The Poster Reboot
A few weeks ago, an instagram friend dm’d me to say they had seen a framed Perfect Twist poster in Charli XCX’s dining room in her quarantine documentary, Alone Together. A very exciting message out of nowhere! Additionally and coincidentally, a few people recently brought up missing and/or liking my photography. And I ‘ve found myself bringing my nice little Minolta TC-1 with me on some recent trips as a way of getting back in touch with photography, and not just relying on my phone for taking images.
For those that have only started to follow my work after I pivoted to ceramics, my background is actually in photography. The bulk of my body of work was photographs from everyday life. I was attracted to little moments of strange or beautiful surprise.
In 2010, I started my first venture as an artist/maker that sold their work online by printing my images on an architectural printer. These machines use bond paper and the same ink and toner that copy machines use, but they were able to print on rolls as large as 3 feet wide. Printing this way meant they were cheap to produce and very affordable for my customers to purchase. The first few months I was doing this, I was selling them for only about $20, and they took off.
They appeared on HGTV, in magazines, were shown at the Arles Photo Festival, had a solo show in London, have appeared on collabs with major national retailers, and have been written up by various art & home decor blogs. Pretty wild given the somewhat flimsy, and very non-archival form of these prints. The images were not crisp, there were no true blacks, there would sometimes be faint streaks across them. But those were all qualities that I loved and that made them so unfussy and cool.
In the early days, I remember biking to the the fedex kinkos in Chicago with my flash drive, then biking all the prints back to my apartment where I’d spread them out on the living room and roll each one into shipping tubes. I’d then lug all the tubes on the bus to the post office, hoping I wouldn’t get the mean post office person when I got there. They weren’t all mean but there was one! Pro-tip: if you’re generating shipping labels at home, just schedule a pick up from the USPS! It’s free
So, given that I’ve been dipping my toes back into photography and knowing that Charli (my bestie) has one of my posters, I wanted a way of bringing them back without the headache of getting them printed, storing them and shipping them. A few people have asked if I could make them available as digital downloads in the past. At the time, I felt a bit more protective about these images, but I simply don’t feel that way anymore. The time wasn’t right then but I think it is now.
The past few weeks, I have been working on putting together a group of 12 of my most classic and popular posters for download. Each .zip file will contain a little readme document with some tips on how and where to print as well as two .pdf files sized to print at 24x36 inches and 36x48 inches. These files are the ones I used to print back in the day. Feel free to print them as huge flimsy posters or as nice archival prints on heavyweight photo paper.
I think I’ll keep playing around with photography — my first love. I’m also dipping my toes in other mediums and hopefully I’ll find some time to play and write about those ventures, in addition to ceramics. Thanks for reading and following along!
Check out all the posters available to download here!
Poster lookbook photos by Daniel McKee & Lilian Martinez
thank you for reminding us to revisit the things we’ve forgotten that stirred our hearts years ago. another perfect twist.
I absolutely love your soft serve twist print. I have had it hanging in my living room for 12 years now!