This poster is the latest in a series using the combination of wood and metal type for a historical letterpress design while satirically highlighting current issues. It’s meant to showcase how this type, some of which is 150 years old, is still a viable tool for disseminating ideas. Disabled children are the subject as they’re the next target of the current administration (as are adults, but kids are the focus here, given recent attacks on 504 plans and other services). It references a number of issues:

• Equal is in quotations as the disabled don’t necessarily have full equality but have, until recently, had the protection of the judicial system and the ADA. ‘Pay no attention’ is a nod to the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz, who is the all-powerful man hiding behind a curtain.

• 504 plans meant to assist children with disabilities with basic amenities (vision and hearing aids, physical accessibility, etc.) are under attack in many states. They help to level the playing field and offer protection when needed. Greatly diminished grants through the NIH will also curtail research into many health conditions and diseases affecting children.

• Insurance companies routinely fail to cover aids and therapies that help the disabled thrive.

• With diminishing services and court protections, more disabled kids will need to rely entirely on a caregiver, usually a parent, who must make choices between work and full-time caregiving, often having to do both.

• ‘Undue burden’ is used in 504 plans to reference the removal of obstacles to learning. In this case, it’s turned around to mean the disabled are the burden, which is very much the feeling of the current administration.

• Discrimination has always existed but legal protections and support services have minimized stigma and presented opportunities. That is now shifting in a detrimental way.

The poster is a limited edition of 50 and measures 10×20”. Much gratitude and love goes to Thrill of the Chase Press for research, brainstorming and ideas, as well as Jo the printer’s devil and their insight into the disabled community, of which they are a part.

$25 of each print goes to The American Association of People with Disabilities, working tirelessly to promote the well-being of those with disabilities who deserve to live as fully as those without.