The text for this print was inspired by a hand screen printed patch I bought off an independent seller on Etsy. I like supporting other people’s DIY art practices. The background was a duvet cover from Marks and Spencer that I scanned in. These elements along with the drawn image were then assembled in photoshop and used as the source material for another CMYK halftone screen print.
I often use water as a motif in my drawing practice. Normally this is more like trees in heavy rain, tidal waves in urban environments and calamitous mental states in choppy seas. This drawing was maybe more quiet than usual, more reserved, more considered. Maybe not.
The initial sketch was an activity to fill some spare time at my parent’s house over Christmas. We like doing family Christmas and every second year my brother and my nephew come too. My nephew loves art and likes us to draw together.
It’s curious for this drawing to be situated here. My parents fit into fairly typical gender roles on the surface. Mum stopped working when my older brother was born and for many years had to put up with people thinking she was a boring house wife before they’d even had a conversation with her. Now she’s hit retirement age this seems to have subsided – it’s okay to focus on non-economic activities after that milestone in life. The truth is that somewhat unknowingly, mum has been engaging with politics with a small p throughout mine and my brother’s lives. She has always been very active in the community, very engaged with structures of mutual aid, all because she felt compelled to, not because she was deeply political in herself.
She would probably find her home in the revolution, both physically and structurally but more as an incidental person than a straight up activist
Sometimes she does the washing up with someone different from usual as she sees it as an interesting conduit for conversation, you talk differently side to side instead of face to face she says.
Jessica Scott 