[Sami Jensen] “The objects we place around ourselves outline the shape of a life,” says designer and artist Veronica Corzo-Duchardt in her artist’s statement. This sentiment is embodied in her Neche Collection, which tells the story of her late g
randfather’s life via an image archive of his most-loved objects. As a Cuban exile, accountant and avid collector, Neche Eugenio Hadad treasured his calculator, writing utensils, a deck of cards, envelopes and other objects. Each day, Corzo-Duchardt posts an image of one item here and, at the end of the week, she creates a screen print, by hand, pulling inspiration from one or a few of the objects from that week.
“I used the distressed diamonds from the nine of diamonds card [left] to create a new double diamond print [closeup, right], with a mini diamond tucked in at the bottom as a secret, like a little secret weapon,” says Corzo-Duchardt. See the full print below.
Print #15 is based on the Florida playing cards from post #70.
Corzo-Duchardt’s limited-edition screen prints are presented together for the first time in this Felt & Wire Exhibit. Though the Neche Collection and the beautiful prints that portray it are personal, the objects are largely ones that we use frequently, that are at once ordinary and extraordinary, universal. By amassing and sharing this collection in digital and print form, Corzo-Duchardt preserves something for us all. We invited Corzo-Duchardt to tell us about her art in her own words:
#16 — “What can I say, I’m a sucker for vintage forms and type.”
#9 — “I really love how the colors turned out on this print [left, cropped]. As soon as I saw these envelopes [right] I knew I had to do a print with them. I love them and had never seen anything quite like them. I wanted this to be a nice mix of old and new, while showing a bit of the NYC skyline I grew up seeing.”
#10 — “This is one of my favorite prints. I feel like it really represents the collection because it’s almost a hybrid object something of my grandfather and something of mine. It’s a little quirky and strange, while still being funny and beautiful.”
#7 — “This seems to be one of those prints you have to see in person. It’s taken from the Caridad del Cobre saint card #30 and the shapes on the front of the address book #27. I wanted to show a partial scene of the card, so I masked out the water and the boat from the card into the shapes from the address book, which reminded me of the movement of waves. The real subtle secret here is that the top lefthand corner, above the thunderbolt, has a halo. Since it’s printed in a lime green/yellow color it’s hard to see unless you are up close. I was going to add another color to it to make it pop more, but given the subject matter it was inspired from, I thought it was appropriate.”
#8 — “This piece [right] is based on the Omron calculator manual [left]. I just love the form of the buttons so much that I really wanted that to be the focus. I also wanted to stay with classic red and black colors that reflect the original manual design. ‘Power calculations’ comes from one of the formulas shown in the manual. I don’t really know too much about them, but I just became enamored with that term.” (Note: Images are resized.)
#12 — “I’m a sucker for things with numbers and lines on them. So I naturally gravitated toward using the protractor on this print. Plus I love the imperfection of the broken protractor that has been taped back together. It also seemed natural to include professional written backwards on the print.”
#14 — “I love the texture on this print. The letterhead image looks almost 3D. And of course I love the type on the Company Correspondence form.”
Framed prints are available at the Neche Collection at Felt & Wire Shop.
Veronica Corzo-Duchardt is a Cuban-American artist, designer, teacher, drummer and collector of things. With two graduate degrees from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Veronica has worked in design for over 10 years in Philadelphia, NYC and Chicago. Her design and print studio, winterbureau, is located in Chicago. Keep up with the latest additions to the Neche Collection by following her on twitter @nechecollection.
And this is Neche Eugenio Hadad, Veronica’s grandfather:
