new stuff

hey e'rybody! just a little update...i have a flickr page with photos from penland (same you've seen) as well as farm pictures...FINALLY. so enjoy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37361187@N07/

ALSO i purchased (with all the non-existent money that i have) 2 new books from amazon...they really get you with the 'other members recently purchased...blank.' most of you have probably heard of them, and i've only gotten halfway through the first one Hand Job: a catalog of hand rendered type...it is SO good and gives a great overview of non-computer based artists and graphic desigers. I also got Fingerprint: the art of hand rendered imagery in graphic design, which seems alright based on the few first pages i've flipped through...so! cool new books.

PHOTOS OF JUNK

Here's a couple of photos of the haul from yesterday. The first is the trailer-load of paper and the second is the van full of plastic coil binding.

HAULING HOME MORE JUNK

My apprentices are always getting me into trouble and the chief trouble-maker is Kate. Among the various things Kate does is help (actually she's in charge but her boss won't admit it) run estate sales. This time it was a blueprint, survey instrument, print shop. To make a long story short, because of Kate, this week I've hauled home a 8 x 12 platen press, a trailer full of paper, a van full of that plastic coil binding stuff and a bunch of other stuff I don't need. By the time ya'll get down here to see my shop in person, you won't be able to see the motor home for all the stuff piled around it.

I sure wish the comments on this blog would come up on the main page.

  I accidentally found a question from someone asking for my most enthusiastic apprentice's Etsy site. Her name is Christi and her partner's name is Caleb. He's a tattoo artist, she's a painter but both of 'em can draw and carve up a storm. So, here's their site:

rollandtumblepress.etsy.com

MY SHOP

OK, I'm gonna try this again. This is not the easiest site to navigate is it?

  Here's the front of the shop. This is what you see when you drive up. OMG it's huge! Yep, 100 feet by 200 feet!

This what you see when you walk in the door. It looks spacious but it's a constant battle to keep the two main aisles open enough to drive a forklift down. We have more junk than any two people in the world.

Then you walk down past the motorhome and on the right, about a fourth of the building has been "walled" off. This part of the warehouse is heated and cooled, the rest of it is not. So you go through the door under the sign that says "Printing Office" and this is what you'll see:

And turning right, you'll see this.

Here's a kind of bird's eye view of the rows of type cabinets.

My three Vandercooks.

Here's some of the small presses.

And here are my working presses, the presses I use on a daily basis.

OK, that's the general tour. I can take lots more detailed photos if you want.

Patty.

Hello all, Meg here.

Hope you all are doing wonderful. I have enjoyed hearing your updates! Time for mine: We moved to Audubon (a.k.a., the farm) in May. We've spent the last month unpacking and working on the house. It will be a work in progress for many years, but it is so fun to be here. We moved during the most beautiful time of year. We also got a puppy, Moses, which is a fun addition to our home.

A couple of weeks ago we finally decided to go pick up Patty Price, my new C&P 10x15, in Omaha. It was an interesting day. (Ofcourse moving anything involving letterpress adds a little excitement/stress to a day.) Our only trailer is a 32' livestock trailer which we hauled through downtown Omaha in rush-hour traffic on a friday night. We had to haul 60 drawers of type across a busy street, and block part of the street to get the press in the back. But, alas, it's home!! It feels good to have it in the garage. (It was much easier to get it out of the trailer than into it...you'll see from photos.) I know John won't support me on this, but we will be moving it into our basement soon, but we have to disassemble it a bit to get it through our door. I spent a day last week cleaning the press. As I was cleaning it I was wondering how old the ink was that I was scraping off. You can look at photos of the press on my flickr site: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21493721@N06/

I'll keep you posted on my adventures with Patty. I'm sure there will be many! 

A Visit to Print Shop

Finally my photos from John's shop here in Little Rock! I went last week but forgot camera, so made a special trip tonight, blowing off friends and extended Mexican food feast to head out west and take some pictures for you. Of course when I got there, John said he'd already taken a bunch of pictures and was waiting for me to tell him how to post them, which I will, in a minute.

So I mostly focused on things he will probably ignore, like some of the Little Rock peeps who are dear friends, and some sundry details near to my own silly heart. But this is what John looked like when I said I was going to take pictures:

This is Kate on the left and Gladys on the right. You can see John is looking happier already. You may also have noticed there's a pretty strict dress code at Print Shop. Kate just finished some great posters she is probably going to put on Etsy and Gladys is working on a kickass garden journal.

Here are two of the other apprentices, Lamarie and Andrijka. Sorry this photo is so washed out. They were being so silly they made me mess up my camera settings. I won't tell you what they were doing but it had something to do with a line gauge.

Here are some better photographs of these two in action. Andrijka has been setting a lot of type lately, good for her, but I forgot to ask her what her project is. I think it has something to do with Flannery O'Connor. I am not a journalist. More the creative writing type. I should work on this.

Lamarie brought something interesting tonight. She is making some envelopes and had a die made. I will find out more about this because I've always wanted to do this and I was very excited to see that she had done it. The cuts and ornaments she was using for her envelope were very nice as well. Why didn't I take pictures of these? I don't know what is wrong with me. There is so much to photograph out there. It's hard to focus.

Here is the famous attendance chart for apprentices. You will notice that my name is not on there because I don't get to go to Tuesday night anymore except during semester breaks from my own teaching. I really miss it!

This is the linotype area.

I noticed this in the Print Shop tonight and couldn't resist a photo. I think it might be John's letter jacket from high school. When John was in high school (cue violins) you could letter in Print Shop, just like track or football. Incidentally, my grandfather, the great Agge Louis Scruggs (yes I'm related to Earl Scruggs but that's another story) was the printing teacher at Central High in Little Rock, but that was even before John's time.

This bulletin board is kind of like Ice Station Zero for Print Shop. When you come to Print Shop, you check here for envelopes with your name on them, or the newest books John (or anyone else) has found. It was a tradition for a while, that if you printed something, you left a copy for John and all the other apprentices. If they weren't around that night, it went under the bulletin board. I'm not sure that's still going on with everyone. But I still leave a copy for everyone when I think to and I still get a kick out of it when they remember to leave one for me.

This last picture is just something I love. It is a collection of different typecase handles John has collected or found or something and I've always been drawn to it. I love the variety in shape and size and form. I look at this every time I go to Print Shop.

Someone sent me a link to a website that shows a whole bunch of "artistic printing" like the images shown in that book I mentioned the other day, "The Handy Book of Artistic Printing." When you get to the website, click on 'Artistic Printing Album.' Here's the website:

http://www.sheaff-ephemera.com/

Hello Hello!

Hello all!

I'm been meaning to post on here ever since Beth got it rolling, but alas, time has gotten the best of me!  So good to read your notes John, Beth and Ally!  It's nice to hear what y'all been up to.  Hopefully more people will write! :)  

All is well here in Bakersville/Penland!  I'm actually sitting in the Penland coffee shop as I type.  It is the second summer session right now.  The place is crawling with students again!  It's nice to see the place bustling as it got rather quiet here after spring session ended.  I believe there are a couple of Letterpress classes in July/August... I hope to poke my head in to check out the crazy work that I'm sure will be created.  It's fun being here.  Wish I could take another class, but for now I'm knee deep in the web world!  Work is busy and good and I'm grateful to have it!

Weather around here's getting nice; we too had a ton of rain (raining now!).  More so than there's been here in many years.  It's good, but I'm certainly thankful to see the sun again when she manages to pop her head out!  Taking a little vacation at the end of this month to the Outerbanks.  I'm excited to get away from work and I haven't seen the ocean in a couple of years, so that's doubly exciting.  Other than that, we've been trying to get our garden in order and we also acquired 7 more baby chickens a few weeks ago.  It's been fun watching them grow and integrate with the rest of the ladies in the coop.  :)  

Well, it is so good to keep in touch with you all.  I'm looking forward to keeping this up!  Fingers crossed that we will.

-Marisa

EXHIBITION

One of the things I’ve been meaning to tell ya’ll is about the exhibition I had in my shop on returning from Penland. I pinned up all the work you so graciously allowed me to have, so that my apprentices here could see what you did in one week. Most of my apprentices were pretty amazed and one of them was even upset that so much was done in just a week by “beginners.” I think, I hope, that your enthusiasm and creativity was an inspiration to the folks here.

  I’ve been asked to do a two-week “beginning letterpress” course at Penland next year. So I’ve been wondering what else I should include in a longer course. More on illustration techniques? Carving linoleum blocks? Making photopolymer plates? Any suggestions? What else would you have liked to have learned that we didn’t cover?

  Brandon Mize at Blue Barnhouse (  http://www.bluebarnhouse.org/wordpress/  ) is thinking about doing a book on letterpress printing and has invited me to submit images. Trouble is, I don’t have images, I only have the real thing. Guess I’ll have to get a photographer to make me some images. If they end up in Brandon’s book, I’ll let you know.

HEY Y'ALL

I am not in savannah anymore! or kansas for that matter. i have made my way up to New Hampshire...I followed my heart and answered a post for a 'resident farm artist' where i am working part time in the fields and the rest of the time making signage for their CSA (community supported agriculture) store and surrounding grounds. being a farmhand is HARD work! its an organic farm that is making an effort to not use any machinery to avoid the use of fossil fuels so we are weeding etc. ALL by hand. whoa. we grow only vegetables and herbs and have member-pick-up twice a week. Its really great here with the other interns and sleeping in a shed. really.
i'm lovin the hard work and the art opportunity! love you all! i'll be posting more later!

NEW BOOK

I just got a new book, "The Handy Book of Artistic Printing" by Doug Clouse and Angela Voulangas. It's full of color illustrations of silly Victorian ornate typography that old geezers like me love. Incredible feats of type composing and rule bending.

What I've been doing.

OK, so now I'm on a blog. Will wonders never cease? I’m still having trouble figuring out how to work this blog so bear with me.

  I've been incredibly busy since our Penland class. Some travel, Puget Sound area (gorgeous), NE Louisiana (NOT gorgeous), Ft. Smith, AR (ditto).

  We’ve had lots of rain here so have been unable to get into my veggie garden until recently. Lots of hard work there and I’m gettin’ too old and fat to do that kind of work. Stiff and sore after a day’s work in the garden.

  I’ve done very little printing since returning from Penland but do have a couple of projects in the works. I’ve spent some time proofing and indexing some of my wood type collection. I'm trying to acquire a really big Vandercook and if it happens, you'll know about it.

  I got a real nice letter from Jessica that only took me two months to answer. Alex called a couple of days ago to say he’s on his way to pick up the shop he bought in Wisconsin and visit Carrie while he’s there. According to Alex, Carrie discovered a letterpress gold mine very close to her. Care to fill us in Carrie?

  So what's up with everyone else?

Visit to John's Shop coming up Wednesday

Hi everyone, Beth here.   Not much going on hmmm.  Maybe someone else will post.  In the meantime, here is my newest poster, printed for the cd release party of my friend Kevin Kerby, great songwriter.  

My teaching semester is over and I have a couple of weeks off.  That means I get to go to Tuesday night print shop at John's!! Lucky me.  This week I'm taking my camera and will put up some pictures.