In the summer of 2009, I took a class at Oxbow, an SAIC campus in Saugatuck, Michigan. Towards the end of my time at Oxbow, I made these small prints and distributed them around campus, handing them out to friends and leaving them out on tables for people to take.
This project was an exploration of value. The prints were made using the intaglio printing process, a traditionally highly valued technique. However, each print was only one by one half inch in size and printed on scrap papers – old tea bag wrappers, receipts, and found papers. The size and mass production of these prints rendered them essentially worthless.
I chose each of the nine images based on objects and symbols around campus that I felt were representative of my time at Oxbow: a sign that proclaimed the auto-free nature of the campus “No Vehicles Beyond This Point”, a chair from the dining hall, the screen door of the main building’s porch, a picnic table, a map of campus, a beer bottle, a friends’ smile, and three often exchanged greetings. The value of the prints lay in the personal exchange of distribution and in their reflection of memory and experience in a shared space.
