Screen Printed Specialty Items

Client: Aardvark Letterpress
Creative Firm: Mel Lim - San Diego, CA, USA
Creative Team: Mel Lim - Artist; Cary Ocon - Curator; Bill Berkuta - Master Pressman; Brooks Ocon - Print and Color Master

Loteria, a Mexican game of chance, provided the inspiration for Aardvark Letterpress' Los Angeles Loteria Series I collection. Aardvark commissioned a variety of artists with strong ties to Los Angeles to create the first group (18 in a series of 54) of original, limited edition letterpress prints. San Diego designer Mel Lim pays homage to both bunnies by recreating their lives in her piece, "BUNNYZILLA! La Lucha de dos Monstruos (The Fight of Two Monsters)." In this particular piece, Lim tells the story of Lila, a bunny who journeys from the east to the City of Angels-"where buildings are big, land is big, food portions are big, and most of all, anyone can dream big and be big," says Lim-where she meets Biga, another bunny, with whom she clashes daily over cultural mores.

Keeping with the Loteria tradition, each card reinterprets a Mexican icon through the lens of the Los Angeles experience, with each artist invited to infuse his or her own style, number and title against the traditional format of the deck. "The singular vision depicted on the Aardvark Loteria cards reflects the diversity of Los Angeles and Angelinos," says Lim. "From drive-in-movie dreams to drive-by wakeup calls, they represent the spectacularly unique highs and lows of living in and loving Los Angeles." Lim says that the set, taken on the vintage Vandercook press, brings out the intensity of both bunny lives with every impression.