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.

My Gordo Adventure, Day 2

Yesterday was definitely more adventure than I was expecting while at this residency. I suppose I should have been a good, hard-working artist and stayed at the print shop making prints, but I volunteered to go with the the gang to pick up "a little type from the preacher". This preacher had originally lived in Gordo many many years ago, where he bought the print shop from a local printer, and proceeded to use it for printing religious tracts to hand out, and to print posters for his revivals. Like most people, he's discovered digital printing and no longer has any use for the letterpress printing supplies in his barn, so invited Glen House to come by and pick it up, gratis.

His instructions for finding his warehouse was simple enough: drive to Forkland (where he now lives), take a right, go about 3 miles and you'll see the gate on the left. Needless to say, it wasn't that simple and we ended up driving down a slew of county roads and gravel driveways, entering every gate that was left open. Along the way we saw some beautiful old abandoned houses and churches, a shrimp farm, a catfish processing plant, and a shiny new oil rig. Even though I knew I was in capable hands, while we were driving around lost in the woods I got little nervous and thought I heard a couple of dueling banjos off in the distance. Such a relief to finally find the Preacher's Warehouse.

One press and five type cabinets later, we were on our way back to Gordo. This is what Kathy called the "Clampett Truck."

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.

well that's a crazy week

It all started with the Big Crafty last Sunday (I guess the craziness also includes the week before, when I was prepping stuff for it). Had a great time, and met some new (and old) friends, including these favorites: Sew Ono, Monkey & Squirrel, Beth Schaible, and Margaret Couch Cogswell.

Then I spent the rest of the week finishing a new commission binding, a bound book of letters written to the patriarch of a family for his 100th birthday. It includes silver birch bark (on the cover) and leaf prints (on the endsheets) from an area in western NC where the family often gathers at a summer cottage, plus custom calligraphy by Cheryl Jacobsen. The cover is handmade paper by me, dyed a rich dark brown with natural walnut dye.

Along with this book, I was also prepping like crazy for my week-long residency at Studio 150 in Gordo Alabama, where Jessica Peterson and Amos Kennedy live and work. I'm here now, and gonna go set up a press as soon as I finish this post! I'll post more during this week.

my studio mate

Always ready to help, or to nap. Or just to stare at me disapprovingly.

Hey, why don't you put down that camera and get back to work.

Printed wedding invitations with custom calligraphy

I don't often print wedding invitations, but every now and then I'll take a job that intrigues me. This was a commission passed on to me through the Penland Gallery, from a couple who were interested in having everything handmade by people associated with Penland School of Craft.

I'm really pleased with how these wedding invitations turned out. They're meant to have a slightly rustic look, to match the surroundings of where the wedding will take place - a wooded valley in western North Carolina. I printed them in a warm gray on cream-colored handmade paper by Twinrocker. The custom calligraphy is by my friend Cheryl Jacobsen, who, as you can tell, is a master at her craft. What you see here are the invitations, reply cards, and reply card envelopes. Still to come are wedding program covers and matching thank-you cards. Click on the images for a closer look.

Wasabi mashed potatoes

I have a bunch of uber-talented culinary friends that really know their way around a kitchen, and I love seeing what new delicious goodness they're whipping up. I'm not quite as talented, but as a small offering of thanks for sharing their recipes, I'll post this one, one of my most favorites foods - wasabi mashed potatoes. Here are the steps:

1. Make mashed potatoes

2. Add some wasabi (as much or as little according to your own taste)

3. Mix it up

4. Eat it up, yum!

5. Repeat

a big stack of papers, a giant book

A couple of months ago my friend Frank said, "You'll feel much better once you start making paper again." I wasn't convinced, but got started cutting down rags anyways in preparation. Last week I spent about seven days elbow-deep in a vat of pulp, and loved every minute of it. Frank was right - I'm feeling much better, and two years is just too long to go without making paper! I ended the first session with about eighty sheets of 11x17, forty sheets of 16x20, and forty sheets of 18x24, all made from cotton rag foraged from West Asheville thrift stores. I spent one last weekend making a cotton/abaca blend, and finished with about eighty sheets of 18x24 as well. Here's just half of the finished stack (the other half is still in the stack dryer):

We're exchanging ideas now about creating our own 'micro-pulpery', following the tradition of Asheville's famous micro-breweries, and going into paper production on a small-ish scale. I want to create a 'seasonal menu' of papers for sale, based on what we find at the thrift stores, and once that paper is sold out, it's unlikely that you'll see another stack of paper that excaly the same on our shelves. Hopefully we'll have a small sampling of this ready at the upcoming BookOpolis in September.

Once I finished the big stack of papers, I got to work on a commission: a giant book, made for Dragonfly Forest, an organizational that helps kids with physical disabilities and serious illnesses have a fun night of camping out. This will be a record book for the kids, so it needed to be BIG, bright, easy to clean, and tough. I actually had to talk them down from a 2' x 3' book to this one that's 18" x 24", a size that can be reasonably handled and not fall apart. It also turned out to be quite heavy, so I hope they weren't planning on carrying this book around on their camping trips!

Octopus/Cohen print

I’ve just completed this new edition of woodcut prints with an image of an octopus paired with a line from one of Leonard Cohen’s songs, “Anthem”. This print was made for Holland Editions, a year-long print collaboration in which 12 artists from around the U.S. teamed up to create a limited edition of original prints to benefit the Holland Project, an all-ages music venue in Reno, Nevada. The prints are available through subscription, and subscriptions are $240 for an entire year - 12 prints over 12 months by 12 artists. The first print came available in October 2009, and mine is the featured print for June 2010. The print measures 11” x 16” and was printed from an original woodcut and hand-set metal type on handmade paper stained with walnut dye.

To subscribe to the Holland Editions, or if you have questions about the Holland Project, contact Megan Berner at meganberner [at] gmail.com.

A fan of Fanaticon

Yesterday I exhibited/vended at Fanaticon, Asheville's first comic con, and really had a great time! I've gone to a few comic cons in the past few years, but this was my first time showing and selling my own work, so I was a little nervous at first but people there turned out to be super nice and friendly. I shared the table with partner-in-crime LuckyCreature, and we took turns watching the table and running around to see everything else there. We were lucky to have a good location, and we could even see the music acts out in the courtyard without leaving our table unattended. The turnout was wayyy more than I'd expected, and such an incredible mix of people - all ages, girls and guys, normal-ish to very weird. Definitely not the same crowd I've gotten used to seeing at other comic cons in the past few years! I'm inspired by other local artists I met there, reminded of how much I love making comics and zines, and definitely planning on being there again next year! Some of my favorites: Comic Envy, Rice Boy, Deaver Park Press, Hope Larson, and Wide Awake Press.

Finding my way home

In the past ten years, I've moved 5 times. Before that, another 8 times or so, starting with the big move from Taichung, Taiwan to Cary, North Carolina when I was nine (actually, we moved a few times while living in the city of Taipei, then to Taichung, *then* to the States). I always thought that I would one day go home, to Taiwan, even as my memory of it and my ability to speak Chinese faded. When I finally went back to visit in 2001, it was a foreign place to me, nothing like the homecoming I was expecting to experience. I found myself in a slightly uncomfortable state of having no roots; not sure of where to plant my feet. I guess that explains the constant moving.

A few years ago, I took a printmaking workshop where I learned how to "pressure print" using a Vandercook press. This was in Iowa City IA, one of my many temporary homes. Just playing around with cut papers, I made this print, among many others:

A few years have passed, and now I find myself in the position of teaching this process at  a community print shop here in Asheville, North Carolina. The other night, I pulled out this very print to show as an example, and one of the students said, "Well, that looks just like the Blue Ridge Parkway." I'd made it , of course, years before moving here, and long before the thought of moving here had even crossed my mind. Two days ago, Scott and I spent the day driving on the Parkway, stopping to visit a few small towns along the way: Cherokee, Sylva, Waynesville. Something about this place just feels right, and every now and then I get the feeling that I may have found my way home.

Prudence and Patience

I'm slowly getting started on a new series of prints about two little girls and their adventures, called Prudence and Patience, presumably their names. Here's a test print of a plate that will be the border for most (or all) of the prints, which will be mostly wood cuts and engravings. The images will be similar to the Heavens to Betsy series, and will include captions, but I'm ready to really focus on my engraving skills, no matter how daunting.

While these girls are off having adventures, here are some peeks at the homelife of Jessica:

the start of a new moss garden and my new strawberry patch.

Human Book in Barcelona

My book "Secrets"  will be on display at the Human Book exhibit in Barcelona, Spain, during the Sant Jordi Festival on April 23, 2010! I've visited Barcelona once, many years ago, and fell in love with the beautiful city of wide promenades and fountains. I'm so glad to finally be there again, in spirit if not in person. My Spanish is a little rough, but I'm pretty sure all of the details are here:

   III Festival de libro de artista y de las pequeñas ediciones

 HUMAN BOOK 

el libro como necesidad humana de contar, de expresarse y de editar

23 de abril de 2010, Festividad de Sant Jordi

Barcelona, Plaza Sant Just (Barrio Gótico)

Plaza de Los Libros Imaginados

Invitación

Horas 12.00 del 23 de abril: apertura del Festival

Presentación del catalogo-ensayo sobre la muestra, con intervenciones de Alberto López Bargados, Eva Marxen, Aníbal Salazar Anglada, Roser López Monsó, Ignasi Blanch, Nani Tedeschi, y de representantes de instituciones y centros de arte relevantes en todo el mundo. El volumen (coordinado por Elisa Pellacani, 246 pp., ilustrado, encuadernado en hilo, 20.00 Euros) estará disponible durante el Festival y en las principales librerías. 


More information about the festival can be found here.

Water people

Spent a beautiful spring/summer morning yesterday at the lake with my dad. He taught me the basics of fly fishing, then I went for a lazy-paddle kayaking around the lake while he fished some more from the dock. Found some awesome little mossy-ferny spots along the banks, under the overhanging trees. Every time I get back on the water I'm reminded that I'm a descendant of water people. Especially my dad and his mother/my grandmother, but while they preferred to be near water catching fish, I'd rather paddle or sail, or swim. I haven't been sailing since before the big flood in Iowa, and I think it's time to look for a nice lake to sail around again.

Honestly, though, I had dreams about snapping the line just right to get the fly in the right place along the shore. Maybe there will be more fly fishing in my future...

Here's a photo of the sunrise on the bridge taken with my phone.

Robot says it's spring!

A sign of spring at our house: the Robot sprouts.

It also, apparently, moves around the yard.

Information Desk

Finishing up the drawing for the final Heavens to Betsy print. So far, I've been calling it "Information Desk". This drawing will be made into a photopolymer plate, and another integral part of the print will be a pressure print.

The Loot

Spent a sunny day with Scott out at the lake yesterday, and walked around Chimney Rock before it's overrun by tourists. We stopped at one of those mine-your-own-gems set-ups, and I realized that I lived an entire childhood without mining gems even once. Especially surprising since a lot of that childhood was spent in North Carolina, apparently the gemstone mining capital of the world (Google it). I kept every single little rock that got caught in the wire mesh, but here are the highlights.

Comparing these to the little 'gem chart' they gave me, I think I have (starting with the purple stone, and spiraling clockwise):
a nice big amethyst
blue calcite
mixed agate
sodalite (?)
desert jasper
citrine
clear quartz
red jasper
another sodalite
and another desert jasper.

The gems/jewelry shop was *way* more interesting after this mining experience.

Click! Brrrr-ka-chunk!

Started a little spring cleaning in my studio today, and discovered this tucked away neatly in a box! My old Polaroid and two brand new boxes of film. The films are developing with a very strong sepia tone, like I've traveled back to the 1970s to take these shots. And now, I'm off to re-learn how to make Polaroid transfers.

This is why spring cleaning at my house takes for-ever...