episode twenty-one | elizabeth jean younce

Published 21 august 2019

Miranda Metcalf  Hello print friends, and welcome to the 21st episode of Pine Copper Lime (Hello, Print Friend), the internet's number one printmaking podcast. I'm your host, Miranda Metcalf. I release an episode of the podcast every two weeks, and on the off weeks, I publish an article on the Pine Copper Lime website, which features images and maybe a bit more information about the artist I'm going to interview. For this episode of PCL, I am excited to announce that I'm partnering with the fabulous Mesh Art Gallery of Chicago. Having worked in the art world myself for the past 10 years, I have seen the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly. And I'm here to tell you that Mesh is one of the good ones. Founders Bernard and Jessica are truly dedicated to creating a space where artists can be supported and collectors can be educated. Mesh represents talented printmakers from around the world, and we're very lucky to have them in our printmaking family. In addition to being an excellent resource to discover new contemporary printmakers to purchase and admire, Mesh also publishes articles about all aspects of the printmaking world, from exhibition reviews to listed print shops throughout the US by state. To celebrate this partnership, we are joining forces for a giveaway of a lovely linocut by the Ukrainian artist Olesya Dzhuraeva. It's happening now, where all great giveaways happen, on the Pine Copper Lime Instagram (@helloprintfriend). I'll put a link to the giveaway in the show notes, as well as to the Mesh website. I'm telling you, do yourself a favor. Take a look at what they got going on. It is an example of printmaking advocacy done right. My guest this week is Elizabeth Jean Younce, lithographer, small business owner, and dog mom. Elizabeth Jean grew up in the wilds of New England, and the natural world, as well as the folklore we create from it, is still at the heart of her practice. Her images are filled with the honesty and brutality of animals, and she uses them to explore feelings of being overwhelmed by the chaos in which we live. In this episode, we get into her inheriting a printmaking studio in Los Angeles from a Parisian lithographer, her time spent printing at Tandem Press and Gemini, being your own print Boss Lady, and that eternal question, "What's a nice girl like you doing making a print like this?" So sit back, relax, and prepare to enter the world of Elizabeth Jean Younce. Hey, Elizabeth Jean, how's it going? 

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Hi, how are you? 

Miranda Metcalf  Good. Good. How are things in sunny LA?

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Oh gosh, it's so beautiful, and everything is blooming right now, getting ready for summer.

Miranda Metcalf  I love it. I love it. Being in the southern hemisphere, everything is kind of closing up shop for winter and I have to say, I feel a little bit like Persephone or something where everyone else is like, 'Sun's out! Everything's in bloom!' And I'm like 'Everything's dying and going to sleep!' But I'm glad, I'm glad. Southern California has some pretty magical weather for sure, it's worth the hype.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Yeah, honestly, it's not somewhere I would have ever thought I would have ended up living, and I'm really loving it. It's way more beautiful, and there's so much more nature here, than I would have ever expected in a huge city like Los Angeles. 

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah. Which I'm sure we'll get into, but I feel like nature is a big part of you and is part of your medicine. So I'm glad that you were able to find some. So for those of you who may be listening and don't know Elizabeth Jean, would you mind giving yourself just a little introduction that is the who you are, where you are, what you do kind of overview?

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Absolutely. I'm Elizabeth Jean. I was born in Newport, Rhode Island. I attended the Savannah College of Art and Design for my BFA, SCAD, in Savannah, Georgia. Initially upon going there, I thought I was going to do more graphic design and maybe minor in illustration. And I feel like it's that classic printmaker story where you take one class in printmaking, and then you fall in love, and you get really dedicated, and you get a brayer tattoo on your arm, and then you end up going straight from the Savannah College of Art Design to grad school for printmaking. I got my MFA at the University of Wisconsin Madison, where I worked at Tandem Press all three years, and then recently in August of 2018 moved with my husband to Los Angeles, where actually he's getting his MFA now, currently, here, and I'm working.

Miranda Metcalf  Excellent. That's great. So where did you grow up? Where you originally from the East Coast before you went to school there?

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Yes. So I'm originally from Rhode Island. I'm from Newport, Rhode Island. And the kind of ironic thing now about living in Los Angeles, this has been like my fun fact of Rhode Island and Los Angeles lately, is that the state of Rhode Island is smaller than the city of Los Angeles. So you can drive across the state of Rhode Island in about an hour and you can't even you can't even get across LA in an hour. But I'm definitely a true north easterner and kind of my ideal state would be running around frolicking in the woods with a dog off leash in New England or surrounded by big trees, maybe that lead out to a rocky cliff ocean area. That's definitely my jam. I actually never left New England before I went to school in Georgia. Going to SCAD, going to college there, actually was the first time I had ever been on a plane.

Miranda Metcalf  Stop! That's intense.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Yeah. And now I've moved around all over the country and slowly crept myself westward.

Miranda Metcalf  Something that that reminds me of is, so I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, Seattle, Portland area. And what we're known for, of course, out that way is our outdoorsy life in the mountains, and the volcanoes and the ocean, and all of this sort of thing. And so I kind of grew up with this idea that New England must just be a massive city, you know, just must be sprawling. And it really wasn't until I went and visited in person, I actually visited a good friend who was living in Rhode Island at the time, and it was just country roads and little trucks and going to farmers' markets to grab a lobster from someone who'd just pulled it out of the ocean. And it had this really beautiful charm to it that I completely didn't expect. So I can definitely see what you mean about how it's woodsy out there. And I had no idea. I had no idea.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Definitely. And I think that that's kind of... I mean, less so of like the coastal aspect of it, especially being from Newport, Rhode Island, I grew up on an island, like on the island of Rhode Island. So literally surrounded by water. I mean, there's bridges to get back onto the mainland. It's not like completely secluded out there or anything. But it's a big deal for my mom to cross the bridge. We call it "Rhode Island Syndrome." She's stuck there. There's no reason to leave, you know? So definitely the woodsy aspect of New England and like... I don't want to say colonial, that's controversial, but like the colonial, quaint houses, and that type of style has definitely always inspired me. And all across New England, there's these low rolling stone walls that divided up all of the land. And definitely, that landscape still inspires all of my work for sure.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, yeah. And I think that you can see, you know, your personal work, it's very much, the natural world is always present in it. But it's such a very realistic portrayal of it. And I mean that in the sense of like, well, first of all you can draw, you're a wonderful draftswoman. So it's realistic in that sense, but it also is, there's a brutality to it and an honesty to what nature sort of actually is, that I feel like maybe could really only come from someone who grew up in it, you know? So it's not just these pastoral landscapes of the pristine. You've got birth and death and blood and guts and genitals, and like, that's what nature is. I mean, it is also that beautiful side, but in actuality, it's brutal and beautiful at the same time, I think.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Yes, definitely. I'm glad that you could see all that, because that's definitely, those are all the things that I'm feeling when I'm making the work. And even beyond just thinking about literally the natural world, I'm also thinking about my own experiences as a human, and I'm always using these animals as vessels for the human experience. So by doing that, I'm thinking about the human condition, and I'm thinking about when I was younger, and I feel like... I've always struggled with depression, and I've struggled with all of the chaos of the world and how it can feel like everything is just burning down. And it's so hard, you know, money is all consuming, and love, and all these things can just make you feel so shattered all at once, right? And there's just so many things that you have to think about on a daily basis, and so much that can fully consume you. And so I am definitely trying to portray all of that in the work and kind of personify these animals as that.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, I think one of the specific words that you use in your artist statement is "overwhelmed," which I think seems really accurate for what you're describing. But then also, for your images that have this, a lot of them have this sense of sort of chaos to them, or you'll see figures being restrained in some way while they're going through something. And I think that seems to really reflect what you were just saying about how you respond to the world, because it does feel that way when we're kind of overwhelmed and bombarded with information and all of these horrible things that are outside of our control that can feel so chaotic. 

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Definitely. And then obviously, the work is very feminist. But I also think that not only from just that perspective, but I think just from being a woman, and for example, I use a lot of rabbits in my work to to embody this - you know, rabbits can be seen as these small, fragile, frail creatures that are just beautiful and delicate to look at, right? But for example, for my BFA thesis exhibition, I did this fully immersive installation where I had this tunnel of lithographic beetles that were all printed and cut out. And some of them were beeswax, and some of them had gloss medium or matte medium on them. And they were all pinned in this tunnel that got smaller, so you had to crouch through the tunnel, and the beetles are grazing your head because they're kind of hanging down. And then you get into this space where there's these rabbits that go from these tiny little baby blob rabbits that don't even have their eyes open yet to these large standing ones. And again, they're all lithographically printed, and they were mounted on laser cut plywood, and as they're growing, they're also simultaneously evolving. And they're kind of growing these armadillo backings, because again, they don't want to be these frail creatures. They don't want to be so fragile. They want to fight back and they want to be strong, and they want to create this little army, right? So yeah, I think that's, again, I guess a big thing about being a female artist. And you and I had this sort of conversation just briefly between the two of us the other day, this sort of thing of like, I walked into a studio the other day, and I was meeting some people there and there was a really nice gentleman and then there was a gentleman who, the first thing he said when he walked in was, "You look nineteen." And I just feel like, okay, so number one, this is a really bad start. And number two, you're just gonna write me off and not trust me now.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, and not even to mention the assumption and the gall that goes into thinking that you can comment on somebody's appearance first thing, and particularly a woman's appearance first thing, or any feminine person's appearance first thing. It just drives me crazy, because it's affirming my worst fears or my worst instinct about other people, is that, oh, you are just going to completely judge me on how I present and come with a huge, huge baggage of assumptions about it. And just to get that affirmed right at an initial meeting is so frustrating,

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Especially in such a professional setting like that, where it's like, 'Hi, we are here to talk about printmaking in a printmaking studio. We're not here to talk about my weight or size or age or the fact that I am a woman. These are things out of my control.'

Miranda Metcalf  Yes. And particularly if you're talking about printmaking just kind of in general, it's just not relevant. It shouldn't matter who is talking to you about the technical aspects of printmaking.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Right. And I think that's one of the reasons why I guess I'm drawn towards installation and fully immersive work, or for example, with my MFA thesis piece, that three foot by eleven foot, five color lithograph, where it's this panoramic, fully immersive environment. And so I think it's just me kind of trying to fight back a little bit and give you a little "fuck you" where I'm like, yeah, I'm tiny. I'm five foot three. I have no boobs. I'm a petite woman, but I'm going to show you this thing, that I can get shit done. I can do this. And not only can I put in the research, but I can put in the physical labor and the time, and I framed all of the work for my MFA thesis as well, and just, et cetera, et cetera, where it's like, I am going to do this, all of it, and deliver.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, I think that there's, and maybe it's already been written, but I would love to write or read something that's well-researched about sort of the psychological effects of scale in art and gender assumption. Because if you remember, when I chatted with Jenny Robinson a couple of weeks ago, one of the things we talked about is that people think that her prints are done by a man very often.  And she says it's probably because some of them are five, six feet in length. They're of structures, there are buildings. And so she'll have this experience where she'll be in her studio, with her name on the door, Jenny Robinson. And during an open studio, someone will come in and they'll see her standing by the press, and they'll go, 'Where's the artist?' 

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Oh, my gosh.  She's just the assistant printer. 

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, she just must be the artist's wife who's keeping the shop while he goes and gets a whiskey. I don't know what people are assuming.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  And you know what, I can be a little defensive. And so for me, initially, I'm like, 'No, she's gotta be like, "No, I am the printer!"' But at the same time, it's kind of our own little secretive "ha-ha" at them, because it's like, wow, they wouldn't even have ever thought that we are capable of this, right? But Jenny can just stand there by the press and be like, 'Yep, no, this is all my work.'

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah. And so you know, with your work, we kind of touched on a little bit, but again, it has elements of deconstructed bodies, and nudity, and laybia, and birth and death, and all these sorts of things. And, again, we talked about this a little bit before, but I wonder if maybe you'd want to speak to that phenomenon of the "What's a nice girl like you doing making work like this?"

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Oh, sure, sure. I don't know. And for me, it's so funny, I've definitely gotten that a few times, even from people who I really respect and I know that they are just joking, but it just hits you in a strange way. But I don't know, I guess for me, I know that it's a bit vulgar and a bit grotesque. But I guess I'm not seeing it or reading it or thinking about it in that same way, where I'm not - I think a lot of people - and this is gonna sound very like I'm putting people in a box, which I don't like to do - but specifically, it's usually cis men who read the work in a very literal way. Where they think that I'm talking specifically about birth, or the experience of being a woman. Like they think it's only about your uterus. And it's really not about that, almost at all. It's more of a metaphorical statement about life itself. And that's why, again, like you're saying, there's life and birth and death and everything is happening simultaneously. Because it's just trying to show you the chaotic nature of what it is like to be alive. Like, I don't understand why any of this is happening at all, ever. You know? And that's why, for example, in the three foot by eleven foot piece from my bestiary MFA thesis exhibition, for example, in the five panels, I spent a lot of time researching Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, like literally - obviously, you can see it in the in the piece itself - but literally character by character, I found this amazing resource online that's this long slideshow, basically, that literally breaks it down character by character. And one of the things that I really got fixated on was this idea of dualities. And obviously, the work is about symbolism. And the reason that I created the Cygnus sapiens, the pregnant bird lady -

Miranda Metcalf  I wanted to ask about her specifically. But go on.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Yeah, absolutely. So the Cygnus sapiens, I kind of initially started thinking about her as a way to create my own mythology and folklore, where I feel like for a while... I kind of need to make myself really restrictive rules and regulations to work within. Otherwise, I feel, again, this idea of life, or it's just like, anything can happen, and I can create anything, and it's really difficult for me to - and this is, again, why I have my fine art practice and Mustard Beetle - because it's a little difficult for me to nail down and pinpoint one style that I want to work in. Because that feels so limiting in a way, I guess. It feels like I would never be able to change.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah. And that's something you're expected to do as an artist, unfortunately. It's like, people want to know, what's the Elizabeth Jean aesthetic, so I can categorize it? 

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Exactly. And if they want to support your work, they want to know what's going to come out next so that then they can buy. Or a gallery is not going to want to work with you if they have no idea what's going to come out. And so anyway, in researching mythology and folklore, I'm really drawn to these stories. And for me, it's a really good jumping off point to be able to then create my own work. But at the same time, one of the things that I found, especially in grad school, is that instead of just making work depicting these stories, in a sense, just illustrating them, I started finding it a lot more interesting to utilize the stories as a framework to then create my own stories. And so again, yeah, the Cygnus sapiens was a way where - I actually thought I was gonna create all these different characters and this whole massive world where each character would have their own story. But essentially, I just got really fixated on this one character, because to me, she just embodies everything. And so I started making these iterations of prints of her, depicting different scenarios. And then that's why, for my MFA thesis, then I created this whole landscape in which she lived and all these different things are happening simultaneously.

Miranda Metcalf  So you're saying, it's a Cygnus sapiens? Is that what she's called? 

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Yeah, so the Cygnus sapiens means, it translates to "the wise swan." So that's her scientific name. And I hadn't named her - so I focused on work regarding the Cygnus sapiens, actually, for the last, I guess now four years, but all throughout graduate school. So graduate school, the funny thing about it is that even if you know, or think you know, exactly what you want to do when you're leaving undergrad - and for me, again, I went straight from undergrad to graduate school. And so I had this momentum going in from undergrad where I was like, 'I just want to keep doing this!' And again, I said, I had done that paper installation, where there was the laser cut mounted prints and the tunnel with the beetles, and everything. And so that happened right as I was leaving undergrad and going to graduate school. And so I thought that I was going to do a lot of paper sculpture, paper installation, and things like that. But again, I ended up just kind of, I guess, discovering this character, and then just really running with it and trying to push the idea as far as I possibly could. And I think another thing that really influenced this character was the idea that right when we moved to Madison, Wisconsin for my MFA thesis, I guess it was that November, we noticed our three year old German Shepherd was starting to develop a lump on his side. And right when we saw it - it was this tiny little thing - right when we saw it, we brought him to the vet immediately because we're crazy, anal, overbearing dog parents.

Miranda Metcalf  Helicopter dog parents.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Precisely. And the vet performed three biopsies on it, everything came back at that it was just fatty tissue. A lot of people who do know me know that we ended up raising about $2,000 through a Kickstarter to get the tumor removed, because although they said it was just fatty tissue, it did keep growing, and so we thought it would be safe to remove just in case. And then once we had the money from the Kickstarter, or I guess it was a GoFundMe, we went to do a CT scan in preparation to do the surgery to remove this tumor. And once they got imaging of it, they realized that it was way bigger on the inside than it had looked on the outside, and that it had already spread to his lungs. And they literally told us that he probably had up to two months to live at that point.

Miranda Metcalf  Oh, how devastating.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  I know. And this dog was the first dog that I raised myself. I got him as a sophomore in undergrad, and I got him before Jonah and I started dating. And so he really was like my baby that I raised as a puppy. And he didn't know how to do anything when I first got him. I miss him so, so much. But all this was happening kind of in this transition of going to grad school. And so grad school is already this weird, weird place where, again, I mentioned, even if you think you know what you want to do when you get to graduate school - and this is whether you're going from undergrad straight, or you're taking time off - you get there, and it's kind of this idea of like, do I need to reinvent the wheel completely? Is the work that I was making prior to grad school still valid? Can I just keep working on this series? Now I'm in this new place, and I'm surrounded by these new people who are seeing my work for the first time. And I'm in this new environment, and different things are influencing me. And so it feels weird to, you know, you want to progress, obviously. Naturally, because now you're jumping into this whole new thing. And so you want to start making new work, but it's difficult to do it. And so I think I was thinking a lot about motherhood and my fears just of life and death itself. And how I just feel like I'd be one of those people who gets pregnant and dies in childbirth or something, even though it's the 21st century. Crazy, crazy - I'm just a hypochondriac. 

Miranda Metcalf  Hey, but America does have the highest mother mortality rate of any developed nation. 

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Isn't it amazing? Like we - and I'm not going to go down this huge rabbit hole - but just the idea that people just do not care about reproductive rights in this country. And it makes no sense, because then they're not going to help out on the opposite end of it. They don't care once these children are born. They're just gonna suffer in these lives, because then there is no infrastructure. So it's just cons on cons on cons. Nothing makes any sense. But yeah, I think that's where the idea of the Cygnus sapiens started to come from, started to spark from, was this idea of motherhood. But even though it sparked from that, it grew into this whole other thing where, to me, she really embodies this quote-unquote "fragile, feathered, female, fertile being." And despite everything that's working against her, she's persevering. And not only is she persevering, but she's thriving. And so these are reasons why, again, I always refer back to the three foot by eleven foot panoramic pentaptych print that I did for my MFA thesis. But that's why - and I'm also looking at that piece right now while I'm talking about it to reference it - but the scale in that piece, like the fox, and the boar, and these other beastly creatures that are walking around her, are so much larger than her. And so it's this idea where you wouldn't think that she would be able to survive or thrive in that type of environment. But she's basically a badass lady, so she can do whatever the hell she wants.

Miranda Metcalf  So the center of that piece has a fountain in it, or sort of like a little pond, in the center panel, is that correct? 

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Yeah. 

Miranda Metcalf  There's something like that in the Garden of Earthly Delights, is that correct? 

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Absolutely. Yeah. So there's a procession going around in a circle. So I definitely wanted to mirror something circular and cyclical. 

Miranda Metcalf  And what is in the center of the fountain in your piece? Because all of your bird women are kind of turned and facing it in kind of a worshipful position, it looks like, almost.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Absolutely. So right in the center, it's earth, water, fire. And so there's this small ball of fire sitting right on top of this tiny pond that all these cockroaches are standing around, holding hands at. And it's like a birthing ceremony or birthing ritual. And so all the Cygnus sapiens - different colors, it's an inclusive Cygnus sapiens group - they're lying there, all with their feet up, and they're all giving birth together. So something that I always love to talk about with this piece in particular, and this exhibition with my MFA thesis, that sometimes people don't necessarily see is the idea that this three foot by eleven foot piece, this panoramic piece, it's full color, it's all encompassing, it's larger than life, and so it sucks you in. But what was also included in this exhibition was 18 other small black and white lithographs. And so what these do is they allow you to kind of get overwhelmed in the chaos and the Cygnus sapiens' whole life and whole world and all of these different symbols and all these things that are happening all at once. And then you can take a moment, take a step back, and you can really kind of dig in to these symbols as these individuals. And so that's why they're all just black and white, they're framed, all in antique found frames that I collected over time. I did all the framing myself. I got myself a regular square and rectangular mat cutter, but I also got myself a circular mat cutter. And so they allow you to breathe and kind of dissect and deconstruct each individual symbol. So for example, we can talk about, like - I just had a client order one of these prints today so it's right on the top of my head - the "Exhilaration is the Breeze" print. It's a 12 by 12 inch lithograph and it's the honey hive with the Death's Head Hawkmoths flying around it. And so you can see the honey hive in the first panel and in the fourth panel, where there's a Death's Head Hawkmoth right next to it. And so one of the interesting things that I didn't know actually - I've been... I consider myself an amateur entomologist, so I've been collecting and pinning and stretching moths since I guess sophomore year of undergrad. I was actually working with an entomologist, someone who had studied entomology, and he trained me to learn to pin moths. And so I have a vast collection of moths and cicadas and beetles and all these other things in in my house. But one thing I didn't know about Death's Head Hawkmoths is that they're black and yellow, they look like a big bee, and so actually at night they sneak into the honey hive and they will steal the honey. And because moths are so fluffy and their scales and their their fur will kind of absorb the scent of the honey hive, that's why the the bees don't even realize that there's an intruder. So even in the first panel of this panoramic piece, because obviously, just like the Garden of Earthly Delights, it goes from a light kind of heavenly scape on the left to a darker, deeper, more hellish scape on the right. And so even in this lighter, more "heavenly," quote-unquote, scape, there still a little bit of thievery and darkness hidden within. And so again, that's why we see that in the first panel, and then you see the "Exhilaration is the Breeze," its own black and white piece, highlighted by itself. 

Miranda Metcalf  Speaking of entomology, you, as well as a practicing artist with your own dynamic craft, also are a small business owner and you've got kind of another side to what you do, which is Mustard Beetle. Would you talk about that? Because you recently just transitioned to being a full time Boss Lady.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  What a perfect segue. Yeah. So again, I work part time now as a lab technician at a university here in Los Angeles, but the amazing thing about that is that, yeah, it's part time, but it's also only during the school year. And so now, as of the summer, I am completely self-employed. And this has been something I've been working towards. Mustard Beetle was actually started in 2015 as I graduated SCAD. That summer, in between SCAD and UW, I actually did my first two craft fairs, and my husband ended up with me - I feel bad now, because I was home for the summer in Rhode Island at my parents' house, and my mom loves sewing and I turned her living room into a little printmaking studio, and I was printing these relief prints, and these screen prints, and my mom was helping me sew these little banners, and my husband was helping me and we were all kind of getting stuff prepared. And so that summer really jump started everything, because we made stock that now we even still have four years later and so many craft fairs later. Because you know, when you start something like that, it's hard to really make that leap if you don't have time to focus on actually getting enough stock to go to a fair. And I guess that's the great thing about printmaking, too, is that you're doing things that are editioned. And so, for example, all of the prints for Mustard Beetle are specifically editioned at 100 so that I can bring them to a couple different fairs and not feel like I'm constantly selling out or something. And so it's a very different business model than something like my fine art 10 color lithos that are editions of 20, if you're lucky. It's like, that's a big edition for that much for me. So Mustard Beetle, primarily, now, everything is kind of happening at the same time. Life has completely changed in the last like two months since I left my full time job. And I'm now really, really focusing on this. So I'm marketing Mustard Beetle Handmade as Mustard Beetle Handmade: Textile, Press, and Goods. And so in the press aspect of it specifically, we obviously design and print our own work. And so typically, that's screenprint, letterpress, relief, and giclee. But through that, because I have equipment, I'm also offering printing services for other people through the press. And so obviously, I'm offering giclee printing services that I've been really trying to market, especially lately. But now that my bandanas, like for the textiles, for example, have been selling really, really well, everyone's been contacting me to print their bandanas now. And so that's been a whole thing all of a sudden. Because I work in a home studio. We are very fortunate to have found this rent controlled little bungalow in Los Angeles, and it's about 600 square feet. It's technically a one bedroom. It's like a little house, though. And so we have a kitchen, a bedroom, and then this very small room that we made the living room because the couch, coffee table, and TV fit perfectly in it. And then there's a 200 square foot room, so literally it's a third of the apartment, and that's my home studio. In it, we have the 24 inch wide format printer, we have an etching press, and we have a CMP pilot tabletop letterpress as well. And then I do all the screen printing right on the table. And so things have been turned upside down, kind of, lately. There's t shirts over here that need to be printed, there's more bandanas that need to be printed and go out. Just before this conversation, I ran to the post office and finally got a lot of stuff out the door, which is really exciting. But yeah, meeting new people and new clients and getting connected with people here in Los Angeles, because they know that I can print for them, which is really exciting. So I think it's been a good gateway to kind of just burst in the art world here.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, yeah, definitely. And it's interesting. I feel like that distinction between fine art practice and... because, you know, you wouldn't say that Mustard Beetle isn't art in any way. But it's I think it's really, really business savvy of you to understand that you have two sides of your practice and there's sort of two markets for it. That person who wants to buy that 10 color lithograph is probably going to be a different person who wants to buy a bandana. And that's not to say that one is higher up on the hierarchy than the other. It's just a different audience, different price point, different collector. And to separate them, I think, is a really good solution to one of the issues that artists sometimes have, where they do feel like they get boxed in.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  And for me, too, it's really, really liberating. Because with my fine art, it really is all about existentialism and this metaphorical weight of fertility and perseverance and everything and chaos! It's like, that really is the blood sweat and tears. I really put everything into that work. And so it's draining to make conceptually, but it's also draining to make, obviously, technically. Lithographs are not - and this is why most people don't do lithography once they leave school, because obviously, number one, lack of facilities, but it's very strenuous! But that's why I love it. Because once I finish one, and I'm happy with it, I really feel like I've fought a battle and beaten this battle, right? But that's why having both is really good for me, because I can't always be doing that, or I'd be exhausted and drained. And I'd also be making no money, because although the prints are priced at a higher price point, they're obviously selling more slowly than something like greeting cards that are $5, or $20 giclee prints, stuff like that. And so it's just a nice balance for me to be able to make that work that's my real passion work. But then I can also just draw something that's pretty and feel confident that it's designed well, it's composed well, and that it's gonna make people smile, it's gonna make people happy. And going to these craft fairs and stuff, it's a super thrill. Although it is a little bit more commercial, it's so much fun. You're constantly meeting people, you're talking about the work, you're typically talking to people who don't know something about printmaking, and you get to describe the printmaking process to them, which is really exciting. I've been able to market workshops that I'm teaching and stuff that way. And I have been able also to start sneaking - there are some prints that do kind of fall right in between Elizabeth Jean and Mustard Beetle. So they're lithographs, but they're not vulgar. They're just like scientific illustration or something. So they fall right in there. So it's like, I can really market them either way. So that's kind of the most exciting point for me. Like, I have a couple lithographs that I do have in the craft booth, and then people are like, 'What are these? Oh, why is it the edition size less? Everything else is editioned at 100, these are editioned at 30. Why are they more expensive even though they're only black?' And then I can describe to you, like, 'Okay, so you take this Bavarian limestone and nitric acid...'

Miranda Metcalf  They're like, 'Did you just start speaking another language?'

Elizabeth Jean Younce  They're like, 'Screen printing, I was kind of with you on that. But this? I don't know what you're talking about.' So yeah, it's exciting, and it's liberating. And it also allows me to make more work faster, to work smarter, not necessarily harder, even though, obviously, I'm working literally from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to bed pretty much every day.

Miranda Metcalf  Cheers. Yeah.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  It's what I love, obviously! It's a really good balance that I love. And lately, unfortunately, I haven't been making a ton of lithography work. And that's primarily because I just recently, like two or two and a half months ago, left my full time job, and am now really trying to push Mustard Beetle. We've done consignment, we've sold in stores, but we haven't really gotten a whole wholesale platform going. And so we're currently working on that. I'm working on getting everything actually off of Etsy, finally, onto its own online store, and all this sort of stuff. So it's just really kind of taking shape and really starting to become the small business that I want it to. Ideally, the thing that I've always dreamed about is one day having a location where we can have a little storefront and we can sell prints, and then in the back, there's a whole printmaking studio where I can make the work, both the Mustard Beetle work and my own fine art. Because by then, obviously it'd be sustaining it, I would have the facilities. But we can also teach workshops in the space, people can pay to come use the space, like a community printshop facility. And so there's a lot of different angles, again, to come at this side hustle from. Because I like the idea of being able to mash all this stuff together, since I really cannot stand the idea of working in a nine-to-five or an eight-to-five type situation. And so it's easier for me to be like, okay, I've sold this here, this here, I'm doing this custom illustration work or this custom printing, and just making it all come together.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah. And so what was that decision like for you? You were working at Gemini most recently, so it's not even like you were totally outside of the print world. It's not like you were doing something that was totally unrelated. But at one point, you must have been like, 'Okay, I just want to do Elizabeth Jean. I feel like I'm at the place where I can do that and where I want to do that.' And I'd love to hear about what that journey was like, because I think it's something that a lot of people want to make, but do have a lot of anxiety about.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Right. And it was hard. I always knew that this kind of would be the case - the ideal goal in life for me would be to have Mustard Beetle financially be able to sustain myself and my husband, and then I can make my fine art. And especially if we're starting to do more wholesale and stuff like that - I don't want this to sound wrong or like I'm trying to work less hard, because it's always really hard in everything that you do, and especially as you continue to grow, there's new challenges that you'll face - but if we start to do more wholesale and things like that, it does start to become, in a sense, more "passive" income, quote-unquote. You're still designing and you're still printing and everything, but the money is coming in from all these different sources, these different avenues. And so then you can start to open up to be able to focus maybe a little bit more on my lithography work and hopefully get that into more galleries. So while I was at the University of Wisconsin Madison for three years for the MFA program, I was assisting master printing at Tandem Press, which was my favorite job of all time that I worked, and if anyone out there is considering going to graduate school, and if you like the idea of working with big name artists, Tandem is just so amazing. For me in particular, Judy Pfaff was like my favorite artist, especially  throughout undergrad, and I was thinking about collaging all these different things together and this botanical work, and so Judy Pfaff was it for me. And Tandem Press prints all of Judy Pfaff's print work. They frame it in house. The facilities themselves are absolutely gorgeous. There's multiple presses, it's like this old train station, so there's a railroad right there. There's exposed brick on one wall, there's high ceilings, there's... I think it's actually the largest press in the country. It's like 18 feet long, which is why we could print Judy's massive work on it. So for me, that was an amazing jumping off point where not only was I getting to work directly with these wonderful artists, but I'm putting things in my tool belt. Because Tandem is, I would say that they're probably the third largest printmaking studio in the country, I guess it would be like Gemini, Crownpoint, Tandem, and then Tamarind would be right there as well. But then they're also a school, so they have a whole other thing. But I think the nice thing about something like that is that it was very intimate, where the artists are actually coming there and they're in the space, Judy Pfaff would always be running around with ink trailing behind, all over the whole studio on the floor... It would be a chaotic, lovely, amazing mess, right? Such a fun environment to work in. And so I thought that I wanted, because I had such a great time working there, I thought, 'I want to keep master printing, I want to keep working for artists.' And so even before I moved to Los Angeles, I was basically lined up to take a lithography position at Gemini G.E.L. And I was really excited, because I thought that for me, it made a lot of sense. But when I got here, I think it just felt a bit different, where Gemini is really large and so the artists aren't there as much, actually getting dirty and in it. I think that there have been different times, in their heyday, I guess, where maybe that was more and less true. And it also depends on the artist. And so basically, I just realized that I didn't really want to master print, full time, at least. Like, 40 hours a week, eight to five, especially master printing specifically lithographs. Because all day, you're sponging, or all day, you're on roller. And it's just really, really, literally backbreaking. Actually, Jim Reid, who was the lithography master printer at Gemini for decades, had both of his wrists replaced from master printing for that long.

Miranda Metcalf  Oh, my gosh. I don't think I've ever heard of a wrist replacement. That's not even a thing I knew existed.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  It is for lithographers! So just beware, right? So anyway, I mean, it was very exciting working there, because we are working with these huge big name artists, and they do come in the studio, and you're working with them and everything. But at the same time, I was feeling so drained printing lithographs every single day. And it was this double edged sword of, I love lithography, and because I work here, I have access to the facilities. And so I can just work on a stone, I can just expose these plates and stay after hours. But then because you're printing lithographs all day, you really don't want to stay and print lithographs at night after you've been there for nine hours. And the thing is that I am a really hard worker, and I love lithography more than anything, and so I would! I would stay. But it was so draining that, again, with the small business thing as well, it's that double edged sword of like, you don't have time to put into it. So then these things aren't happening with it that you want to happen with it. And so it's not growing in the way that you want it to. So it's not self sustaining, right. And so, I knew that if I just made this leap and geared myself up to just be like, 'Okay.' I wasn't financially stable at all, I had no savings at all, because I just moved here in August to Los Angeles. And right when I moved here, I bought this 24 inch wide format printer, I bought a letterpress, we built all the studio equipment. We're not financially stable at all, we've just been making ends meet and chugging along, but I knew that if I just made the jump, that I would make it work. And I knew that if I didn't make the jump, that I was going to regret it. And so I did it at this time where... Gemini currently is working on these Tacita Dean prints that are these large - so Tacita Dean, I guess two years ago, did this series with Gemini that is called "LA Exuberance." And it's these blue skies, they're these 30 by 30 inch square prints that are primarily these blue blend rolls, right, they look like a sky, this blend roll that goes from a darker to a lighter blue. And they have these little clouds and stuff in them. And so now what they're working on is this mirroring series that's all these sunsets, called "LA Magic Hour." And so it perfectly mirrors the other series where it's a series of 15 prints that are 30 by 30 that have these blend rolls. And each one is up to - this is gonna sound like not very many - but there are like four layers each, maybe. But because each layer has this really intense blend roll, and because they're 30 by 30, you have to use a roller that is like a diameter of 16 inches or 18 inches, or something, by like three and a half feet. And so you need two people on roller to use it, because it weighs like 60 pounds. So it was a very extrenuous process. And it was really good for me, I'm really excited that I got to print that way. But again, I just knew that I wasn't going to be able to build up my small business, I knew that I wasn't going to be able to work on my fine art in the way that I want to. And it was starting to wear me down, where I wasn't feeling passionate and excited to make my own stuff, cuz I'm printing all day.

Miranda Metcalf  Which is huge. Yeah.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Exactly, exactly. And I know that all artists kind of struggle with that. And so anyway, that's why I just decided, 'Okay, now's the time.' Because if I hadn't left right then, the thing is that those prints are all, actually they just had a meeting this week, where all the prints just got RTP'd, and now they're going to go into editioning. And so if I hadn't left then, then I would have started editioning these prints. And then it would have just been a really bad time to leave. And I wouldn't have left in a friendly manner like I did. And so I thought for everyone involved, it would be better if I get out sooner rather than later. Because I don't want to over commit myself to all this stuff when I know in my heart that I don't want to print this series of 15 blend rolls that's going to take about two years to edition.

Miranda Metcalf  

Yeah. Yeah, that's super smart. And it kind of sounds like a lot of it was just like, it wasn't feeding you in the way that you needed it to, and you're already working so much. It's just like, if you can pivot that energy into something that's yours, now is the time to do it. So do it. And speaking of the horizon, so you've got Mustard Beetle, you've got your own fine art practice, and you've got something sort of new and exciting on the horizon with this litho shop. And I'm hoping you could tell the story of how that even came about, because it's pretty incredible.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  Oh my gosh, okay. Yeah, my life completely changed in the last two and a half months. So after making that leap to leave Gemini, really focus on Mustard Beetle, have this part time job that's 20 hours a week, just nine months out of the year, at a university, now I'm also teaching workshops at Josephine Press in Santa Monica. And I got connected with the Los Angeles Printmaking Society, Mary Sherwood, who's conducting all of the exhibitions for the Los Angeles perfecting society, and John Greco, who runs Josephine Press. I believe it was Mary Sherwood who put my name in the hat for this artist who runs a printmaking studio here in Van Nuys in the valley. His name is Pascal Giraudon. And he is a 71 year old French printmaker. He was traditionally trained in Paris in the days of Chagall and all these incredible people. He has all these stories. He's talking about smoking cigarettes in the printmaking studio, so stereotypically French. So I think, again, I think it was Mary Sherwood who relayed my name to him. But he emailed me a couple months ago now. And he said, 'Hey, I have litho facilities. Would you like to come print lithographs? I hear you print lithographs.' And so because I work part time during the school year, and I don't have a job three months for the summer, I responded to him like, 'Hey, when my job ends, I'd love to come work maybe part time or something, June, July, and August. Would that sound good to come print lithos?' And so we arranged a date to meet, I went to his studio, I literally thought that I was going there to interview for a part time summer job. And what happened was, he ends up taking me into the studio, he's showing me everything, he's showing me all of this beautiful, luscious intaglio work that he's done over the years, over the decades. He does this amazing, incredibly technical photogravure work, engraving, etching, and then he has this whole litho setup, but he really doesn't use litho. He kind of acquired the equipment, and now it's there. But he has some clients who want to print litho works. Because he is a sole proprietor, he's never hired anyone before, but he works contract based. He doesn't work like a Gemini or a Tandem or something like that, where they're actually publishers, and they're publishing the work. So if you are out there and you just want an edition of lithos printed or etchings printed, you can contact Pascal and hire him to print them, contract based. And so anyway, he's showing me the whole studio, all his prints. I'm like falling in love with this old Frenchman, and it seems like an amazing place and amazing opportunity. Then he brings me into his office, and he sits me down. And he says, 'I want to tell you why you're really here.' And so he tells me that he's sick, and he's dying. And he really wants to pass this on to someone. He wants to give this print shop to someone so that printmaking can continue to grow and evolve and flourish in Southern California. 

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah. Oh. 

Elizabeth Jean Younce  And so - I know. Chills, right?

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah.

Elizabeth Jean Younce  I couldn't stop crying for like a week after, because it was this huge roller coaster of emotion. Here I am, falling in love with him, and he's telling me all of this amazing printmaking technical stuff. And I'm like, 'Okay, this man, I'm gonna get to work with him and learn all of his technical secrets.' So I'm crying tears of joy because of this opportunity, but I'm also crying tears of sadness because of the circumstances, where he has this autoimmune disease, and it's killing him slowly. And the amazing thing is that, because he's European, and he's French, he just looks at life and death through this really beautiful lens where he says stuff like, 'You're dying the moment you're born.'

Miranda Metcalf  That's so French!

Elizabeth Jean Younce  I know! And the great thing is that, especially for me and my work, I feel like it's just really serendipitous and I couldn't have met the more perfect person for me to be interacting with now or sharing this printmaking studio with. And on his end as well, he keeps telling me that I'm "the one." And there's a couple other people in the hat for this opportunity, where now the next step that's going to happen is actually, he's taking his sole proprietorship, making it an LLC, and adding me on as a partner.

Miranda Metcalf  On that note, where can people find you if they want to just watch this incredible journey that you're going on and watch things build and grow?

Elizabeth Jean Younce  My Instagram for my personal stuff is just @elizabethjeanyounce. Jean like the pants, or like Pascal calls me, "Jean" (with the French pronunciation). I am a Frenchman now. My website is also just www.elizabethjeanyounce.com. Mustard Beetle, same kind of thing, it's just @mustardbeetle is the Instagram and the website is www.mustardbeetle.com. On both of those, they're kind of linked to each other in a sense as well, like if you're going to elizabethjeanyounce.com, you can see illustration work, which will then link you to Mustard Beetle. There are two separate websites, two separate online stores, two separate Instagrams.

Miranda Metcalf  Well, that's our show for this week. Join me again in two weeks' time when my guest willl be Gregory Santos, founder of Mixed Grit, a stone lithography print trade that's all done by mail. Gregory ships stones throughout the United States, inviting printmakers to do a drawing on them. He prints them in his studio in Denver, and then the artists exchange the prints. So join me then when we talk about building a lithography community remotely and - wait a minute. Is that right? Dude is shipping lithography stones through the mail? I'll see you in two weeks.