Letterpress print by San Francisco-based artist and teacher Trevor Tubelle.

Title: Lunar TeePee Capsule #9 (Slice)

Dimensions: 10" x 7"

Frame Dimensions: 12" x 9.5"

Details: 2013, letterpress print, edition #22 of 25

Inspiration

This is image is part of the "Lunar Tee Pee" series, which is inspired by the semi-triangular forms of certain objects: NASA Apollo lunar space capsules, Native American teepees, space ships from the 70's science fiction show Battlestar Galactica, and others. I've been obsessed with triangles since I was a child, starting with the shapes of old-fashioned fireworks as depicted in Warner Bros. cartoons. This particular image is a "slice" or very thin cross-section of some retro-futuristic object that whose exact provenance and function cannot be determined. 

Process
I scratched an image with a metal scribe into a piece of unprocessed film. Then that piece of film was used to burn the image into a photopolymer (light sensitive) plate using UV light. Then with the photopolymer raised plate (the image protrudes from the background) I inked and pressed the plate into paper using a 100-year-old, hand-feed printing press, which pushes an impression of the image into the paper.