City of Destiny

Description

City of Destiny was designed, written, and printed in September of 2011. This poster was part of the Myth/Mystery series, funded by the Tacoma Arts Commission. The tower image on the poster was printed from a magnesium plate, created from an illustration by illustrator Ben Llewellyn. The background image, including the mountain and the word, “CITY” is a single hand-carved linocut, printed with a split fountain, meaning that two colors of ink are used on the press at the same time.

The words on the poster read:

Now the people had one language and a common speech. They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly. And let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves, otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” But he came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. He said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” So he confused them and they stopped building. That is why the tower was called City Hall because there he confused the understanding of the people.