Sushi C Box Printing

The highlight of each Lutefisk Sushi show is the silk-screened box that eventually gets stuffed with 50 locally produced mini-comics. This box is limited to 150 copies and will be unveiled at the Sushi gallery show on May 2nd.

Tonight Shad Petosky (of Puny Entertainment fame) and Zander and I pulled the two color prints. Well, Shad did all the pulling ... and all the prep work ... and most of the clean-up... Anyway, here's how it all went down:

First I gave the artwork to Shad as two black images, one for the blue ink layer and one for the salmon ink.

Shad printed out the art, covered the paper with oil to make it translucent, and placed the art on the screen. (The screen had been coated with light-sensitive emulsion. Here's the art for the salmon ink layer on the exposure table:


The screen is exposed, the emulsion is washed out, and we're left with a surface that is solid except for where the ink will pass through. This process is repeated on a second screen for the second color.


I mixed up two big batches of blue and salmon ink while Shad bolted the first screen to the printing table hinges. Here I'm putting the box (in its raw, unfolded form), beneath the screen, lining it up to the registration marks:


After the box is lined up correctly Shad pulls the screen down and forcefully uses a squeegee to pull ink over the live art area. He then lifts the screen up, Zander pulls the printed box out, and I put a fresh box in. Zander makes sure everything's working like clockwork:


Here's the first color -- the bottom layer of ink -- drying in the Mega Rack:


After two hundred boxes are pulled, we take a two hour break and do the whole process over again with the second color:


The creative energy in that studio make some men go mad with power...


... and others mad with hubris:


Thanks to Curtis for helping with photography!