I spent Friday morning calling around print supply and paper shops in Atlanta, trying to track down some special ink for a letterpress project. Nobody had any rubber-based transparent mixing white and nobody knew where to get it. I finally started contacting ink manufacturers directly, who were like, “You want what?” That afternoon I ended up at an ink plant in Stone Mountain.

Once I explained my plight, the friendly production manager at Wikoff Color, who typically sells ink in 400 pound batches, took pity. “I’m in a good mood,” he said, and offered to mix me a 1lb can for free. Score! That would be enough to last the rest of my printing life. Even better, when I showed up to claim my tiny order, he asked if I would like to tour the plant. Would I?

It was like an episode of Sesame Street. There was a row of ink mills, where giant vats of grainy ink poured continuously through steel rollers. They were producing “Budweiser Red” for a carton manufacturer.

All the raw pigments, drying agents and stabilizers were lined up in oozing buckets with garden-variety shovels for mixing and measuring. I was giddy to see the scale of their operation. I normally deal with tiny dabs of color.

So I skipped out of Wikoff Color with my 2lb can of ink feeling like I just got away with something. This kind of generous sharing is not unusual in my brief experience as a hobby printer. My studio is full of such stories–a complete cabinet of wood furniture, fonts of brand new lead type, cuts and caps in copper and wood, a steel pica stick I use every day–all donated by veteran printers who were delighted to pass on their old equipment and know-how. I’ve spent many Saturdays in fumey and dim print shops, talking with old pressmen and marveling at old machines, but this was a peek behind-the-scenes of modern mass production. I’m happy to report that modern high tech printing still relies on wildly primitive materials and thoughtful, ink-splattered, human experts.

Part of what makes the new year so inspiring is all the tools, books and loot I received for Christmas! My family and friends are so supportive. Dairy Queen too– she closely observed my documentation this snowy morning.

Above is an old case of wood type that my sister found at an antiques market. The imprint says “Polytype,” and I’m not sure what that means. These cuts are different from other wood type I’ve collected. I think it’s part of some kind of kit?

Dad and Mama Gayle gave me Volume III of Atlanta and Environs, the bible of Atlanta history. Franklin Garrett’s Volumes I and II seem to be out of print, but I love a challenge. Penny gave me a small digital voice recorder (not pictured) for conducting interviews. I’ll need both for translating Stumptown ramblings into a MFA thesis this year.

Jason gave me the Pantone books and a Kindle saying he wanted to feed both sides of my creativity– digital and print. I seriously racked up.

And mom found 3 fonts of lead type for me, including a few packets of “mixed type.” In the printshop, this is called “pied type,” (like cream-pied, not pied-a-terre). I’ve heard it called purgatory pie, because you can spend eternity sorting it. Anyways, it’s a thing of beauty. I can’t wait to start using all my new toys in 2010!

Funny, the relationship I have with my clothes. And I don’t even consider myself “into” fashion. I love the labels in my thrift store treasures almost as much as the clothes themselves. But the labels are hidden and only I get to see their delicious typography… so I decided to scan and share them on Flickr.

Jason and Emily asked me to design and print their Halloween invitations again this year. It’s always a fun project because they pretty much just give a theme and I’m free to interpret.

Gocco on chipboard, cheap cheap cheap.

I usually just print my own work, but Jenny Smith recruited me to help with a crash letterpress project last October. We stayed up late printing a short edition of 10 drawings by her friend, the extraordinary Kevin Lyons (TEKL), for his upcoming show in LA. I was excited to see our handiwork covered on one of my favorite blogs just a few days later. (photos from Kitsune Noir)

To get us in the mood for our upcoming roadtrip to Oxford, MS, I rented the movie Heart of Dixie and forced Jason to watch it with me. All I knew about the film was it was shot in Oxford and released in 1989. And starred Ally Sheedy and Phoebe Cates. Our travel research has consisted of watching this movie and our copy of Fodor’s “The South” from 1989 that we found on a free book shelf at Wall’s BBQ in Savannah.

(The plantation on the cover was totally used in the movie.)

Heart of Dixie really stunk. It was basically Teen Wolf with a sanctimonious message and phony southern accents. But it reminded me of two pop culture fascinations from my childhood: After School Specials and movies about the ’50s. Why were there so many fifties nostalgia movies in the ’80s? Everything was checkerboard and chrome and hot pink sock hops and greasers. I remember watching reruns of Happy Days and Grease, knowing it was old, but confused about how old.

So I was trying to remember all the ’50s themed movies that came out in the ’80s and here’s what I came up with:
Porky’s (1982)
Back to the Future (1985)
La Bamba (1987)
Dirty Dancing (1987)
Shag (1989)

I wonder what ’90s nostalgia will look like?

Every summer has an anthem– a song you play over and over til you just kill it. Then you’re relieved to retire it when the summer is over.

Anyways, my summer 2009 song is Doot Doot by Freur. I first heard it on a Young Galaxy mixtape that I had on repeat during a series of June roadtrips.

At first, I thought it was some kind of ‘80s inspired space jam, an M83 ripoff. At the end are these jungle yelps and cosmic whooshes like the Tangerine Dream soundtrack to Legend. And yes, the chorus goes “doot doot,” which at first seems silly, but gets darker with each obsessive listen.

My friends said the song is terrible which, of course, only made me love it more. Subsequent googling confirmed that Doot Doot is a classic– a one hit wonder from 1983. A couple weeks ago I heard it in the background of this supremely odd Palm Pre commercial (their other spot features music by M83).

So the mood is contagious. The commercial might shorten the mystery and/or shelf life of the song, but that’s okay. Summer can’t last forever.

Tonya and Andy Watt came over this afternoon and happily did what I’ve been avoiding for almost a year: they cleaned up and tested the giant guillotine in my printshop! I thought it would be impossibly difficult to get that thing in shape and functioning, but the Watts were not intimidated by the 30″ blade. They were chopping reams of paper in no time at all.

Andy went home today with a stack of freshly cut sketchbooks and full cutter privileges for life. It was a great day in the studio. Thanks Tonya and Andy!

Jason, Mama Gayle, artist Rod Hunting and Santa Claus all conspired to bring this triptych of silkscreened watertowers to my living room for Christmas! Once all three prints were framed and hung, Jason and I decided the wall needed to be green. The color: Happy Camper. This seems like a good way to start 2009.

This is me, October 2008. Finally, FINALLY, pulling letterpress prints on my own equipment in my own studio. I actually ran around in circles a bit, cheering and yammering, that is how happy I am. These are some business cards for Kelso. My press is rusty and grimy, but it works. I woke up early this morning, like it was Christmas.

I have been spending time with Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife, a novel that takes the biography of Laura Bush as its inspiration. This controversial premise strikes me as kind of random or exploitative, or both… but so far, I think she makes it work. The experiment has me thinking about the separation between subject and craft. And how we obsess too much about finding our great Subject. In other words, I would read a novel about Nascar if Sittenfeld was writing it.

Here’s some passages from a cheesy interview that I keep thinking about:

… good news for us suburban kids. Funny that she’s now envisioning the humdrum existence of a fairly extraordinary subject.

What tips or advice do you have for writers still looking to be discovered?
Be hard on yourself, and look at what’s actually on the page as opposed to what you wish were there. Also, write sincerely, which doesn’t have to mean autobiographically — just don’t try to be cute or clever. Write about topics that genuinely interest you so the reader can feel your own engagement in the material.

I guess this is a piece of advice that I needed to read. There’s an unhealthy self consciousness or cynicism that holds me back in all kinds of creative pursuits. She’s like, fall in love with the subject, whatever it is. Go there, and don’t look back.

Dark days on the brain… What with the protests at the Fed (Mug’s new place of work), the collapse of our bank, gas shortages in Atlanta, and Sarah Palin on TV tonight. In the last week I devoured Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, finally finished Neuromancer, and watched Escape from New York. Funny how fictional apocalypse is actually a relief from those other anxieties.

But that’s not why I embarked on my spontaneous study of doomsday Lit…

I picked up Neuromancer because a friend told me that it was her favorite book ever. And she’s read a lot of books. It took me forever to get through it because it’s very bad or I was distracted, or both. But even a crap novel can be a fascinating publishing phenomenon and/or slice of pop culture. The book came out in 1983, so Gibson was riffing about cyberspace and augmented realities before most people even had PCs.

I read that he was influenced by John Carpenter’s Escape from New York (1981) so that got bumped to the top of my queue. It was such a hilarious B movie. I had to really stretch to find the supposed political undertones in there. Gibson was all prophetic about technology, while the best they could imagine in Escape from New York was some gigantic mobile phones and kooky light boards. It was no substitute for a Neuromancer film, but still fit nicely into my “Movies from the eighties that I was not allowed to see as a Kid” study.

The Road, on the other hand, is going to be a movie soon, so I can force Mug to share the experience this fall. Poor guy just suffered through All the Pretty Horses with me, which was a weak movie, but a brilliant book, I promise. I read The Road in one day, from Powell’s Books in PDX to somewhere before we landed in Atlanta. I haven’t been so delightfully freaked out since my Steven King days in middle school.

I’m picky about music. I’m always pairing tunes with activities. Lately, I want to hear instrumental stuff in the background whether I’m fixing dinner or working on the computer. I’m surprised at how I’m getting addicted to jazz. Here’s how last weekend’s soundtrack played out:

Friday night crash writing session: Laughing Stock by Talk Talk.
I cannot stop listening to this album. I’m beginning to think it’s some kind of masterpiece. This is more like a New Age version of Cinematic Orchestra than ’80s pop. Very dreamy and dark, not for daylight listening.

Saturday morning laundry: Doo-Wop ‘N’ Rhythm.
Hosted By Eugene “DJGene” Tompkins on WRFG  89.3.
I love this guy. His show, from 6-9am on Saturdays, is a happy start to my weekend. It’s always funny to hear the dirty subtext in old Doo-Wop.

Afternoon Writing Workshop: Best of the Blue Note.
Pilfered from my mom’s CDs. I’m afraid this might be Jazz for Dummies, but it’s getting constant rotation around here. Coltrane and Herbie Hancock and such. Played at a low level, it provided some nice energy for our discussion of p.o.v. and characterization.

Sunday morning shuffle: Bob Dylan.
I am not a Dylan fan, but I’m trying to understand the appeal. So my friend made me a CD sampler. His jangly anthems are actually pretty good for waking up and drinking coffee on a sunny Sunday morning.

Screen printing in the garage: Mingus Ah Um.
Jazzy goodness from 1959. I don’t know much about this album, just that
it’s sweet and swift. Perfect for when you’re working on your feet, doing a repetitive task. I discovered that when I try to sing along, it
drives my dog crazy.

End of weekend dirge: Laughing Stock by Talk Talk.
I actually want to hear this every single night even though it breaks my heart.

Well, not really. But the printshop/studio renovation is officially finished! From the metal roof and skylight installed last summer, to the final hookup of our new 100 amp electrical service, the project took about a year. We had a grand opening party last weekend in conjunction with my birthday. I like being 30 already!

Mug is churning out skeledog tees on the manual screen printing press. I can see him through the window, pulling Great Dane’s as I type this. It feels like Christmas.

As for letterpress, my Chandler & Price still needs some rehab after spending 6 months in the backyard. I guess a little rust is nothing compared to the dank, crusty garage that we just transformed into a cozy workspace. By we, again, I mean the tireless, trusty, perfectionist, mechanically-audacious, screenprinting phenom who married me.

So now there’s a new piece of equipment in our lives… The Pony Xpress. We bought this combo screenprinter/conveyor dryer from a printshop in Wilmington, NC. Long story. It’s an entry level machine, but more than enough to produce our simple, one color t-shirt designs. We spent a couple nights learning to calibrate the Pony, and now we’re off!

Shawn snapped this picture of me blocking out the registration marks on the Poodle screen, but Jason has been pulling almost all the prints. It’s a neat combination of what I know about gocco and letterpress, but working with plastisol ink is a whole new ballgame. I love how our repertoire of mediums is growing!

We made murals! Over the last couple weekends, Jason and I led a bunch of volunteers in painting 7 murals on the cinderblock walls of the new kid’s rooms at Veritas. This was one of those art projects that we weren’t sure how to approach. I immediately started thinking, I cannot draw bible scenes. I’m generally not inspired to make Jesus cartoons, much less, large scale Jesus cartoons. Well, we made it happen. Or God made it happen. The whole thing really makes me smile.

Here’s how we did it:
1. Found some interesting illustrations
I started at Big Lots and Family Dollar. It’s true that you can find some cheap Bible coloring books there. The stores were depressing and the drawings lame, so I headed to Berean on Cleveland Ave. This is a tasteful little neighborhood oasis in the middle of some serious ghetto sprawl. I walked in to a scene of soft lighting, jazzy music, classy merchandising on dark wood shelves. This is culture shock in my neighborhood. I ended up cross-legged in the Children’s section for half an hour, leafing through illustrated bibles and story books. Among a ton of cheesy and old fashioned illustrations, this one illustrator totally stood out. I was freaked out to see lots of dinosaurs featured in the Garden of Eden scenes. When did that happen?

2. Bought an overhead projector
$35 at American Salvage in Forest Park. We’re so excited to have the overhead projector and are now dreaming of lots of large scale works. Next up is a paint-by-numbers woodland scene on the living room wall.

3. Created transparencies
I scanned a dozen of our favorite illustrations, converted them to basic line art and printed them on transparencies with our inkjet.

4. Transferred to le mur
The projector is powerful! Messing around with the focus and positioning brought back memories of high school math class. (I hear they use PowerPoint these days.) Anyways, once we got the drawings projected on the wall just right, we started outlining with pencil. After a while, I got impatient with sharpening pencils and skipped directly to black paint. The result: 7 giant coloring book pages for the kids to fill in with acrylic paint and foam brushes.

Brittany says icon painters used to fast and pray for weeks before attempting to create the likeness of God. We whipped up these drawings in about 6 hours, total. But it was 6 happy hours of experimentation and worship.

I am, however, gonna drop everything to attend this artist’s talk at SCAD-Atlanta next week. We first saw Marcus Kenney’s work at the Jepson Center for the Arts in Savannah last summer and it was luv at first sight. Jason said it almost felt unfair, seeing someone’s work nail the ideas and objects and compositions that have plagued and inspired us for so long. I love the scale of his collages- huge, surreal scenes built out of an obsessive collection of salvaged ephemera. I’m excited to see more of his 3D work and hear him go off on scary political issues and the artist’s role in getting out of bed each morning.

I’ll be out of town this weekend and I’m sad to miss this amazing lecture by Jim Sherraden, the guy from Hatch Show Print. So maybe one of you can go and get the “

original, event-specific Hatch print with admission”? Tell all your Americana/music/graphic design/letterpress-loving friends to head to Zoo Atlanta on Friday night!

Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been combing through this series on artist’s studio spaces. It has been so encouraging during our costly renovation process.
These profiles range from a tiny desk in your parents’ house to
a giant loft for manufacturing. Each one gives me ideas and
inspiration, but also validation. Like, this is gonna be so worth it. You have to jealously guard your time, energy and space to be creative. Shannon Lowry, a letterpress printer in Austin, said of her printshop out back:

“the day it was finished was the day my business truly started”

So I’m also kind of kicking myself that I haven’t been taking this more
seriously and sooner. If only I had gone to art school, like a real
artist, I would be more disciplined, right?

Then again, my mom has always had a pottery wheel on the back porch or in the
basement. That’s her blurry photo, above. Even in little apartments and rental houses, she made room to
create.

And Grandaddy had a small wood shop out back where I would sweep
little mounds of sawdust into landscapes for matchbox cars. Family lore says that Granny squirreled away her spending money for years and surprised him with a lump sum to fund the building of his wood shop. He’s over 80 now and retired and still wakes up each day excited about the woodworking project du jour.

And Mama
Gayle finally has a bedroom devoted to sewing and quilting. I remember
when she had just a corner in the dining room for her sewing machine. She took up the living room floor when it came time to cut patterns.

So I’ve had lots of creative role models, making time to make stuff by hand. My point is, even that card table in the corner of the dining room was
a studio! And if you’re like me, you have to call it that in order to
take yourself seriously.

Mug has been working hard in the garage for a month now and it honestly feels wrong to call it a garage at this point. I am so excited about the day when I can stroll out back and test a new design on the press. I know that will be an important day!

Here’s a few of the steps in the transformation:

First, Jason moved everything out of the garage into the backyard. That meant wheeling 2 cast iron presses and a 500lb cutter over a custom steel ramp fabricated by Dad. (thanks Dad!)

Seeing the empty space without all the garage clutter was pretty exciting in itself. Its almost as big as our house!

Next, he poured the epoxy floor. Which is not as easy as it sounds. I thought the fumes were gonna knock him out. This took a whole week of waiting for sunny weather and allowing the layers to dry. The new floor looks clean and even. (And Jason’s favorite old work boots now have a watertight sole.)

Once the floor had completely cured, Jason finished running the wires and outlets. This part makes me a little nervous. We’ll hire a certified electrician to inspect everything and hook it up to power.

After sealing and packing the old beams with insulation, we put up masonite panels. By “we,” I mean Jason. He is doing all the work! The studs are all wacky and uneven, which apparently makes the job twice as complicated for a perfectionist like him. And then he painted the western wall a “fiery” tangerine. For no real reason.

Dad came over with an acetylene torch last Saturday to cut the old steel base off my press. It was fun to watch my menfolk working together on the press (in the rain). Now my C&P rests on a footing of 4×6 beams that Jason salvaged from his childhood home in FP.

At some point in there, we decided the silver corrugated walls were too pretty to give up. So, thanks to Mug’s sheet metal skills and Van’s generous hookups, the north and south walls will be made of steel panels. Jason extended the panels all the way up to the roof line where it meets the exposed rafter and spray insulated ceiling. I love how it reflects the light!

You can see from this video, that we’re having fun with the process. Well, I’m having fun while Jason’s slaving away. So many people are bringing their generous skills and contributions to create a studio for me. I am overjoyed and blessed!