I first got my hands bloody over a lino block in a wish to print graphics on a t-shirt. My father rescuing me from a life of ripped sleeves and hole-punctured arms built me a wooden block, on which to continue my carving.

Self portrait linocut. Inspired by the work of José Guadalupe Posada and other Mexican artists.

Studying Mexican Art during university, the artist José Guadalupe Posada Aguilar further sparked my interest in block carving and printing with his skeleton motifs and the bold quality of both his delicate and heavy lines.
 

José Guadalupe Posada | Calavera Las Bicicletas

I became obsessed in the making of negative space with this more physical and permanent approach.  There is something satisfying about being creative in a way where you can’t backtrack or erase your mistakes. If I carved something wrong on my lino block or my hand slipped while die cutting paper, I would have to rethink and rework my entire piece in order to incorporate the mistake as part of intentional composition.

The other quality of lino prints that I took away from Posada was the possibility to easily make multiples of a piece.  Unlike Posada, whose motivation lay more in mass production, (he wanted spread information to as many people as possible during the dark times of the Mexican Revolution) my desire was introspective. I could tinker

My work table with linocut blocks

with a work and slightly change variables (whether I printed on fabric or canvas, with black or color, whether I embroidered or added other factors to the piece) and to see what that changed about the piece’s meaning.   Even without purposefully changing any variables, each piece was different depending on how the ink or paint was laid and on how hard I pressed in the moment.