Anastasia Inciardi’s dreams are coming true. With her linocut prints, the Portland-based artist has captured the attention of the New York Times, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and HBO. A reel of her mini print vending machine went viral last year (as shown in the photo above by Dana Valletti). People connect deeply with her work. For Inciardi, a fourth-generation Brooklynite from a Sicilian family, food is where connection happens.
“I talk to my grandmothers a lot on the phone. The first thing they ask me is, ‘What’s cooking?’” said Inciardi. “Food excites us the most.”
Printmaking helps her spread this joy. Inciardi carves her delectable linocuts in her Portland studio, drawing color and inspiration from children’s books––Eric Carle, Richard Scarry––and ephemera: vintage stamps, seed packets, street signs, old issues of Bon Appetit.
“There are a lot of happy memories associated with food for me,” she said. “All of my prints are based on a person of mine—whenever I’m carving a specific food, I’m always thinking about someone I care about.”
A source of unexpected joy has come from her vending machines, an endeavor borne of humble beginnings (she needed quarters to do laundry in her building). Since then, one of her machines traveled to the Curb Your Enthusiasm premiere, where celebrities slid their quarters in for custom prints. Through it all, Inciardi’s ties to Maine remain essential.
“I like being at the market with people coming up to me and saying, ‘I need to get the watermelon mini print. How do I get that?’ It’s really special to me. I feel like a lot of my business is about making other people happy and making myself feel happy,” said Inciardi. “I’m doing what I love every single day, and I feel so lucky.”
