Fast Five: Abigail M. Wood on Art, Design, and Cement
Fast Five is an AIGA Chicago interview series that gives readers an inside look at the work, lives, and personalities of members in our local chapters and at the national level. These quick, meaningful discussions cover topics large and small, helping to paint a picture of the Chicago design community and its incredible diversity. If you’re interested in joining the conversation, please email cole@chicago.aiga.org.
Abigail M. Wood is a Chicago-based graphic designer, writer, printmaker, and intersectional feminist. She is also a past recipient of AIGA Chicago’s What’s Next grant, graduating with a BFA in graphic design from Columbia College Chicago in 2018.
We caught up with her on the eve of the Chicago Print Crawl, during which her grant proposal will be further brought to life. She’ll be in-studio letterpressing at Spudnik Press, and she invites you to come share in the fun. More information about the event can be found at the end of the interview. Read on to learn more, and enjoy.
AIGA Chicago: Your work highlights unique perspectives on the everyday through the use of visual and verbal language as well as abstract and concrete forms. Can you describe how you used to design to navigate this push and pull?
Abigail M.: When I learned about the What’s Next grant, I was getting ready to graduate from Columbia College and starting to think, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do now?’ So it seemed like a good idea to apply, and I began to think about the photo class I had taken the semester before and how this could be a starting point for my work. My final project for the class compared typography to architecture, so I was already in the mode of taking photos of architecture abstraction, reducing buildings to these kinds of shapes.
It really came together in terms of wrapping this work into a personal project connecting my experience with mental health and my mom’s physical disability. In 2016, she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis — a very, very severe case that affects every single joint in her body to such a degree that prior to the diagnosis and getting on medication, she needed help standing up, walking, and sitting down. And so sharing her story with that gives representation to the people who experience these kinds of conditions. This is her and my normal — our everyday. As is the case for many people whose experiences otherwise go unnoticed.
The title of the work is Does Cement Make a Sound? It’s a play on the phrase, ‘If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?’ And so again, that kind of lack of representation. People aren’t listening, so is it really happening? That was the genesis of the name and the overarching concept.
The push and pull of the work is how the architectural visuals are meant to be disorienting, giving people the sense of uncertainty that comes with living with a mental health condition and disability. But then I provide poems in the print as a counterpoint, helping guide and focus people’s experience with the work. I’m trying to really walk this line of revealing an experience that many people can relate to while also saying that this is simply the way that these conditions manifest in my mother and me.
AIGA Chicago: Were there any points where you diverged from your original proposal?
Abigail M.: Honestly, no. I set out to create work that explores what it’s like to actually live with these conditions, and I feel that the work that I’m making does that. I will say, though, that as I’ve progressed with writing the poems for the prints, I realized that I’ve neglected to address the physicality of these conditions.
I have poems that deal with the mental aspect of social anxiety but not one yet that describes the sensation of a panic attack. I have a poem that kind of describes my mother’s joy at simply being able to feel like a person as she and I attended the Taste of Chicago last year, but I don’t have a poem that really lets people into the way that this pain spreads throughout her entire body and how difficult it is to do something as simple as standing up for five minutes.
Because most of what people see, especially with mental health in television and movies, is some dramatic portrayal that lacks any sort of nuance as to what the individual could be thinking. That was definitely my primary focus. What actually goes on in my mind as I navigate my anxiety or my depression. What are my true thoughts? Where do they come from?
But people—and even myself, clearly—often forget how physical mental health can be. Mental illness doesn’t exist solely in the mind, and being physically disabled isn’t just a condition of the body. And so I’m trying to refocus on that as I expand into this project, writing poems from a physical perspective as opposed to just zeroing in on thoughts and emotions.
AIGA Chicago: How did it feel to let go of the outcome, and do you think that influenced your process?
Abigail M.: My process is always just focused chaos. I start with an idea and a direction and just go from there. So I don’t think I ever really have a solid outcome in mind. I allow myself to be really loose with things because when I focus too much it actually makes it harder to accomplish anything. It’s as though I hyper-focus, and I’m not receptive to things throughout the process.
When I went to take the photographs for this series I knew I wanted architectural photos from the areas my poems are from, but that was it. I just turned on my camera and walked around hoping I’d find something interesting. And from there I hoped the photos I took would fit the poem I’d written. It was kind of risky to spend an hour or whatever walking around taking hundreds of photos and not knowing if any of them would actually work for their intended purpose.
But I never really know what I want out of something until I see it. So my process is always super non-linear and can be subject to my whims on any particular day.
AIGA Chicago: So, it’s Mental Health Awareness Month. What are you doing to celebrate?
Abigail M.: I don’t celebrate it. I do sort of feel like I’m more a part of the conversation on mental health as I work on this project though. But I’m just continuing to plug away at things as I usually do. And perhaps that’s more apropos than some dramatic call to arms.
When I was a kid I fancied myself a rock collector. I would always go around picking up rocks and putting them in my pockets. And despite the added weight I would often forget about the rocks until I reached my hands in and got reacquainted with them. And that’s mental health in a nutshell. In a lot of cases these conditions are something you pick up along the way for various reasons and you put them in your pocket. Most of the time you just continue on with your life managing this extra weight that is always with you. It’s only on occasion that you may be dramatically reacquainted with your particular rocks.
So I’m just going to continue on living in the quiet moments of my mental health and dealing with the flare-ups as they come.
Though through this interview and my project I do hope to bring more attention to the daily reality of mental health. It’s not just a month that passes. Don’t get me wrong. I am grateful to all the voices and initiatives that come up around this time. I just wish it wasn’t all a dramatic outpouring of calls to “end the stigma” without actually addressing the everydayness of it.
AIGA Chicago: What’s next?
Abigail M.: I’m looking at working in traditional fine art printmaking and want to give that a solid try. And of course, I always keep the option open for freelance graphic design as well. But I’m also starting a business called Yumpin’ Yimminy Press (@yy_press), which does more traditional letterpress, along with some home décor kind of art prints. I am also going to expand into doing some linocuts and doing screen-printed apparel like t-shirts, tote bags, and that sort of thing.
I’m in the process of expanding my own type collection. There was this one letterpress shop called Tandem Felix Letterpress here in Chicago. They moved awhile back, so they were selling a few of their things that they weren’t going to take with them, and I was able to pick up some great stuff. As far as printing goes, I go to Spudnik Press to use the Vandercook over there.
Check out Abigail M.’s Instagram (@liagiba_m), where you’ll find graphic design, fine art printmaking, and the occasional cat photos.
Also, the Chicago Print Crawl runs from 11–5 this Saturday, 5/4, throughout the city, but she specifically will be at Spudnik Press Cooperative from 1–5. Go say hi!
