I've Taught You Everything I Know, And You Still Don't Know Anything

I grew up to a family of do it yourself carpenters and architects. Tucked into every visit to the woods on our property, or my grandfather’s cabinet shop, seemed to be a lesson in waiting. These lessons came from teachers of all sorts, like the 16 penny framing nail that taught me to watch where I walk, or the treehouse that gave me a firm lesson on gravity. Some of these lessons were more deliberate. “I’ve Taught You Everything I Know, And You Still Don’t Know Anything” is a print series about the lessons learned from my father and grandfather. Arriving at my grandparent’s home when I was young, my grandpa would greet me at the door and before I could go further into his home he would ask, “What do you know today?”, which was my cue to repeat each of these lessons back to him. When he thought I had the most recent phrase set to memory, he would add another phrase to the list. These lessons he imparted to me until his death. Around that same time I began work for my father, who had rules of his own to relay. This series of prints captures the nature of how these lessons were acquired, by repetition. Even the 16 penny nail had to teach me its lesson 3 times before I committed it to memory.

Reduction print with school desktop

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