Lauren Davies, “Shh… (a story of quiet love)”

In my artist’s book, Shh… (a story of quiet love) we follow the story of what it is like for two queer teens to be in a closeted relationship. Whether we are seeing their view directly, or seeing them as other creatures who unknowingly become a metaphor, they are trying their best to hide their relationship from everyone around them.

I decided to use printmaking as my main mode of illustration because of its unpredictability. While I am not a pro printmaker, in fact I am rather novice, I knew enough to know that you generally only get one chance at printmaking, especially when you are layering prints onto one another. I found a direct correlation with this precision of art and what our protagonists were doing to keep themselves in the clear. While these illustrations look rather simple, there  is a lot of small details that make them rather complicated to make, which sounds a lot like the small details these girls had to add to their daily lives in order to make their relationship look like a simple friendship.

I wanted to make everything by hand, including the book itself. I felt that if our two protagonists took the time to write handwritten notes in the day of texting, they cared a lot about the homemade aspect of things, and I felt that binding this book on my own was the least that I owed to them.

Within my book I added the secret love letters and words between our protagonists, because it was so important to me to show how intense the love between two people can be, and how much of a shame it is that such beautiful love needs to be hidden.

This is not an unheard of story. Every day teenagers, children, and adults fear that they will be in harm if they admit who they love. If this is you, someday they will know. It will all be okay, and soon you will be able to be loud.

To view the digital content of “Shh… (a story of quiet love),” click on this hyperlink.