Good Housekeeping

When I walked into my print studio this morning, my first, involuntary thought was "wow, this place needs a good cleaning." Type, type cases, spacing material, paper off cuts, polymer plate segments - everything has been kind of piling up. And piling up. And piling up. I've been so absorbed in my work that I have had neither the time nor the inclination to do anything about it.

This is not a sign of good studio housekeeping, I said to myself. Things had come to a critical mass.

I've been finishing the final typesetting for Allison's book, Open Sky, which I talked about here. She's recently returned from Peru, so we've resumed printing the colophon and a few other details before it's ready to be bound. In the process of setting the colophon, I discovered that I needed to re-distribute type from a project I had printed nearly two years ago, and that I had left standing, assuming I'd get around to it one day or another. Because that type hadn't been returned to it's proper home, I was short of sorts for Allison's colophon.

So, I simply tackled it. I scoured my little print shack from top to bottom today, vacuuming up cobwebs and stashing paper piles in a places where they will be found and used, and finally, re-distributing type from my galley trays back into their cases.

And here I am looking a bit smug and feeling thoroughly satisfied.

more studio

The rain is splashing against the roof overhead, and the floor in my shop is buckling from the weight of my press and the wet earth pushing up from below. I'm working in a modified garden shed, after all.


But I am so content in my little shop, happy to have a warm, and mostly dry, place to hide out for hours at a time, listening to music, NPR, or a book on tape, and working. I can't believe this is my work! I'm so lucky.


Of all of the things I would like to accomplish in the next two months while my Etsy store is closed, I'm starting with organization. Now that my cutter is moved into my shop and the shelves are where they will probably stay permanently, I can get down to the task of sorting through my type.


So this morning, while the rain came down outside, I listened to This American Life and meticulously cleaned each piece of this 48 point Futura. It's been sitting in a box gathering dust and grime for ages, on top of the built up crust of ink left from previous owners who had left it for scrap. Now my job is to go through this stuff and see if any of it is usable. I'm crossing my fingers.


For now I'm stashing it in with the 48 point Futura Bold that I already have in a case. Plus I have more sizes of old and dirty Futura to go through. If it turns out to be usable, it may just become my main house typeface.