Gems

1-color, 5 x 7" letterpress printed art print. Ink color: sapphire. Letterpress printed on 130# cover light pink stock. Made in Wilkinsburg, PA using a 100+ year old Chandler and Price letterpress machine. 

Jamillia commissioned Meshwork Press to design and letterpress print these poetry art prints. Meshwork Press will continue to fulfill all orders.

More about the writer:

Born and raised in West Philadelphia by immigrant parents from Liberia, West Africa, Jamillia is a writer and mixed-media artist who co-authored her first poem, “Sparkle Sparkle in the House” with her dad in 1992. Since then, she has used poetry to process experiences, for personal motivation and collective reflection. While attending college at the University of Pittsburgh and during the years immediately after, Jamillia fell in love with melody of spoken word poetry and performed at open mics on campus and at home in Philadelphia on topics including educational equity, writer’s block and growing up.

Since returning to Pittsburgh in 2014, her work has transitioned to pieces which explore the intersections of cultural identity, social impact, systemic injustice, fulfillment and joy. Jamillia invites readers to authentically grapple with power, self-doubt, perfectionism, the opportunity to cultivate a growth practice routed in vulnerability - a trait she has resisted but come to respect - and dreams of a world with space for each of us to revel in.

Connect: @JamilliaKaye on instagram

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Printed text:

Do not drop your gemstones now.

Show this hardship

the best of your pearly whites.

You are developing the kind of defiant joy

that only comes from suffering,

the kind that comes

from mining and mourning.

It looks real good on you.

-Gems