alone stranger

*from my sketchbook*

Today I am a city girl, from Elsewhere. I no longer feel ownership of this place. I'm older, more urban, an interloper. Today I'm the stranger in this place that used to be mine.

The campsite I find is perfect. Just before a little creek crossing, a turn-off, a wide circle, a clearing with a huge fire pit. Boulders have been strategically placed to prevent drivers from going into the creek bed. There is also a two-by-four nailed across the span of two ponderosa pine trees, the type of thing for stringing up game. There's a green metal smoker someone has left behind, obviously with the intent to be back to use it once again. This is public land, but it feels like someone else's space; well-used but spotlessly clean. Again the feeling of being an intruder creeps up on me.

I stay, trust the wilderness, trust the dry, dispassionate nature of the Central Oregon fisherman to let me borrow their camp spot for the night. The tiny creek is not for sitting by; its banks are overhung with trailing sagey-green willow branches, but it burbles nicely against the buzz and chirp of crickets.

I hang my red chinese lantern from a manzanita branch. Dusk plays with my eyes and there's a distant tree stump, white with stripped bark, that looks like a person emerging from the woods every time it crosses the periphery of my vision. I'm too tired to start a fire. As darkness falls completely I feel, ironically, more comfortable. By this time I doubt anyone will come along and I know this campsite is mine for the night. I turn off my lanterns and the stars begin to pop out of the trees. I can see the orange glow of the campfire of my closest neighbors - down the road and across the other side of the creek. Funny how I came here to be alone, completely alone, but the sight of that fire glow reassures me. What I really want is privacy and sanity.

One beer later, I crawl into my sleeping bag, and before I know it, I'm waking up at dawn with a day on the river ahead of me, and my old desert feet already feeling the land seep back into my soul.

third annual letterpress printers fair

For the third year in a row I'll be participating in this really excellent fair. This year it is being hosted by Em Space and should be bigger and better than ever. If you love letterpress, don't miss it! And come early. The past two years have seen lines out the door before the opening. People want to get in on the good deals!
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Join us for this years’ 3rd annual Portland Letterpress Printers Fair! All are welcome for this fun outdoor event celebrating letterpress, printers and appreciators. Read below for more info about the event.

Saturday, August 14th, 2010
11am-5pm
323 SE Division Place
Portland Oregon, 97202
Admission: 11am-2pm – $2 and from 2-5pm – Free

Demos, Print Shops, Suppliers, Resources
Type, Equipment, Cards, Broadsides, Ephemera
Overstocks, Seconds, Deals, Rarities and More!

Come one, come all.

And please check out my friends' over at Em Space for the full press release, plus information about a movie screening going on the night before:

SCREENING OF “FAREWELL: ETAOIN SHRDLU”
CC Stern Type Foundry will be screening “Farewell: Etaoin Shrdlu,” a documentary about the last issue of the New York Times to be composed in the hot metal printing process. Discussion to follow. All are welcome.

Friday, August 13th, 2010
7:30-9:00pm
Em Space Book Arts Center
407 SE Ivon Street
Portland, OR 97202
Suggested Donation: $5

the not work

I've been working a lot lately. Job work, letterpress, bindery. Work in my own studio, and work at Oregon College of Art & Craft.

This makes me hugely thankful, actually. I feel so incredibly lucky to do what I do for a living.

But sometimes the work-work takes over a little, and the art work suffers.

Part of the art making process is what a friend of mine describes as the not work. The not work is what's happening when we do the dishes, fold the laundry, space out, play guitar on the back porch, cook pork ribs. The not work is actually a necessary part, an essential part of my process.


I've been in the planning, germinating, seeding stage of a project that's been held in my mind for over a year now. I'd love to start telling you about it...but I'm not quite ready. It's still in the not work stage. But this week I've been sitting on the back porch more, thinking about the work more, sensing that subtle tickle telling me it's time.

This week I'm going to throw my sleeping bag and my drawing supplies in the back of my subaru and take off for a few days. I hope to return with a little more not work under my belt, but who knows. It's about time, anyway.

handset in heavy metal

Lately, I've been using photopolymer more and more in my shop. Its versatility and adaptability to modern design makes it the natural choice for job work such as wedding invitations and business cards.

But occasionally, {usually when I'm creating work for myself} I have the opportunity to set type and create a typographical design out of just the heavy metal in my shop.

I'd almost forgotten how much time setting type can take, especially when there are limited sorts {individual letters} in the font you want to use...making you have to re-think your layout.

The puzzle-solving, measurement-taking preciseness is something I really nerd out on, though. I'm hoping to get these printed as soon as I get back from my little mini-vacation for the rest of the week!

a list of july

lavender in full bloom

mosquitos

peach crisp

coffee on the back deck in the morning

baby sparrows with gaping mouths

a temporary baby crow resident

old friends, new friends

running

ignoring the weeds

working - lots of work

{soon, a little vacation}

yoga

the pleasure and inspiration of watching master printers at work

a summer cold

warm cat fur

full moon up all night

sunrises

sunsets

the monkey

floods, floods, dampening paper

The title implies it all, letterpress lovers, but maybe not in the way you'd imagine. No, my studio hasn't seen a recent deluge, but I have been seeing a lot of designs for letterpress requiring floods - heavy, large solid areas of spot color. Maybe a trend? I'm not sure but I'm certainly keeping my eyes open, and noticing a lot of good examples.

Printing large solids or floods is not one of letterpress' strengths, though it can be done. I'm learning through experience that paper choice, ink formulation, and even typeface choice can make or break a letterpress printed flood design.

I recently chose to print my own business cards with a bleed on all four edges and my press name knocked out. I employed a few techniques to help achieve a more even and solid coverage on the thick, cotton printmaking paper I chose to print on.

note note note: floods are more easily printed on smoother, more calendared commercial papers. The thirsty quality of printmaking paper just drinks up ink, and the fluffy surface can create a mottled look, which some people actually like and consider a hallmark of letterpress, but I'd prefer to create as even and solid an appearance as possible.

To get a smoother, more even tone while not having to smash my plate with too much impression or over-ink, I dampened my paper the night before I went to press. Dampening paper is a little extra work, and needs to be controlled to ensure that the paper remains at the right humidity and remains so throughout the run, but the results are so satisfying. The effect of dampening paper is that the paper fibers are loosened up just a little and the sizing is broken down, and therefore less ink and pressure is needed to deliver a solid area of coverage. I'll post some pictures of my paper dampening set up, and maybe even more information about paper and paper properties in an upcoming post.

Shortly after finishing my own cards, I received an order for a double-sided card with a large-ish solid on both sides...on Crane's Lettra...

with a tiny typeface...
and a medium size graphic element...

c h a l l e n g e

Ah, and let's not forget ink control. My press has what's considered an automatic ink system, but what that really means is the press has a motorized cylinder that keeps the ink milling on the rollers. It does not control the level of ink - the press operator manually adds or reduces the amount of ink on the rollers and is responsible for keeping a steady amount of ink on the press. This amount is subjective to the job being run, the amount of coverage and the amount of color discrepancy the press operator is willing to accept. I try to keep the color as consistent as humanly possible from the start of the run to the end, but with the larger amount of coverage a solid or flood requires, the greater the possibility of shifts throughout the run. For the work I do for my customers, I often look at each sheet as it comes off the press.

And each sheet that comes of my press teaches me something I've been wanting to learn.

top 50!

Remember last fall when I was all excited to be present in Martha Stewart Weddings?

So as I was be-boppin around my favorite blogs today, I discovered this over on Precious Bugarin's notebook. Precious' design, printed here at Tiger Food Press, is part of Martha Stewart Weddings 50 great wedding invitations.

A big, huge congratulations to Precious! I'm thrilled and honored to be her collaborator on this project.

gentle day

In the wake of bonfires, barbecues, beer, bratwurst and sauerkraut, motorcycle rides, exploding things, we wake up reluctantly and groggy. The still overcast air feels a little more like looming winter; that we should stoke up the woodstove and warm the couch cushions instead of jumping up and out of doors into the woods to cleanse the gunpowdery residue from our lungs.

Indeed, a few false starts are made in the pursuit of hiking trails and mountain air. A town trip is decided upon. Coffee is sipped while the Le Tour De France dances across the periphery of our vision. Should we see the R. Crumb exhibit at the museum? No, closed on Mondays. Japanese Gardens? We haven't been there in a while. But do we want to share the experience with half of Portland and a good chunk of Minneapolis, Austin, L.A., Phoenix, Athens, Georgia?

GPS helps us find the Marquam Nature Park. There's a smooth, weekend hangover kind of trail. We walk. It climbs a little, and we're above Portland and on a green expanse of park. The clouds start to break up and the reluctant sun starts to warm the grass.

Being lazy and indecisive has made us hungry. The trail winds down in the direction of town, the direction of the river, and we sit on a patio with our final beer and final greasy spoon eats before the weekend is over.

Today is beautiful and sunny, and I'm out to my studio to throw open the windows and get back to work.

for ever and ever

I've been wanting to get around to doing this: homemade strawberry jam.



Years ago, during a long, hot summer in Bend, I worked in the kitchen at a tiny family-owned health food store and deli. I slung soups and salads, dips and salsas, the occasional baked sweet thing, and the occasional grilled savory thing. Then one day the owner arrived with an armload (+ a dolly-load more) of flats of fresh, organic strawberries.

I was introduced to the world of canning jam over the course of a couple of long, sticky days. I had the company of a teenage co-worker to keep the fruit stirred over the boil, and to help wipe jar rims after slurping the bubbling pink goo into little jar openings. The workers from the front of the house only dared to peek their heads in tentatively as we edged ever closer to delirium and hilarity the stickier and hotter we became.

The end result was sweet and rewarding. A fruity, sugary success.

I haven't made strawberry jam since.

Until the other day. I awoke with a purpose: to the farmers market for a flat of no-spray local strawberries, and on to the kitchen.



Making jam is pretty straight forward. You need a couple of big pots.





A goofy makeshift apron.

A gin and tonic doesn't hurt. (tonic with real cane sugar and a generous slice of lime.)

A helper cat for company.



And you have jam.