Tuesday, July 20, 2010

My Gordo Adventure, Day 1

I'm sitting with my feet propped up after a full day of printing. To tell you more about what I'm up to this week: I'm doing a week-long residency at The Fetters Book and Print Center at Studio 150 in Gordo, Alabama, where Jessica Peterson and Amos Kennedy share a large print studio and separate living quarters. While Amos is away for the summer, I'm staying in his apartment and Jessica has prepared a Vandercook SP-20 for me to print on as much as I want to, along with plenty of table spaces to spread out.

Kathy Fetters spent part of the day with us, distributing type:

Today, I printed one side of all of the pages in my 24-page book. They'll dry a bit overnight, then I'll print the other sides tomorrow. More about the book later this week. I took a break in the evening to pick some blueberries and have delicious veggie gumbo and tomato sandwiches at a neighbor's, all homemade with veggies from the garden. Oh, and then we topped it off with 6 different flavors of homemade gelato! Yes, six and they were all so good.


Printing has gone well, with problems found in only two plates (one typo, another damaged). I'm adjusting to printing on handmade cotton rag, which tends to have lumps and strings and knots which affect printing, but not as much as I had expected. I'm also using a typeface that's forgiving, so that helps. After printing a book that's very tight and controlled, I'm enjoying loosening up a bit and letting the materials just be how they want to be. It's hard to let go, but I'm enjoying it nonetheless.

5 comments:

luckycreature said...

yea! fun! Looks good. Is the shop air conditioned?- sss

Tracie Pouliot said...

yay! i'm excited to see the project unfold and hear of your print and non-print adventures in Gordo!

Jessica C. White said...

yes, we have air conditioning - i don't think i'd last for long without it (alabama in july - what was i thinking?).

Anonymous said...

Jessica - Have a great time - he and Glenn have a bunch of presses that's for sure.. I was there about a year ago... looks a lot cleaned up. Does he still have that HUGE press - from Italy I think?

Jessica C. White said...

Yes! I think they said they're up to 26 presses now. The huge press is here, but covered for the summer, so I won't get to see it in action. They've been working on getting the space 'residency ready', so they can invite artists to stay and work, so yeah - it's definitely cleaned up and well organized. I think I'll be coming back on a more regular basis.