Inprint
Sophia Beceiro
A hum of approval zips from the mesh screen that I stand over, my arms tense and ready as I pull the first shirt off the table. I inspect my work under the studio lights, careful not to transfer rouge ink from my fingertips to the crisp white shirt. The heavyweight cotton holds the image well. A monochrome diptych of lovers in a playfully seductive embrace sets in the fabric. I admire the careful positioning in line with the pocket, divided by credits reading vertically in all caps. I take another moment, then quickly on to another pass before the ink dries in my screen.
Inprint was conceived on a rainy summer evening, of the desire to connect to a community I identified with but was only just coming to know. I spent those humid days and nights accompanied by PDF scans and xerox printouts of as much historic dyke-queer media as I could access; solace, kinship, and validation fueled my exploration. I have come to understand that this rich history has been widely overlooked, is highly inaccessible, and is only slowly becoming less so. I have chosen to interpret and retell these intimate narratives through image prints on ready-to-wear garments to preserve and honor our history and inspire our future.
In an homage to those queer publications that held me so close last summer, I feature Inprint in a newspaper, alongside other works of mine and my peers, to be freely distributed and available through community spaces.