My Tummy Hurts

This Ana Inciardi mini print centers on a restaurant guest check, number 234651, rendered in soft blue ink against a cream background. Written across the lined slip in bold pink lettering are the words "MY TUMMY HURTS," filling most of the check's surface with a loosely drawn, almost childlike hand. Below the image, the same phrase appears again in small handwritten text, with "ANA / INC" noted quietly in the lower right corner. Guest checks are the paper order slips used in diners and casual restaurants, handed between servers and kitchen staff as a record of what a table has ordered. They are a fixture of American diner culture and carry a strong sense of the everyday and the ordinary. Collectors are drawn to this print for the way it pairs a mundane object with an unexpectedly direct personal confession. There is a dry humor in using a formal receipt format to deliver such a simple, vulnerable statement, and that tension between structure and feeling is something Inciardi returns to across her work. The piece fits naturally among her food and diner-adjacent subjects, and it pairs well with other prints in her catalog that treat familiar commercial ephemera as a vehicle for quiet emotion. For collectors who respond to her deadpan sensibility, this print captures that tone in a compact and memorable form. The handwritten caption beneath the image, matching the text on the check itself, gives the piece a layered, self-aware quality that makes it a strong anchor in any grouping of her text-based works.