disconnected

Until the cable company comes + removes the connection from the house I still have internet, but as of Saturday morning I am officially without a cable/ internet provider + I feels remarkably freeing. 

Plus there is the elimination of all those cords + wires + little boxes with their little lights that have to stay on all day + night.

As my dear friend Susi would say, OM.

I'm very intrigued by the work of Andrea Dezso

.

Well, hello there. 

My, it's been a long time. 

How you doing? 

Hope you're doing fine.

I've been visiting around the web, but not spending much time here. 

Actually, I've been out + about having a grand 'Ol time, doing non-online stuff.

Livin' life.

Which brings me to the ultimate decision that I have been mulling over for a very long time...

I am actually going to cut the cord with my internet provider!

No TV + no internet at home. I sit in front of a computer all-frickin'-day-long at work + by the time I get home I am done with screens. I very rarely have the TV on + I've actually been getting into bed some weeknights around 6:00 with a book. A goal this year has been to get out more on weeknights, which I have been doing. I've been seeing live music (Yo La Tengo), went to a lecture at a temple in Nashville + bought a museum membership. And then there is yoga.

The other thing is my internet provider really angered me + on the nights I don't have plans, I'm calling customer service to check on their latest reason why they cannot fix this issue with my bill.
Hey! don't mess with a person's moola!

February 16th is my target disconnection date! 

Until then, I'm downloading podcasts (Radiolab!) + working through a borrowed Netflix instant watch queue (Between the Folds! Once Upon a Time in Anatola! Louie s2!).

After the 16th I'll be seeing you between the hours of 8 + 5, M-F.

contrasts

This lazy, hazy, daisy Saturday I watched these 

contrasting documentaries on Netflix instant watch.

One was far better than the other.

The weekend was finished off with
The Loneliest Planet. Beautiful.

oh! wes!

I recently re-watched Bottle Rocket with someone who had never seen it (what?!?!) + from that viewing decided to make my contribution to the world of Wes Anderson fan art in the form of a postcard with my all time favorite line from ANY + ALL of his movies. 

This postcard also combines my love of maps AND my love of  souvenir postcards. It's a triple whammy of things I love.

Sold in packs of 3, this postcard is now available in my etsy shop. 

I wish you all a wonderful + stress-free holiday season.

vintage printing blocks now in the shop

I got the bug again and cleaned out the printing block drawer in my studio. Collected over 10 years, some were hand picked + others were among jumble boxes of type. Below is a selection of some of the items in my shop (click item description to link to the item page in my Etsy shop).

  Borders
 

Birds

 Wedding cakes Sold

 Cars (including VW Bug)  Sold

 Chinese restaurant  Sold

 Christmas
 

 Crosses and Bibles

Flora and fauna  Sold

Miscellaneous
 

Motels and camping

Palm trees and surfers Sold

Stars Sold

a great loss

This weekend I made my annual trek to Johnson City, TN to teach a printing workshop at the annual Arts in Education conference. This year my lesson was a great success + I had a great time, getting to briefly chat with the bluegrass singer Kathy Mattea, who is such a beautiful person + she gave a great keynote speech on how arts in her rural West VA school saved her (yes, I shed a few tears!). 

Anyway, getting back to the title of this post, from a couple of the art teachers (+ fellow printing geeks) I found out that Yee Haw Industries letterpress shop closed this past spring. 

About 10 years ago I visited a friend in Knoxville who took me to Yee Haw for the first time. When I walked in I dropped some letterpress lingo + was pegged as a fellow printer. We ended up spending 5 hours listening to Kevin Bradley (photo above) spin wild tales about scouring old barns for printing equipment, U-Haul mishaps + endless hours of listening to (but not watching) The Rockford Files while carving lino blocks. 

Prior to my visit to Yee Haw I treated letterpress as a fine art, something that was delicate + precious. Those 5 hours truly changed my work. Letterpress was no longer delicate + precious, it was without rules, it was fun! I immediately tossed all my old work + started carving all my own blocks. I fell in love with printing all over again + have told the story of those 5 hours over + over again, as if I had just returned from that trip.

I still have the surgical tweezers Kevin gave me, which he thought would help keep those pesky pieces of type in line + the postcards I intended on paying for, but he insisted I take as a gift from one printer to another.

Kevin + Julie will likely never see this post, but as the co-founders of Yee Haw Industries, I thank them both for their inspiration + for changing my life.

down the rabbit hole

Last night I was finally able to get onto Pinterest without Facebook or Twitter + I created a board. I spent last weekend with a group of friends who talked about the inspiration + ideas they get from the site, I looked through my friend Claudia's pins + I really wanted to join.

Follow me here

sale stuff

 Lately I'm feeling a strong internal push to move on with so much of my work + have reduced the price of a few more items on sale in le Etsy shoppe.

Additionally, all of these items will be included in the show sale at the Off The Beaten Path tour stop #7 next weekend. Oh yeah, did I mention I'm doing another studio tour next weekend?

You're Fabulous 6 notecard set

 

 Lucky Devil 6 notecard set

Thank You 6 notecard set

2012 middle half marathon

Saturday I ran the Middle Half Marathon in my town + beat my time goal by 11 minutes, finishing in (what I consider to be a respectable) 2 hours + 19 minutes. We were sent on our way with The Boss singing Born to Run (cliche, I know, but you know I love Bruuuuuuce!) + my running partner + I decided to push on through a bit of pain + discomfort at mile 11 + ran the entire race.

I don't know if I'll ever run another one,
but I sure am glad that I did it at least once!

show report

I cannot even begin to tell you how much fun I had at the Handmade & Bound show this Saturday. Not only was it one of my best shows, there were so many amazing people there! And the customers were THE BEST! Since it was a show centered around handmade books + printed matter, the people who came out were already knowledgeable about this world so there was no need to explain or justify, we were among our people + we spoke the same language.

And as a further outcome of the show, my postcards will soon be available at Parnassus, an independent bookstore in Nashville co-owned by one of my favorite authors.

hello, it's been awhile

I know, I say I'm changing things around here, then I stop posting + stop commenting + pretty much disappear, but life has been very good. Lots of hiking, I went fly fishing for the first time in nearly 20 years, contra dancing for the first time ever, training for the 1/2 marathon, a trip back home to LA, planning a backpacking trip, taught a workshop + then there is the prep for the Handmade & Bound show in 3 weeks.

It only took 7 years for me to calm down about show prep. Every year I stress over stock, but I've never had the problem of running out of anything. This is meant to be fun.

I'm bringing back a couple old cards (Te Amo + You Light My Fire) 

but mostly packaging up older stock for a show sale.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm enjoying listening to field recordings of shifting ice 

(scroll to bottom of linked post for audio samples)

 It reminds me of the opening audio sequence from the 

Werner Herzog doc Encounters at the End of the World

my good fortune

It was confirmed this morning that I will be sharing a booth with a friend at the Handmade & Bound show in Nashville in October. Her original booth mate cannot make it, which becomes is my good fortune. 

I will need to replenish/ reprint some work (read: print more gnome cards), but for the most part I will have a lot of sale prints.

more items looking for a new home

Oh, I remember the early days of what would become the nearly 4 year process of clearing out stuff, when I was making piles + filling large shopping bags. Now it's become a matter of piecemealing out items that would be better loved by someone else. 

Items available in le Etsy Shoppe (individual items linked below)

 Porcelain glove mold (sold. thank you.)

 Lotta's Lifestyle Japanese craft book (sold. thank you.)

Viewmaster & Pee-wee's Playhouse reels

original intent

In June of 2006 I started this blog with the idea of featuring my print work, design inspirations, and the crafts shows/ events I am involved in. My personal life crept in pretty quickly with posts about hikes, vacations, my obsession with French lidded jars and chairs, striving to rid my life of all superfluous things, and documentation of the three times a year I haul the trash bin to the curb. 

Six years later I have decided to go back to the original intent. 

Until the new postcard is dry enough to put in the shop,
enjoy Moby's LA Architecture blog.

on appreciating cheap printing ink

The town I live in has art supply options limited to Hobby Lobby + Michael's, which are lacking in their printing supplies + for my needs, most notably ink. I generally use water-based inks that are dense in pigments, but in a desperate need for white ink N-O-W, I purchased a tube of cheap block printing ink. As it turned out, the cheapness was a saving grace in this heat because it has a more liquid than paste consistency + did not dry out after 3 pulls. No retardant required this go around.

I'm playing around with the text lay-out that will be the 3rd color of my new postcard. Slowly it's coming together.

printing with water-based ink in extreme desert-like heat

What to do in 100+ degree weather? Wrestle with water-based inks that dry after a few pulls. Fortunately I found a tube of ink retardant I bought while printing one winter when the heater was drying out the ink too quickly.

Crazy dry weather in normally humid Middle Tennessee, which gives me an opportunity to teach those who have never experienced desert heat the important phrase "but it's a dry heat," because it truly makes ALL the difference.

all smiles

All is right in my world again.

My thrift store clog karma returned last Sunday in the form of these bubblegum pink wooden clogs (yes, Beth, they're Swedish).

My brother + I have been getting a good laugh over The (online) Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies. Dad is a graphic designer + the family garage could easily be opened as a physical museum.

carving faces

While mulling through the flat files with all my linocuts, I came across some unfinished blocks. A couple went to the trash. Dreck! 

The above is a block I started a couple years ago, based on the Spanish movie The Spirit of the Beehive. This is one of those beautiful minimalist meditative movies that it so visually rich that there is little need for dialog. Part of the story is about a fantasma + I love-love-love Spanish movies with fantasmas. 

Anyway, in reference to the title of this post, the thing that makes me nervous about this block is that I made the mistake of carving everything but the face. The young actress who stars in the move has this wonderfully angelic face + whereas a misstep in carving the jacket can be worked out as a "design element," a mess up on the face and it's goodnight for the block.

Phew... deep breath.

well that sux

I finally gave into friends' incessant references to Pinterest + had one friend send me an invite. Well, as it turns out you need either a Facebook or a Twitter account to sign-up, both of which I have no intention of joining. Must. Continue. To. Resist.

In the mean time, I still got sucked into the black hole that is Pinterest + came across this great poster. I do love Saul Bass. Apparently Quentin Tarrantino does too, with his Django Unchained homage movie poster.

out of my head + onto paper

If it stays in my head, it won't get produced
If it goes in my sketch book, I can close it + put it on the shelf
If it gets taped to the wall, I cannot ignore it
If the string + map pins come out + it starts to resemble a scene from  
A Beautiful Mind, then I need to get checked out pronto

Actually, I call this scatter shot- notes on legends, quotes from movies, lines from songs, there is even a joke up there. Some may stick + others won't. Two are already off the wall + in the carving stage.

Menno Aden's Room Portraits are quite amazing. It might take you a moment to figure out what you are looking at. I would love to see how he sets up the shot.

It took Michael Heizer nearly four decades to find the 340 ton bolder for his piece Levitated Mass, opening at LACMA June 24.

work

 

  Yesterday I was all set to start carving a lino block for a new postcard, but something was nagging at me. I decided to scrap the idea because it seemed a bit stale. Original text is still not flowing + I'm reverting back to pop culture references, a 'la this postcard cribbed from a line in Six Feet Under.

Three new designs are nearly ready to carve, it's just a matter of tweaking some scaling before taking carving tool to block. My process is super low tech, which can sometimes be slow, but I like it that way.

for the record...

The Jerk holds up really well. It's been about 25 years since I've seen it + I was laughing so hard that I almost fell off the couch.  
Mrs. Nussbaum- hahahahaha

 One more post involving Steve Martin + this might become a fan site.

my old friend

While rummaging through the box of scraps I use for press packing I came across a perfect print of my old friend Sparkle Monkey. He was my second most popular card (the gnome has always been my best seller) for many years until Monk decided he was a chew toy. 

As I recall, he was named by a friend's daughter when she was a toddler + in return I gave her a one-of-a-kind Sparkle Monkey T-shirt I stenciled with freezer paper when that DIY project was all the rage in blogland.

gift printing

After all these years of having a press I had an ah ha! moment (followed by a Homer Simpson Doh!) in realizing that I could have been making personalized note cards as gifts for friend's wedding + baby showers. When a friend recently got married I learned how many packs of thank you cards one needs for all the events involved. Fast forward to last night's baby shower for another friend, I printed 50 cards with the name they assure me is the one they are going with. 

This was my first time using this particular border + it's mounted on a thin piece of wood which has warped from age. There is a bit of wonkyness to the printing, which is part of the process. This type of printing really helps me work through some control issues. Wabi sabi.

havin' a laugh

Sometimes I just want to read some mind candy + have a good laugh, so over the past several months I've read a few recently published autobiographies by some really funny people.

• Tina Fey Bossypants
• Steve Martin Born Standing Up
• Mindy Kaling Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
• Sarah Silverman Bedwetter
• Rob Lowe Stories I Only Tell My Friends (honorable mention because he's funny on Parks & Rec)

So all this leads me to my new postcard, which ties into the above list because it's a Steve Martin quote. Have you gotten the picture thus far that I loooove Steve Martin? Well I do.

I was going through a list of his quotes + this one jumped out at me. I immediately knew how I wanted to execute the design, but not feeling terribly motivated to be in the studio, it took a couple months to actually print the postcard.

A set of 3 are available in Le Etsy Shoppe.

And I'm progressing quite nicely on some more new designs, so the next one won't take a couple more months to produce.

carving

It's raining so I'm inside carving a new piece for a postcard. I set the type awhile back, but am just now getting around to the block.

Listening to The Pogues at high volume. Fairytale of New York is definitely a top 5 favorite song + not just as a Christmas tune, but all year round.

mmmmmneutra

I am still loving the movie Beginners, but had to back-off watching for fear I will wear out my love. In the mean time, I came across this article on the Richard Neutra house (the Lovell Health House) and the sort-of rag tag gathering of all the eye candy furnishings. It sounds like it would have been a lot of fun to work on this movie.

playing, which will turn into something soon

I've been doodling + sketching + watching/ listening to TED talks + being inspired by the arrival of a package of letterpress goodness I ordered from Amos Kennedy. Anyway... because I don't give a rat's butt about the Superbowl + Laura Linney won't be on my TV for another hour to announce the start of Downton Abbey, I've been playing around with type for a new postcard design.

Yes, Sue, I'm in the studio! Thank you for asking on Saturday.

lecture notes circa 1996

This morning I amused myself by going through some spiral notebooks of lecture notes. The above is from one of my favorite college courses, English History. The professor would tell stories, not drill names + dates. It was one of the first times history was really interesting to me. He had a fan club that would sit in the front row, lavishing complements, giggling at anything remotely humorous + I'll even bet that at least one of those ladies wrote "I love you" across their eyelids a la Indiana Jones.

My notes from this class are scattered with sketches of weapons + farm tools, but mostly weapons.

envelopes

Last month I found a box of cream A1 size envelopes at a thrift store for $1.20. For the time being, all cards will be a wee bit smaller.