[LAUIL603] Studio Brief 2: Letters in Braille Monoprints and Reflection

"Letters in Braille" Monoprint Series:

The second brief I set myself for this project is to produce a series of Braille monoprints and experimentations. I used a Gelli Plate (a gelatine plate) with acrylic paints which allows monoprinting at home, without a press, at a low cost and as an accessible solution to monoprinting while university facilities are closed during the lockdown.

There were varying degrees of success of the braille being legible. Some interesting things happened in the outcomes, with random colour choices and mark making, which were like fireworks and sparks reminiscent of the flashing lights that happen before retinal detachment. Very poignant. Some prints were very grungy in aesthetic and quite deconstructed/deteriorated looking. Lo-fi. These are nice experiments to evidence at this stage though I am not sure how these would sit within a publication and would need to consider and curate my contents when it comes to the making of the publication. What do I want inside? Experimental work? More refined canvas paintings? A mix of both?

What could be done differently or better? My gelli plate is old. I've had it for 5 years now and it is, unfortunately, warped in its shape. It isn't a perfect rectangle and this certainly affects the prints. The Braille didn't pick up as well as I'd hoped and sometimes it's very easy to roll too much acrylic onto the plate and lose information. Some of these things would not happen with professional monoprinting with a press with professional plates and inks. I could consider redoing these when the university facilities are back open.

The Braille is just collected bits of mail that are sent to me in the post - bank statements (thankfully no one can read Braille to read how much money I don't have), newsletters from the RNIB and Henshaws, etc. I don't have access to procuring a Brailler from somewhere like Henshaws or the RNIB at the moment, for a short space of time, because of the lockdown. If i did, there would be incredible value in Brailling my own poetry or my thoughts and creating prints from those. I used to have a Braille which i bought second hand and the money went to a charity in Devon but the problem with Braillers is that they are incredibly fragile and the insider of them need repairing often.