Ryan - No one told me not to do this: selected screenprints, 2009-2015

Foreword by Aaron Horkey As with most fairy tales, it all began with an oversized Pholidota. The year was 2010. I wasnt quite sure what to expect as I touched the highway bound for the blustery, late-spring shores of Lake Michigan with little more than a crude sketch of a pangolin in tow. Within days Id be embarking on an analog screenprint collaboration with the incomparable Jay Ryan, a gentle giant of a man Id met up with a handful of times over the preceding years. We had become fast friends, staying in contact via scattered correspondence, but this was to be our first time working together. On one hand we traded in complementary themes and touchstones within our respective bodies of workanimals (extinct, extant, and imaginary), unreal narratives, and the muted Midwestern palette of our shared native habitat.

On the other hand, Jays lively, playful compositions stood in stark contrast to the dense and obsessive web of lines I cover every square inch of my pictures with. The offspring of this meeting could result in a beautiful wet fawn or a smoldering stillborn huskthere really wasnt much of a middle ground between those two extremes with which to land our ship. Luckily, any lingering pangs of nervousness I may have been harboring soon dissipated as I entered the welcoming walls of the Bird Machine, Jays print shop in charming Skokie, Illinois. We very quickly fell into a comfortable groove of intricate Rubylith cutting, Kimoto Pake pen rendering, on-press ink mixing, and frenzied printing that eventually culminated in the twenty-five-color landscape of impassioned Technicolor dust-kicking entitled Versus. Along the way we broke exposure-unit glass, reshot key plate screens, soaked up Aphex Twin videos, falafels, and cereal, overdosed on Editors and Future of the Left records, printed tiny hot-pink brontotherium tongues, and tended to a bumper crop of hens and chicks, only taking breaks for back-alley no-complies and runs to the fossil store. I had my brain broken open to a whole new method of madness which changed my entire approach to making prints. It was on Versus that I first dipped my toe into the black-lake method of dark shadows postkey plate dimensional building that dramatically filled out my printmaking quiver.

These sessions were also some of the most fun Ive ever had while workinga fantastic experience front to back and one which Ill never forget. In the years since weve collaborated on three other prints, all of which appear in this, the third volume of Jays collected works. Im very much looking forward to breaking in a new blade on number fiveall signs point to it kicking like a sleep twitch. _____________ The Stib 2010 Seven screens 18 x 24 inches _____________ Chicago Underground Film Festival 2010 Five screens 18 x 24 inches _____________ The Rutabega, with Whales and Mint Mile 2015 Three screens 18 x 24 inches Made as we were all heading into a summer full of weekend camping trips. The lights dont work. _____________ My Morning Jacket in Canandaigua 2010 Seven screens 18 x 24 inches _____________ Screens and Spokes Collaboration with Dan McCarthy 2010 Four screens 18 x 24 inches I finally got to work with one of my favorites, Dan McCarthy, for this print made for an annual art/bicycle event which raises money for multiple sclerosis research.

Dan makes a lot of forest scenes and I make a lot of animals on bikes, so I dont think we caught anyone off guard with the subject of this print. _____________ Moonrise Kingdom 2013 Six screens 18 x 24 inches Commissioned for Mondos Oscar Night collection _____________ My Morning Jacket in Pittsburgh 2015 Five screens 18 x 24 inches Made soon after seeing Mad Max: Fury Road. I was thinking of monumental desert structures. I was thinking about moisture vaporators. I was thinking about waterfalls. _____________ Japandroids at Sasquatch! Music Festival 2013 Four screens 18 x 24 inches _____________ Andrew Bird & the Hands of Glory 2014 Four screens 18 x 24 inches Another appearance by the Giant of Illinois. _____________ Hum in Austin 2011 Four screens 18 x 24 inches _____________ Hum in Kansas City 2011 Four screens 18 x 24 inches The tractor depicted here belongs to my brother, who lives near Kansas City. _____________ Downstairs, the Furnace Whales 2015 Eight screens 18 x 24 inches In January 2015, my family hid away in a cabin in northern Indiana that predates the Civil War. _____________ Downstairs, the Furnace Whales 2015 Eight screens 18 x 24 inches In January 2015, my family hid away in a cabin in northern Indiana that predates the Civil War.

This little house had no level floors and no right angles, and I sat drawing at the table while listening to Neko Case sing Stinging Velvetdeliberately mishearing a lyric about the furnace. _____________ Coronal Mass Ejection 2011 Nine screens 18 x 24 inches In 2011, Tommy Quinn commissioned a print for his Apocalypse Calendar project in anticipation of the end of the world, which had been scheduled for 2012. A dozen illustrators submitted different scenarios for how the world would end in 2012, and this was mine, with the sun gently washing away the useful parts of Earths atmosphere, and removing the roofs from our garages.