2014 OCADU Book Arts Fair

My daughter manning our table while I look around

Jeff! of Jackson Creek Press

Margot of Pomegranite  Letterpress
and Xavier, relief printmaker
and animal lover

George Walker
(and the lovely Michelle who hid behind a display)

Screen prints by a collection of OCAD Printmaking students

Nat and her wares from Montreal

December 2012

Thank you to Lily who took these great photos during the seven weeks of the ABCs of Letterpress class she participated in! Lily brought a real camera every week to take photos. The rest of us just used our cell phones. I had a great time with this group. We even had a little Christmas party with baked goods and non-alcoholic Mimosas!

The space.

One part of a two colour project.

"Always kiss me goodnight" on the Vandercook SP 15.

Hand set type project!

Brady's hand setting project up close.

Luis's hand setting project... almost ready.

 

I love this shot!
Luis's hand set project... nice use of ornaments and centring.

Lily's form ready to be put to the test.
Will everything stay in place when it is lifted?

Proofing Lily's hand set type project on the Craftsman.

Proofing with Lily on the Craftsman.

Working away.

...and finished! It looks amazing!

At the Vandercook SP 15 with Luis.

Welcome to the studio, Mason!

Last Saturday was an exciting day at the studio. Mason, our new foster press was delivered! After months of trying to co-ordinate between Sigrid, Craig and I, it finally came together! Mason ( a Vandercook SP15 that is rumoured to once have belonged to a famous Canadian writer that current mayor Rob Ford had never heard of ) was delivered to it's new long term temporary home at KOZO Studio. Along with Mason, Sigrid also gave me several boxes filled with various ornaments, leading, rules, metal display type and ink to use with Mason! Thank you Sigrid! I'll keep it all safe for your working visits to the studio.

It was a beautiful day for moving Mason. The last thing you want to do is movie a big press made of steel in the rain! As you can see from the photos we had lots of sun, a little bit of a breeze and a nice fall temperature! Thanks to Craig Black, Nick Kennedy and Albert Kwon for doing the pick up and delivery! Next time I have to remember to have more Coca Cola around.

So, right now the studio is in a state of disarray. Well, more than usual disarray! I've been sorting leads, cleaning and sorting ornaments, finding space for type and moving big pieces of furniture around (with the help of Ken and Albert - thank you, guys).  Now that all the press stuff and moving is settled I'll be able to start workshops again next week. Not sure how the new floor layout will work in terms of flow. Hopefully it will be fine. It ain't easy moving cases of lead and heavy metal presses around! We'll see how it goes.

Nick and Craig moving Mason onto the hydraulic cart.
Nick's new Universal Press is behind him.

Nick  and Albert posing on the hydraulic lift!

Lift down and now To move Mason onto the sidewalk...

...with a handy piece of flat steel to use as a ramp. 

The cool edge pry/lift-y thing helping craig get Mason onto the sidewalk.

There's Mason on the sidewalk.
Sorry guys. Mason is not going to walk into the studio on it's own!

While on vacation...

We were doing our annual fall road trip and ended up going to Massachusetts. We stayed in the town of Lee in the Berkshires. Lucky for us it was just half an hour away from John Barrett's weekend letterpress shop/warehouse Letterpress Things! I could have bought so much...

Metal display type.

Nicely sorted quads and spaces for sale by weight.

Furniture racks and furniture sold by weight.

The picture says it all!

Printer drawers, card stock,  and many other maybe useful odds and ends.

Time to tally up.

...and don't forget this...

My daughter waiting patiently. She knows what to expect so she brought a book!!

Beautiful presses that need some tlc and a good home.

My big purchase. A set of new old wood type.

Interesting day.

Image of intestinal tract letterpress tattoo

Today was an interesting day. A curious cyclist stopped by to see what the studio was all about. I talked to him briefly about the Book Arts, letterpress, paper making and hand binding and then, while I worked on setting up a chase for an order, he took his time looking at all the prints, broadsides, cuts, type, etc. After a while he brought a half tone over to me. He thought it looked like intestines and wanted to know if that was what the image really was. From just looking at it I had absolutely no idea! I'm not familiar with what intestines look like. I decided to do a quick proof of the cut. I still couldn't really tell what it was. It kind of looked intestine-y. I passed the proof to him... yup. Intestinal tract with esophagus!! He loved it... then he asked if I could print it on him! Ummmmm... no, he didn't mind that it was going to be printed with rubber based ink as long as it was black.  Okay! So I gave him some alcohol and a tissue to de-grease wherever he wanted the print. At first it was his wrist, then it was changed to his torso... okay... 

I inked the cut in black with a hard brayer and then pressed it by hand into the side of his stomach. Good thing he was really fit otherwise I don't think it would have printed as well as it did! After a bit of clean up around the image with vegetable oil and a cotton bud (he was impressed that I had the rubbing alcohol, veggie oil and cotton buds!) the pseudo tattoo was ready to dry - I hope. He suggested I do a sideline at the studio in temporary tattoos using images from the cuts. Hmmmmm. Some not too attractive images of me pressing inked cuts onto skin in all sorts of places grossed me out and I told him probably not.

He was happy anyway. He bought the actual cut of the intestinal tract, took several of my business cards and, after I told him that I considered him to be a partially porous surface and that the ink would probably dry in about a day, he thanked me, shook my hand, told me his name, jumped on his bike and rode away. 

I'm not sure how far he was riding but it was pretty hot today. I hope he didn't sweat too much and smudge my hard work!

Printing a half tone of the intestinal tract on Dave's stomach.
My husband took the picture!

Surprise show!

Top postcard by me. Bottom postcard by my friends at Pomegranite Press in Oakville.

You may remember that I contributed to a letterpress postcard swap in the spring of 2010 entitled "Greetings from...". Well, i've just found at that the collection of postcards is part of an art show entitled "Fine and Dirty: Contemporary Letterpress Art" at the Minnesota Centre for Book Arts. It will be up until Oct. 16th, 2011. If you are going out that way please check it out! Apparently it will also be travelling to a few other states... but probably not Canada. Too bad.

Artistic Printing

Wow. It's been a while since I last posted. Sorry.
I have a lot of catching up to do!

In March my family took a two week vacation in Florida. Good weather, nice beaches and some downtime. While we were there we met up with Don and Ruth Black for an afternoon and dinner. Don showed us a bunch of new books on letterpress type that he had acquired. For me it was like looking at a book with pictures of all kinds of delicious tempting candy. Beautiful wood type and metal type fonts page after page! I had also brought a book called "The Handy Book of Artistic Printing" to show Don. He had never seen it. It's a paperback whose pages are filled with images of beautiful, densely printed ephemera letterpress done in the late 1800's in a style that was called Artistic Printing. Here is a peek.

The artistically printed style cover.

I'd love to see and try out one of these curving machines for rules!
They created all sorts of images by custom bending rules for clients. Plants, swirls even portraits!!

Look at all the individual pieces used to create this one corner of the image!!!

Project for my heart.

I spent a while working on this project. Days actually. I created the two heart ornaments for a gift exchange for mother's who have last their infants.  One ornament was for a local mom and the other was sent to a mom in Florida, USA. I hope they like their pieces!

I set the type for the names and dates of the two babies. 

At the last moment I set the butterfly dingbat in.

The names and dates were letterpress printed onto some of my handmade paper. 

The hearts are made of cotton pulp. I cast each half of the heart in a mould and then glued the two halves together. I decorated the heart after the glue had dried.