Letterpress Triptych Series

Ask me what I would do with 1 million dollars, and I wouldn’t even hesitate to tell you that I would travel everywhere and anywhere. Experiencing other cultures and environments, even if it is only a couple states away, is something that I have so enjoyed ever since I was little. The list of places that I have gone so far is not the most impressive, but it is growing little by little with each year that passes. The interconnected relationship between time, places I’ve been, and places that I hope to someday go is the essence of my letterpress triptych series.  The visual depiction of a life’s journey and the pieces of places that are woven in as time goes by is something that I wanted to capture in these three compositions, and the integration of different forms of media is something that I feel adds to this layered effect of time and place.

The process of creating this triptych involved designing the digital image and adding a layer of letterpress. The digital image is a Photoshop manipulated panoramic shot of my roommate driving her car. The bright rays of light add a sense of environmental ambiguity that goes hand in hand with my concept of travel and the journey of the unknown into the future. At the bottom of each composition is a timeline starting from the year I was born and extending through the years that follow. Small notches denote milestone times in my life, many of which involved traveling to another place. Surrounding the timeline, there is a list of all of the 50 states and various cities/countries, some that I have visited and many more that I have yet to see.  As I continue to travel, I would like to circle the places that I have visited and use this triptych as a visual means to display this history. Lastly, the bright yellow letterpress words “THEN & NOW,” are printed incrementally on the three pieces. The “then” refers to my past travels and the “now” refers to my journeys in process right now and soon to come.

My hope is that this letterpress triptych series evokes a sense of closure and connectivity through the timeline passing through each of the elements. I love the different feel that the letterpress words add to the overall composition as I feel this medium evokes a more permanent, engraved aesthetic. Overall I very much enjoyed creating this triptych series.