TATE FOLEY

We dig the printerly mishaps in your work: off-registrations, wonky overlays, ghost registration marks, etc. Were you ever a commercial printer? When did you first start pulling a squeegee?

I never printed commercially, either t-shirts or otherwise. There was a pretty significant period of grad school when I was printing many band posters for bands coming through Athens. That time was definitely when I started thinking of printing as work - physical labor that created a product. I was taught how to screenprint early on, but I know that the practicing it over and over, pulling close to a hundred or more multiple color posters a week is what changed my ability and conceptions of the process. 

Is there anything about screen printing specifically that facilitates this type of mark making?

I have always been attracted to the flat, graphic forms of printmaking - usually ones that have some sort of digital involvement in one way or another. Screenprinting and lithography have always been my favorite processes and because I am referencing sourced, printed material that these two make the most sense right now. It's a major reason why I picked up Risography. 

Obviously, economic and political relationships are a major theme in your work. So is nostalgia for mid-century commercial design. Do you see any connection between the wider appreciation for this aesthetic by the current generation and prevailing economic trends? 

I think that the focus is shifting in a way from consumer to creator. Even writing that sentence made me disbelieve it somehow, because focus is always on the consumer. But I try to draw contrast between two separate ideologies. One is a post-war, consumer-driven culture where access to products was homogenized. Given economic status, everyone could order the exact same chair from a Sears-Roebuck catalog in the exact same color for the same price. Everyone desired the same product. IKEA still works with this model. Now, the goal isn't to have the same product as everyone else, but to have a unique product - handmade, one-of-a-kind. Consumers don't like ease of finding products, they are eager for the challenge of the hunt. 70 years ago, there were about two major companies supplying the exact same product to everyone. Now, with companies like Etsy, BigCartel, and every other nameless press popping up across the world, there are probably millions of companies all offering unique products in short-runs. The products are partially similar yet distinct. Thank you, human nature's need to create. 

What kind of power washer do you use? 

SUN JOE!