My Gordo Adventure, final Day 6

The best news of day six is that I finished printing the book! Well, everything I could finish while in Gordo. I still have to make a new plate for the colophon and create an image for the foldout, then print the title and maybe an image on the cover. I didn't quite have the materials prepared in time, but it's so nice to have most of the book done, and all done by lunchtime, too!

Since I had some extra time for the rest of the day, we decided to take a trip to the House family cemetery. It was full of good inspiration for this book project.

We had another fantastic home-made meal of spaghetti and eggplant parmesan made from fresh garden veggies. We got punchy and came up with our own gang sign, which I got Glen and Jessica to demonstrate.

After dinner I headed back to the print shop to have some fun with their type collection and work on my Gordo Project, inspired by an Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode but meant for the chicken feed processing plant across the street. We made sure to hang a few up in the windows this morning before I left.

Around midnight I just couldn't stop and moved on to a second project, a postcard for an exchange with the Ladies of Letterpress. I was originally going to print postcards for Asheville, but I guess I just got inspired, mainly by Cousin Jimmy's watermelons (I'm gonna print watermelons on these before I call them done).

Overall, I'd call this residency a success! I'm back home in Asheville now, but I miss Gordo already and am already making plans for going back. If you're looking for a place to go where you can print and  enjoy good food and good company, I'd definitely recommend it. (contact Jessica Peterson at jessica@papersouvenir.com for all the details).

My Gordo Adventure, Day 4

Yesterday was another productive printing day. It actually got off to a slow start while I made changes to my pressure print matrix (I ended up using the original design after changing it around for three hours). I've finished what I can on the broadsides and foldouts, and printed a similar image on the pages of the book. I still have one more run to print on the pages, but the rest of the images will have to be finalized and printed once I return to Asheville.

While I've been printing from polymer plates and linoleum, Jessica P. has been having fun with type on the press next to mine:

I took a break in the afternoon and set a little type for a Gordo Project. I'll post more on that tomorrow. Here are a few more discoveries in the shop.

Kathy watering plants outside the museum and work space she shares with Glen House.

My Gordo Adventure, Day 3

I went out for a walk around the town of Gordo last night once the sun set and it started to cool off a little outside. It only took about 10 minutes. Here's downtown, two views of the same street. I think most of these buildings are empty, even though old signs are still posted.

It's definitely a good place to get work done, with few distractions. Here's the building that houses the print shop where I'm working, down a side street off of the main street. It's one building (one big room) with two entrances. the left side is where Amos works, and the right side is where everyone else works. By the way, I just found out that Amos has officially inducted me into the Amalgamated Printers of Some Color, woohoo!

 This is Luna, the Studio Cat.

I finished printing all of the text for the books by lunchtime and moved on to working on the images, which will be printed in a combination of pressure prints and woodcuts or linocuts, and possible some more polymer plates. The images aren't totally worked out yet, so I don't plan on finishing everything while I'm here, but it's nice to get so much of it done, and to get motivated to get this project off the ground. This book has 21 poems, and will be made in an edition of 30.

I'm also making a corresponding broadside that works as both an independent print as well as a fold-out that's a part of the book. I got this far last night, but I'm not convinced that it's quite right, so there are only three that look like this. I decided to stop, sleep on it, and see where it goes today.