Outreach’s Magic Pride Festival at Warner Park is on Sunday, August 16th from 1-6pm.
Hijinx Mixed Media will not be vending there (I missed the applications oops lol!) but I will be present as a community member and my artwork will be available to the wonderful guests at Pride Fest in not one but two booths!
Hijinx's Gay Happy Garden Bandana
Destination Madison is a passionate advocate for welcoming people into our beautiful city. Their main goal is to share the wonders of Madison with the rest of the world while promoting tourism and commerce for local businesses.
Highlighting things like our natural world, delicious food, arts and culture, and of course the amazing people who live here, DM showcases the best of Wisconsin’s capital city.
Hijinx Mixed Media has been vending at community events across Madison for almost 4 years now, spreading sunshine and solidarity amongst the locals and cherished visitors.
My artwork reached the right people to get me hired by Destination Madison for their freebie art they’ll be handing out at Magic Pride to let everyone know that YOU, my queer friend, belong in Madison!
I absolutely love free art. I wish that art wouldn’t be barred by silly things like finances or other bougie things.
I am incredibly grateful that this project was funded by Destination Madison so that I can share my artwork with a bunch of people! They’ve had printed about 500 bandanas just for you and all your friends.
The Creative Process
Speaking of the printing process, that was one of the challenges with this project. I was given two options: a full-color digital printing process or a limited 4-color screen printing process.
As a screen printer and a digital media artist, I weighed my options. On one hand, the queer experience is definitely one in full-color. On the other hand, the physical labor of screen printing offers a special feel to the craft in a very digital world.
I decided to challenge myself with a limited color palette utilizing common printmaking optical blending techniques like halftones (dot pattern) and hatching (lines) to give the effect of extra colors.
All Plants Are Welcome
Featured in the Gay Happy Garden are various plants and animals representing some of the many identities within the LGBTQIA+ acronym.
We’ve got Lesbeans (lesbians), To-Gay-Toes, Bisexual Berries, Transgender Turnips, Queer-Cumbers, Intersex Orchids, and Asexual Asparagus.
We also have Pansexual Peppers, Nonbinary Mushrooms, Polyamorous Peas, and Ally Alliums.
I did a little bit of research on queer ecology which is the idea the natural world is not as heteronormative as we may have once believed, mixing queer theory with environmental critique.
For example, orchids and many other flowers have both male and female reproductive parts. In the natural world they’re referred to as hermaphrodites but for humans this phenomenon is now commonly called intersex.
Mushrooms are very complicated organisms that cannot be easily placed into any kind of binary. They often have multiple sexes for their reproductive purposes with one species, the split gill mushroom, having over 23,000 sexes.
Perhaps less scientifically accurate, we have the asparagus. Asexuality in the plant world is a lot different than asexuality in the human world but they share a name nonetheless. Asparagus can reproduce all by themselves if they need to while asexual humans are ones who lack sexual attraction to others.
Some other little nuggets to discover in the design include the gender fluid watering can, not one but two earth worms which are simultaneous hermaphrodites with both male and female organs (fun fact: the band at the front of the worm is called a clitellum and it is indeed a sex organ!), surgical scars on a trans turnip, and a bug I consider to be a trans AND immigrant icon: the butterfly.
Not only do many butterflies travel far and wide during their lifetime, but they transform their whole body from a little caterpillar to a cocoon to a friggen butterfly. Change is beautiful.
Overall I had a grand time working with DM on this super fun and colorful bandana that I am extremely excited to share with the community.
Hijinx’s Imagination Runs Wild!
I have worked with the Madison Public Library in various ways including hosting workshops, participating in public art projects, and curating a gallery installation.
I absolutely love working with the library. Not only are all the librarians I’ve encountered genuinely good people, but also the library as a whole is an incredible resource.
The obvious resource is books and other media that you can borrow for free.
Reading is cool!
Additionally there are other free resources such as computer & internet access, workshops and learning activities, and more simply a place to be where all are welcome during hours of operation without any financial barriers.
Madison will be opening a new library in September. It’s Madison’s first new library in 25 years!
The Imagination Center at Reindahl Park is located on the northeast side and it’s a library... in a park. How cool is that!?
Working closely together with the locals, this library is focusing on dreams, visions, ideas, hopes, and wishes. I can’t wait to see what that looks like!
The grand opening of the Imagination Center at Reindahl Park is September 25th-26th.
This is all great news and all, but how does Hijinx factor in?
Hijinx + Imagination Center Yard Signs
This project was proposed to me and completed within a week right after completing the Gay Happy Garden bandana.
I personally love the thrill of a tight deadline.
A yard sign campaign is one I’ve not done before but with my illustration and graphic design background, I knew I was prepared for this quick turnaround.
The most important thing to consider when designing something like a yard sign is readability. You should get the memo (center imagination!) from far away but you are also rewarded with extra details when you take a closer look.
Another thing that was important for this project was color reflecting previous marketing materials for the library. It’s always a fun challenge to follow a strict color palette because my default is often bright and highly saturated.
These signs will also be available at Parks Alive at Sandburg Park (August 18) and Galaxy Park (August 24), both from 5-7pm as well as Lakeview, Hawthorne and Pinney Libraries beginning September 1 for folks to pick up.
I hope you can swing by the wondrous Magic Pride Festival and experience the queer community in Madison at its best and don’t forget to pick up a free bandana and a yard sign!
XOX,
Jinx
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