an update - and a promise

Hello Typestruckers! New and Old!
very excited to see the activity goin on here!

I have finally gotten internet at my apartment, so I will be posting new things soon

1. a little primer on kansas city pressers: ephemera from all the print shops
2. photos from the new letterpress studio I have joined as of last week. I am going tonight to print my first comissioned piece!

missing everyone lots, esp after seeing the newbies in the penland studio!!
<3
ALLY

Keeping up with Lisa!

I thought I would share this link from Apartment Therapy.
It certainly made me think of my time at Penland and wished I could be there again, just creating.

via Apartment Therapy

In other news, I updated my website to showcase some of my Penland work. Click here for my website. The projects labeled: More X's & O's, Fami-ly, and XO Stationary are projects you would recognize.

Hope all is well with everyone else!

Thanksgiving at Penland

PENLAND VISIT

Robyn and I had some more furniture for the new guest house and other houses at Penland so we decided to take it over the week of Thanksgiving since our family wasn’t having any sort of get-together, and maybe make a vacation out of the trip. We loaded up my big flat bed truck and then hooked up a 26-foot-long trailer filled with furniture and a replacement for that crappy proof press that was in the letterpress studio there. It’s a 750 mile drive from our place to Penland so takes this old man about a day and a half to drive it. It was made more difficult by pouring rain on the second day. It took about and hour just to get through Knoxville and it was tense because of that trailer we were pulling.

  However, we did make it to Penland without a mishap and got everything unloaded quickly thanks to some of the staff at the school. We spent the rest of the week visiting with friends and staff at the school. Most of ya’ll didn’t have time to meet the wonderful people who run Penland but I’ve got to tell you, they’re all really great people and they all care a great deal about the school.

  Penland in the winter is strange without students. No one walking around, no cars, plenty of parking! No great smells coming from the kitchen at the Pines. The school is building another much-needed, as some of you know, housing unit up above Bonnie’s Place and we got to see that in its early stages of construction. Thanksgiving morning Robyn and I walked from the guest house all the was down to the resident barns and didn’t see a single person or car. The letterpress studio was kind of forlorn without students and I thought a lot about the time we spent together there.

  Thanksgiving dinner we spent at Mike Davis’ home. Mike is the development director at Penland. He has a great house with a wonderful view and loves to entertain. The weather was perfect. There were eighteen people there, mostly staff or resident artists and, as someone noted, none of them were related by blood. So we got along famously. It was a potluck dinner and someone deep-fried a turkey. We’ve never had a deep-fried turkey and it tasted great and was moister that the oven-roasted turkey also in attendance.  Lots of other good and unusual food was consumed. The rest of our time at Penland we visited with other friends and of course it always included a meal.

  We left Penland on a Sunday, stopped in Marshall, NC to visit with Rob Pulleyn, Penland board member, founder and former owner of Lark Books and passionate supporter of Penland. Rob bought an old high school in Marshall, that’s on an island in the middle of the French Broad river, refurbished it and turned it into artist’s studios. It’s a cool old building and each classroom makes a nice studio. There’s a nice deck where the artists can relax and/or party. I didn’t ask what the studios rent for but knowing Rob, I suspect they’re rented at cost or lower.

  Next we went down to Saluda, NC and visited with our good friends Stoney Lamar and Susan Casey. Susan owns a restaurant in Saluda and really knows how to cook so we ate like pigs again. After a couple of days in Saluda, we reluctantly headed west toward home. We made another stop at Arrowmont School for Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN and visited with our friend Bill Griffin who is assistant director at the school and ceramic artist of some note.

  It was a wonderful trip without a schedule and included plenty of “down time” and time to visit unhurriedly with friends. Usually, when we’re at Penland, I’m working and don’t have time to visit.  Of course, it’s always good to be back home but after being gone almost two weeks, things piled up and now I’m running around trying to catch up.

  I hope everybody is doing great. Let us know what you’re up to.

Meg Gleason featured on Minted.com, Great Interview

Hola kittens, this showed up on the Facebook today so I thought I'd put it here too...great interview with darling Meg with lots of pictures. She looks adorable and there are photos of her family and their artwork. She is from a talented family! She talks about Letterpress and my favorite photo is the one she set up of her presses with one of her calves. Not the one on her leg. A must read. Made my day.

http://www.minted.com/blog/2010/11/27/meet-a-mintie-moglea/

check out this neato number.

my friend dylan brought this back from a fleamarket in berlin. a very interesting typesetting solution...

it was probably used as the logo/letterhead for this east-berlin diner where, the website claims, you can get some "nostalgic eats" - which basically translates to meat-on-meat.
http://www.speisegaststaette-efinger.de/speisekarte.html

makes a great paperweight. or perhaps even a belt-buckle.

Auction photos

Class photo

The class from August 2010!

Just Vandercook it!

John Horn pulls the first print for the class group project.

Penland Week 1, Where Did You Go?

First week of John Horn's letterpress class, at which I am assisting, has gone by fast. Students are remarkably adept and producing like crazy. The same few people seem to accompany me during the late shift, but that is to be expected. Many of our students are staying off campus or live nearby, going back and forth can be difficult. The basic instruction and group project portion of the class is over, so now people are working on individual projects. I've been helping mostly with proofreading and design questions today. I've been working on a project for the upcoming Student Scholarship auction, too. And over the past few days I've rediscovered linocuts. Lots of the students are doing linocuts, time consuming but cheap. Here's a bee I cut for a demo.

Also today I used the polymer platemaker for the first time. John and I were both amazed at the quality of the negative from the EPSON Photo 1280. Had a little trouble with the printer but once student Virginia suggested to clean the print heads, problem was solved. The first plate I made looked wonderful out of the exposure unit and again after washout. But when I tried to use the automatic dryer drawer, the plate came out all melty...too hot? A second attempt using a hairdryer was a little scary, so we decided to let the plates air-dry and give them a final exposure tomorrow to set them.

Penland Summer Letterpress Workshop 2010

Images from the Penland Summer Letterpress Session 2010, currently in progress!

Where is everyone?

Hey long time nobody post anything. So here's something kind of type-related. I made a couple of a pieces for a book show here and I've got pictures of one of them, will post pictures of the other tomorrow. An evil union of my two great loves, books and clay. The first one is a conceptual piece, it's called The Lord's Prayer and I've been thinking about it and wanting to make it for a long time. Here's a really crappy picture:

When I started telling people about the piece, they immediately it was some kind of wiseass comment about religion, but I didn't have that intent at all. I've always loved the letters of the alphabet as objects aside from their job of being meaningful symbols for communication of ideas. I chose the Lord's Prayer because it is something that almost everyone is familiar with in this culture.

The first books were really precious, made by hand, and very valuable. Today, anyone can self-publish a book and books can be made cheaply. So that's what was in my head. I wanted to make something that was labor intensive (although I didn't realize how hard it would be).

There are 281 letters in the Lord's Prayer. I made each letter using a press mold, which is a kind of mold with a letter-shaped impression in it. So I had to make a mold for each letter. I found some plastic letters that I used to make each press mold, kind of a lower case Times Roman-like font, the e is about 5/8" tall. The letters were too fragile to remove from the molds, so had to press each letter onto a small piece of clay, wait for the clay to firm up, and then cut the letter free with a sharp scalpel. Even then, sometimes I broke the letter, but after a while I got pretty good at it. Except for the m's and w's, which were miserable.

The dots above the i's are held in place by a tiny piece of high-temperature wire. Wasn't sure if that was going to work or not, so I really glad when it did!

The letters were bisque-fired and then dipped in white slip with tweezers, then fired again. Then arranged on a base, again with the tweezers. I worked on this off and on for about two weeks. I will try to get a better photograph because it's really beautiful in person. The lighting in the gallery is kind of funny.

Miss you all terribly!! Love Beth!

HOME!

Hey everyone, Ally here. just posting an update so that i have something to show for the fact that i am missing everyone plenty, and wishing i was making a broadside.

so i am home, after a wonderful yet interesting experience on the farm in new hampshire. i believe most will have a link to my flickr page but if not...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37361187@N07/
and my new but not permanent address (mom's)
4010 W 102nd Street
overland park, KS 66207

A friend from the farm forwarded me this...just tossing it out there in case anyone is in the area, which area is still in question...
http://thegreenhorns.wordpress.com/2010/01/29/seeking-letterpress-partners/

I have been working for a company i had an internship with a few years ago, doing web design, reluctantly, knowing that i'd rather be painting or stacking lead. but its a (low) paying job, and jobs are hard to come by. So i suppose i am waiting it out until the next big thing comes around! Which i'm hoping is something like farming, or a somewhat lucrative apprenticeship learning carpentry...who knows, i have WAY too many ideas to focus on just one, let alone FIND where these opportunities may lie. any suggestions or leads, please send them my way.

Since leaving the farm i also (prematurely but passionately) applied for the studio coordinator position at Penland, managing the book&paper, letterpress, and printmaking studios. I didn't get the job, obviously, but was told that i was highly considered, so its ok. I've also almost applied for a baking position in their kitchen, knowing that any job at penland is a dream job. John, when are you teaching this year? maybe some of us can come visit...regardless i'd like to come down to AK and print soon :) and thank you thank you for the beautiful holiday card, its gorgeous.

SO i hope everyone else is having a WONDERFUL new year, and all is going according to plan (if you guys make plans). All the best to whoever reads this!!
xo~ALLY

HATCH!

Yesterday I finally got to see some Hatch Show work in person. There was an exhibit on display at the Durham Museum in Omaha. It was so fun to see the enormous wood cuts and to look at the intricate monoprints up close. I'm definitely a fan of the crazy layering of ink. Their attention to detail is phenomenal. The printers of Hatch have created exceptional works of art. Very cool to see some of Hatch's advertising work. We loved the Airstream print.

As for my press, I just ordered 3 new rollers from NA graphics and am sooo excited to get the press going soon. I have my first wedding invitation to letterpress by April so I'm grateful to have a deadline in front of me. Wish me luck! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season.

John, Thanks so so much for sending your holiday card. It was just beautiful. I promptly displayed it on my inspiration wall. Hope you and Robyn are doing great!