Garbage Plate

This eleven-layer screenprint celebrates a food that my hometown, Rochester, NY, is famous for: the Garbage Plate.

People all over the city head to beloved places such as Nick Tahou's to eat this hefty dish of American staples. The dish varies but is usually comprised of fried potato wedges topped with meat sauce, mustard, onions, ketchup, and in this case, tiny sketches of iconic downtown buildings.

The process included creating a collage out of discarded cardboard and paper (note the Kodak imagery from an old package of film) and hand-mixing each carefully selected ink. Then I drew each layer on mylar, exposed the screens, and registered and pulled each layer individually.

Garbage Plate draws a connection between salvaging waste and making something new with it and the way Rochester is healing after the fall of its biggest corporation, Kodak, by investing in start ups and small businesses.