Look: Sam's Broadside in a Big Show!

Hi everyone, long time no see. Thought I'd pass along this link. Our dear Sam Reynolds from class entered his poster of John in a show (I think at Cathy's urging) and it got in. Of course it did!

Here's a link to the show, there's a lot of cool stuff.

http://www.23sandy.com/Broadsided/artists/reynolds.html

WHAT'S UP?

It’s been so long since I posted anything here that I’ll have to relearn everything.

  To say things have been hectic here is an understatement. Alex has been back a couple more times to haul off more equipment and give me a few more square feet of space but of course I’ve managed to fill that space quickly. One of the big purchases was a huge Vandercook. It will take a 30 by 32 inch sheet! But it was one of the filthiest presses I’ve ever seen. I’ve slowly been cleaning it as I waited for the electricians to do some complicated (and I’m sure expensive) wiring. They finally finished and I was able to turn the press on and run the cylinder carriage down the bed. Christie, one of my apprentices, said it sounds like a tank and it does kinda rumble. Lots of work to do on it before I get it printing but I’m looking forward to printing really big posters.

  Dana Moore, Penland program director, (I think some of you met her) and Julie Leonard, Penland board of directors member, bookbinder, and teacher at the University of Iowa, came down to Little Rock for a long weekend of R & R and printin’. Dana printed some cards and stuff to sell for the Mitchell County (that’s the county that Penland is in) Animal Rescue fundraiser and some stuff for herself. She’d never printed anything before. Julie assisted Dana and printed some type collages she’ll use to cover boxes. Lots of fun, beer, wine, good food and good conversation were had.

  A couple of weeks later we were back at Penland for their annual fundraising auction. Lots of friends to visit with at the auction including Marisa, Sam and Kathy. We also bought a little art too. The auction did pretty well considering the economy. Sam put a copy of that portrait he did of me in the auction but I can’t seem to find out what it sold for, if anything.

  Lately, my life has revolved around grass. No, not pot, hay! I’ve gone into the hay business. I’m almost a farmer. I bought a bunch of fancy hay equipment and am learning how to cut and bale hay. So far, I’ve made about 500 bales. What a lot of work! And I’m not stacking those bales by hand either, I’ve got machinery to do that. But I’m really starting to feel like a farmer now that I’m selling stuff. But, now my life involves the weather; I watch the Weather Channel all the time now. I plan my days by how much sunshine there’s gonna be.

  Oh, and I’ve been printin’ too. Check your snail mail boxes. I’ve got a couple more projects in the works too. If you’re nice to me, I might send you copies.

Old grouch making sure Dana doesn't smash a finger.

 

Dana doing just fine on her own.

Julie at the Vandercook.

Julie and Lamarie making up a very complicated form.

Julie and Dana folding paper and having fun.

Watching deer after work.

The "tank."

A new sculpture, by Ken Baskin, we just installed at Cedar Glen.

Hello, Georgia

Welcome Georgia. Sounds like you really struck it rich. I'm very interested to learn what type faces you've acquired. It Also sounds like you've got a lot of work to do cleaning everything up, including those type cases. Maine sounds like a nice place to be 'cause it's been hotter than hell down here in Arkansas.

  Julie Leonard of the University of Iowa and Dana Moore, program director at Penland, arrived here late yesterday evening (Thursday) and after a nice Mexican dinner, we settled in for lots of talk, but not before feeding our deer. Today, it's off to the print shop for some serious work. Dana wants to learn to drive my backhoe while she's here so we'll have to word that into our schedule.

Hi everyone, sorry I've been out of touch...I'm a neophyte "blogger" too! (does that make you feel better, John?) Also, have been very busy setting up our new Letterpress / Book Arts program at the Corcoran all summer. We were lucky to bid on (and purchase!) Los Angeles' oldest print shop at an incredible price which included a Uni 1 along with tons of type, Hamilton cases, and miscellaneous items that would have taken an incredibly long time to accumulate. It arrived two weeks ago, and we really have our work cut out for us cleaning up dusty old type drawers! Any ideas would be greatly appreciated...

We also purchased 2 4-T's, and found a "treasure" of old wood type in Richmond which arrived as well. Right now, we have an etching studio PACKED with letterpress equipment waiting for the completion of the studio that it will be moved into. It will be a very busy August I'm sure.

Also went down to Knoxville for a family wedding and visited Kevin and Julie at Yee Haw Industries, and Kevin had lots of nice things to say about you John, when I mentioned our workshop at Penland.

Now I'm heading to Haystack School in Maine on Deer Isle, to teach a two week papermaking / printmaking workshop from July 19-31. Anyone up that way, come visit!! Georgia

From Cari!!

Cari sent this email to everyone but I thought it would be nice to have all the info in one place. So I'm cutting and pasting it here, you know, like I do. Cari wrote:

Hello friends!

I can't believe it's July, and I haven't written a word to congratulate those of you who have gotten presses or are generally doing well! I think about our class at Penland very fondly and it has been inspiring me to create and explore more in every aspect of life. Thanks to everyone for making our class such a wonderful, creative, and incredibly fun experience.

On my way back to Wisconsin, I met up with Alex in Nashville and had a fantastic time! The highlight of the trip to Nashville was Hatch Show Print. They had beautiful presses and LOADS of cool woodcuts and blocks. Seeing Hatch fed my hunger for letterpress until I got back to Wisconsin, but shortly after I returned I started calling up local newspapers looking for a press. I managed to track down a C&P about 30 minutes away,but in the last decade a wall had been built around it. The owner didn't seem to have any interest in it and seemed willing to give it up if I wanted to put the effort into taking it apart and moving it. I decided to keep looking and the next day I mentioned I was in search of a press to someone in town (population 1468). She led me to someone I knew, but had never associated with printing. He has cases of type, slugs, leads, galleys, and a linotype which he had purchased from a printer going out of business a few years ago. Unfortunately this was all packed away in his mother's barn with no place to go. What seemed like another hurdle turned into bliss when he directed me to the previous owner of the local newspaper. Jackpot! I don't believe any of the presses were original to this particular newspaper, but the previous owner had kept all of the letterpress equipment from the other 5 newspapers he owned. This includes 16 cabinets of type, a huge Hamilton composing table, a Challenge proof press, Two C&P presses, a Heidelberg Windmill, and a Kluge. I don't believe Bill will ever part with his collection (even though it hasn't been used in at least a decade), but he's letting me clean, move, and use the shop as much as I please. It's been quite the project to clean and move 10 years of neglect, but the potential here is great. I've already found troves of treasure including at least a dozen brass galleys of different sorts and beautiful wood type. Hopefully now that the theater season is through the initial push to get things rolling I'll be able to spend more time in the studio.

Summer is in full swing here in Wisconsin, so come up for a visit if you please!

Hope everyone is well,

-Cari

P.S. There are some pictures of the presses and cabinets here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carimyong/3568561579/

ALEX'S VIST

Alex came to Little Rock to pick up two type cabinets and get the tour of my shop. He went shopping in the piles of excess equipment and decided he wanted a proof press too. Then he called his pal Brad at Hatch Show Print and Brad bought a galley rack and a furniture rack. Alex left here with a full pickup truck, John gained 16 square feet of space in his warehouse and around the same amount of space in the tractor shed/printing junk annex.

  Have you ever seen a press fly? Well, here's some photos of one in the air.

Put the press in this empty space.

The press coming off the floor.

Press in the air.

The press going over the fender of the truck.

Real easy now.

Almost there.

Down! Another successful press loading. Nothing dropped, bent or smashed.

Alex is here

Hey John said on the blog last night that Alex is here so I'm going out to have lunch with them. Film at 11.

Update: Saw Alex and met his lovely daughter Mamie today out at John and Robyn's. They came down to shop at John's Used Printing Equipment Emporium. I think Mamie was sent along to make sure her dad didn't get into too much trouble.


Then they took us to lunch at Izzy's and I ate way too much chicken quesadilla. That's Mamie in the background and Alex is telling a story about something big or heavy or both.

Anyway, it was great to see Alex. I'll let him post the details of his trip. Hope more of you find your way to Little Rock.


Last week, my brother and sister-in-law finally had that baby of theirs. His name is Matthew Lee Lambert and he's pretty great. I was in Houston for a few days so I'm a little more behind than usual. And now I'm an aunt. Here's what he looks like:


I love that he's just three days old and he looks like the godfather. Kid cracks me up.

WHAT'S UP?

Well, @#$%^&!! I hit the wrong button.

  Ally,thanks for all the photos. I'd like to see more photos of the crops and fields. Probably nobody else is interested but I am. My own garden is toast. No rain for over a month. We finally got a nice rain yesterday but it may be too late for my veggies.

Those quail-like birds crossing the road in your photos are guineas, or as we say down here, guinea hens. Supposed to be good for eatin' ticks. Alex and his daughter are due here at ten tomorrow (Thursday, July 2) to see my little shop and pick up a couple of type cabinets. Have roofers finishing up putting on a new roof on one of our guest houses and had two big slabs poured today on Robyn's end of the shop, one for parking and one for an outdoor work space. We're off to Texas next week to close up Robyn's parents house down there. Hmmm, loading furniture and stuff in July in Texas?? Doesn't sound too pleasant to me.

Dana Moore, remember her?, the program director at Penland and Julie Leonard, bookbinder extraordinaire and Penland board member are due here on the 16th of this month for a little R&R and maybe some printin.'

Sure wish we could hear from all the other folks.

WHAT'S UP?

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.

Updates

I talked to John this week and he gave me the go ahead to open up the blog to anyone who wants to see it. I am kind of paranoid about the privacy and wanted to put up some pictures but he said not to worry about it. So coming up, a visit to John's Print Shop! (But it will be after I get back from Iowa next week) Love you guys! Beth

great blog

hey all! just wanted to get my bit in here just to say that i now BLOG! woo! i'm a first timer but i'm very much into keeping tabs on all y'all. the south is infiltrating into my blood. i have never had a week like the one we did. a thousand things are still reeling in my brain about how wonderful i felt to be there, and how happy i was to spend my time with every one of you. lets keep in touch...i don't do this stuff on facebook so maybe i will here. and i WILL upload pics onto the pic page. i'm just trying to quickly make them all small enough to fit. ha! miss you and you and you and hope to get good conversations/knowledge pools/think tanks/link lists/project updates goin here and there. xo

The Aftermath...

Hi everyone, a couple of people asked me to set up a blog for our class so here it is. This is not my blog, it is our blog. Everyone in the class has been invited to join and given administrator status. That means you can all post if you wish.

So what is this for? Keeping up with each other, posting pictures of projects, group announcements, staying in touch, harrassing John, whatever...I've never been very successful at keeping up with workshop buddies but I think our class was, um, different. Participation optional of course.

I read a lot of blogs but I'd never set one up before. It was easy! If you need some hand-holding, I don't know anything, but there are some good video tutorials on YouTube.

OK, got to go, still trying to photoshop Sam into the above photograph. Later! Beth