the artist is to turn her rage into flowers.
- Audre Lorde
17x22 screen printed version
You can cut down the flowers but you can’t stop the spring from coming.
- Pablo Neruda (?)
17x22 screen printed version
Because there were still more risograph backgrounds, I created these in a similar style for Pride in the CLE - with 50% profits going to the LGBT Center of Greater Cleveland:
Trans rights are human rights!
It’s okay to be gay!