Photo courtesy of 6th & B Garden
No typos in that headline. Most events at the 6th & B community garden in the East Village are geared toward children, but it goes without saying that this one, officially titled “X-RATED POTATO PRINT WORKSHOP,” is for adults only.
Hosting the workshop is Amy Berkov, a longtime garden member who’s an assistant professor of biology at CUNY. She explains the process for us newbs: “Potato block printing is a very crude method of relief printing. So you cut a potato in half and carve away parts. The parts that are raised you will then ink up and print.” She adds with a hearty laugh, “This is something that’s usually done by children.”
She’ll have screen-printing ink on hand, so bring along t-shirts, odd fabric, or underwear to print your scandalous image. The garden would like to make very clear that there will not be a model present. Wink, wink.
6th & B Garden has been around since the early ’80s, and this particular workshop is a revival of the same one done some 20 years ago. “The garden was started at a time when community gardens were very much under threat,” Berkov says. “And one of the things that we did very early on to try and round up community support was start this events program. Now we’re resurrecting some of our old art workshops.”
Now to the best part: that X rating. “You can carve letters and make words if you want to,” Berkov says. “[During the first workshop], I printed up some boxer shorts that alternated question marks and exclamation points. One of my friends just made the letters ‘sex’ and printed up some underwear with them. There were actually unexpected people that came and did imaginative things of their own choosing.” We bet there were…
X-Rated Potato Print Workshop, 6th & B Garden, East Village, Wednesday, July 30 from 8-10 p.m.Â