Artist Ron Liberti making a poster by screen printing. | Photo by Sarah Choi
Story by Sarah Choi
NATS SCREEN PRINTING 0:02
TRACK 1 (0:06): This is Ron Liberti. Right now, he’s making a poster through a process called screen printing.
LIBERTI BITE (0:06): “If I have an idea, I could come up with it, and then the next day burn it onto a screen, and then it becomes art immediately.”
TRACK 2 (0:11): In order to make screen-printed posters, Liberti pushes ink over a mesh screen, transferring his designs onto paper. He does the whole process himself out of his home in Wilson, North Carolina.
LIBERTI BITE (0:15): “This is for a show coming up on 4/20 at the backroom of the cradle, and I just use this letter set to scratch on the letters. So I really do keep it old school.”
TRACK 3 (0:07): Liberti has been making posters that promote band performances ever since he started his own band in college. And they’re special because…
LIBERTI BITE (0:03): “There’s only 50 of these things and that’s it. There’s only going to be 50 of them.”
TRACK 4 (0:20): While Liberti’s posters are produced in limited quantities…many of his designs are preserved in libraries. UNC’s Southern Folklife collection features recreations of posters made by Liberti and other artists who played a role in advertising concerts. Curator Steven Weiss says that collecting the posters in an archive extends their lifespan and gives people who didn’t go to the concerts a chance to see them.
WEISS BITE (0:13): “There’s a lot of humor in there. There’s a lot of history in there. There’s a lot of beautiful artwork. I just find it amazing to go through them. You see, you know, years worth of creativity.”
NATS BAND CONCERT 0:02
TRACK 6 (0:08): braless, a Chapel Hill-based band made up of UNC students, still uses poster art to promote their performances—some of which they make themselves.
SARAH LORENZI AND IZZE STEINKE (0:20): “I’ve drawn and, you know, doodled for a lot of my life, but like, actually getting to draw a frog with teeth and then say ‘hey, come see our band’ andi then posting it on Instagram. Like, we kind of get into the little weird and wacky side of it more than, like, the professional graphic design part of it. So it can be awesome to find things that we all are like, ‘wow, I really connect with that.’”
TRACK 7 (0:06): Making these kinds of designs is more than just fun and games. Promoting themselves creatively has paid off.
ASKING INTERVIEW QUESTION (0:04): “Did you ever think you would get this big when you first started?”
SARAH LORENZI AND IZZE STEINKE (0:10): “No way. This is crazy. People actually want to come watch us, to pay actual currency, to, like, stand in front of us, is amazing. It’s a dream come true.”
STAND-UP IN NEIGHBORHOOD: From playing at a house party…
STAND UP IN FRONT OF CAT’S CRADLE: …to playing on the big stage, posters have helped bands like braless make a name for themselves…and given artists like Ron Liberti a lasting career. In Chapel Hill, I’m Sarah Choi, reporting.
