It's been a brilliant morning so far - the sun has just burst through the cloud layer here in Portland, and the dandelions are popping up like mad all over the yard. We've had some pretty heavy rains over the past few days, interspersed with bouts of cool spring sun. Despite the cold weather, the rhubarb is almost ready for pie.

I should be starting my vegetable garden, but I'm totally not ready.

Instead, I print. Green, spring fir. Bears. Paper. A celebration.

the smell of oil and ink, the sound of a humming press

Early last spring I mentioned I had begun two collaborations with two local poets - helping in the design process and doing the printing of their respective book projects.

As the case is many times, these projects develop entirely on their own timeline. Sometimes a month or two will go by while we let ideas sit and germinate after a crucial step. For both of the women I am working with, the work itself has been written and lived with for many years already - there is no hurry to crash through the process of creating this object to hold.

In the past few weeks, I've been plugging away, for an hour or so here and there, at setting type for Open Sky, a poem by Allison Dubinsky. Paper was decided upon, ordered and cut to size. A polymer plate was made from one of the author's drawings, and the press was finally inked up to begin printing the cover.

I invited A. over yesterday to take a look at her poem, set and tied up, and to approve the placement of the text and image on the cover paper. I practically jumped up and down with happiness over how well the silver lays on the black paper.

I wanted to offer A. the chance to run a few covers through the press, since she had never had the opportunity to use a Vandercook. After a few impressions were made and with a little ink adjustment we got chatting about printing, fantasizing about a giant barn full of printing equipment, and other stuff...and on and on...and then, she had finished printing all 100 covers!

At some point I'd like to try to articulate how inspiring these collaborations are for me, and also how awesome it was to have A. take to printing like she'd been doing it all her life. Someday I'll get around to telling you. ..

things therapy

You know that old wisdom about not going grocery shopping when you're hungry? I think the same can be applied when you're starving for color, brightness, and the changes of late winter to spring and you cross paths with the local vintage goodies store.

Thursday was one of my studio work days, and after spending the first half of the day in correspondence with customers (I have awesome clients and customers!!), doing paperwork and rummaging through 2009 receipts and invoices preparing for tax time, I picked myself up and went for a walk. Temperatures are starting to mellow out here in the Willamette Valley, and while we still get a heckuva lotta rain we also have these mild, mellow overcast days where temps are in the upper 40s. Very walkable.

I needed to make a post office run and a trip to the library. This makes for a nice two-ish mile walk from my house. I had a beer date for a little later with an old, old friend from my Bend days, but I checked my watch and realized I had a window of time to step into Sabi and Friends, a local antique/junk shop in the quaint little downtown section of St. Johns. There's a basket of vintage letterpress cuts kept in the back corner of the store that I hadn't checked out in a while...and lately I've been a sucker for little porcelain or carved wood tigers. (I never used to be much of a knick-knack person.)


I also recently went on a bit of a fabric binge. Oh the colors! This time of year, along with my spring fever, I tend to start wanting floral-y, feminine, bright and colorful things for my studio. This sweet fabric will become the trim on a printmaking apron, hopefully soon.


For the briefest moment I thought about forgoing the commercially printed stuff and stamping my own designs onto fabric, but then I thought *when the hell is that going to happen?* Girl's gotta have some luxury.

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.