StillPress
by Neha Srivastava
A linocut begins as a drawing I carve into a sheet of linoleum. I roll ink over whatever is left standing, lay a sheet of paper on top, and the press holds everything still for one long breath. A print only works if nothing moves, which is most of why I love this craft. Stillness, it turns out, has more than one form. My series are themed around its proof, its disruption, and its interaction.
The things that hold still and show it
A sloth is still for twenty hours a day and appears to regret none of them. These prints follow one through an unhurried day, reading in the hammock, listening to something slow while the coffee drips, holding tree pose longer than anyone asked. I make them for anyone whose spirit animal is also horizontal.
InquireRedwood bark up close, and the sun clearing the hills. These prints are about texture, carved from the things I notice on a trail when nobody is hurrying me.
InquireI see stillness most clearly the moment something breaks it
These prints are about the moment motion enters a still scene. Sometimes that is the same block printed twice at a slight offset, so the snail is suddenly going somewhere, and sometimes it is the surface of a pond rearranging itself while everything around it waits. The movement is the subject, made entirely by hand.
InquireStill things keeping company with other still things
In printmaking, the ghost is the second pull, the same block printed again without re-inking so a fainter twin appears. I wanted to give it the spotlight, the way a multiple exposure photograph lets one frame hold several moments of the same motion. What better way to catch movement in an otherwise still creature.
Inquire about originalsNot everything I make needs an edition number. This is where the smaller ideas live, and where the future ones will land.
I carve small blocks between the bigger ones, pull them onto tiny cards, and tuck them for free into the Little Free Libraries around East Bay.
Together they are the furniture of the Slow Company world.
Meet the little prints
A quarterly newsletter. New editions, upcoming shows, one good thing I noticed slowly. It begins once my first editions ship. Leave your email and the first issue will find you.
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I build software for a living, and the whole job is speed. Ship faster, move faster, make everything happen sooner. Still Press is where I practice the opposite.
A print only works if nothing moves during the pull. The paper holds still, the block holds still, and so do you.
The work here goes looking for the moments that hold still, the beautiful ones, and catches them before they move. Bark and water, ghosts and snails, a sloth who is still for twenty hours a day and regrets none of them.
If one of these prints reminds you that slowing down calms you, wherever your life happens to be sprinting, it has done its job.
Read full story & process
Interested in buying a piece, an original or a print? Have a commission request, a stockist question, or anything else really? Feel free to reach out. I reply within a few days.
