Of a Sharp-Shinned Hawk, Needle & Thread

Open Sky

A poem by Allison Dubinsky

is now available to purchase

here.

Measuring a little over a palm's width, reading this, holding it in your hands is an intimate experience.

The themes of the narrative weave in and out of each other in this poem, and are reflected subtly in the book's structure; the black thread sewn along the spine, the leaves of the pages unfolding outward, the wood type beckoning you to "open."

All of the text was handset in Bembo 11/12 pt., Bernhard Gothic medium 10 pt., and 12 and 10 line gothic wood type. The illustration is one of the author's, and was printed from a photopolymer plate.

It was such a pleasure to work on this book. Thank you, Allison, for entrusting me with your words.

A Study in Black & Silver

In a few days, Open Sky, written by Portland poet Allison Dubinsky, will be ready to debut. Today, I offer a little preview: I loved the way these black covers looked, lined up on my workbench, their silver adornments glistening in the ever-so-rare Portland mid-winter sun.

the Keen Observations book

This book has the potential to be the perfect companion journal for the new year. It measures approximately 8" x 6.25", and contains 118 pages of 80 lb. Strathmore drawing/text paper - a hefty page that will hold up to abuse and won't bleed through.

This type of book is a hard case-bound book. After folding and sewing the signatures of the book, I backed the spine by gluing and laying on flexible Japanese paper to reinforce the spine, making the pages tight but flexible. The paste downs (the paper glued to the inside cover) is a soft, flannel-like light grey.

The hawk on the cover is a drawing of mine carved in linoleum and printed on my letterpress. Many steps, but so worth it. I really like this book!

The first color available will be this mossy greenish grey - I'm previewing it here tonight, and should have it listed tomorrow morning in the Book Store.

Thanks to everyone who has commented so far in the

giveaway post

Please leave a comment - I really would love to hear from you.

And special thanks to T. at Poppy Place for the very sweet mention of the giveaway on her blog!

Hope you're enjoying the season, no matter how you choose to celebrate, hibernate, or retreat!

high octane

Fueled by cups and cups of strong coffee and sweet chai, I've been working all weekend trying to finish work for the Kenton Holiday Sale next Saturday.

This weekend my focus has been on finishing some purse-sized, softcover books that have been on my bench for a while, as well as some vintage-y guest books. I hope to finally update my Etsy books shop on Monday around noon. Until then, it's back to the glue brushes and nipping press for me!

studio, letterpress, bindery and spring

I really can't believe how long I've allowed myself to stay away. April was such a busy month and Tiger Food Press has been very productive. I can't begin to catch up with it all in words, so here are a few pictures for now, and a promise that I'll be back soon with lots of news about what's been happening.

today is...

bindery day!
Starting out with listing How it Ends in the book and bindery shop.

(It's looking a little spare in there right now, huh?)

Well hopefully soon it will be stocked with *amazing* bits of bound things: guestbooks, albums, photo boxes, artist books, and sketch books and journals.


But right this moment I am sipping a cup of coffee, listening to the silence of the house, and eating one

(ONE!)

homemade chocolate walnut cookie.


Hope you are having a good day, too!

studio day

I try to dedicate two full days a week to exclusively Tiger Food Press projects (in addition to the hours squeezed in to the other days of the week). Today was a productive studio day. Not only that, it was sunny and nearly warm. I had the windows open in the late morning, bringing in the fresh air to combat winter stuffiness.


Projects in the works today were:
1. A repair/salvage project on a perfect bound book donated to the OCAC library. Conservation and repair is not my focus, nor is it generally in my skill set. But I have enough experience in production bindery to help make this paperback book usable for the general public, as it was on the verge of exploding even before going into circulation. With a no-stakes repair like this one I feel confident enough to do a suitable re-bind.

2. Valentines/sweetheart/LOVE cards are now folded, packaged, and listed in my shop.

3. I put the finishing touches on a wedding guestbook project that has been especially fun to do. The deep charcoal grey of the book cloth was made using cotton broadcloth fused with a backing material to make it suitable for covering book boards, and the off-white cotton wrap was fused to double thickness and then letterpress printed, also in a deep charcoal grey. This book turned out to be so elegant. I'll probably post more pictures eventually.

Tomorrow it's back to work in the book arts department at school, and then over the weekend I hope to start work on three, count them, three new exciting publishing projects. More news in that department will follow soon, as I'm really excited about all of them.

really, really. this time it's true.

For the millionth time, I'm about to announce that my website, the real deal, is almost ready.

This time it's true! I worked all weekend on the galleries - taking pictures while the light was good, editing, tweaking. I still have lots to do, but it will be up (at least in a bare bones form) by Thursday this week! I'm so excited!



On a related note - I've been meaning to mention the totally fantastic logo that Precious designed for me. I'm really thrilled with it. The white knockout version with the perforation graphic is what you see here on my blog and on the banner of my Etsy shop. I'm using the plain black and white version on my website. You can see a little more of its evolution in Precious' notebook on her new website.

I've also just received a huge supply of bookcloth and PVA. I'm going to be binding books and boxes like a crazy woman in the next few weeks!