strongsilent

The Pony Xpress

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!

Acrylic on Cinderblock

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.

Favorite Artist Alert

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.

"Yes No Maybe So" runs through June 15 at Gallery See, 1600 Peachtree St., Atlanta. Kenney will give an artist’s talk May 27 at 6 p.m., followed by a reception from 7-8 p.m.

From Nashville to Grant Park

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!

Define "studio"

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.

New & Improved

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 4x6 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!

Spring Wedding

2-color wedding invitation and reply card with custom envelopes, designed and letterpress printed by yours truly.

Minus some tiny details, I'm thrilled with the way these turned out. Every time I print, I learn so much... If I charged even a low rate for all the hours of work it took to make these invitations, they would end up costing $1200. I have to figure out how to charge for these jobs.

Jason stopped by APS to capture some action shots.

Garage adventures

Spent another Saturday morning cleaning out the garage and posted in detail about it here. We're reorganizing, selling, dumping and illegally burning everything that doesn't relate to the printshop. Its brutal. As I photographed each item, I composed a little vignette in my mind about its significance. Had a hard time deciding if this would be a post about the printshop (strong silent type) or about writing (stumptown). Sometimes, its all the same.

Worn out Gocco

My darling Gocco is maybe 7 years old and starting to show some frustrating signs of wear. This little project took twice as long twice and twice the supplies it should have. Something about the flash bulbs not flashing because the conductors aren't conducting and weak exposures on the master.

This weekend I printed 50 invitations to my sister's baby shower using simple white cards, a custom "spring" green, and a pithy poem from my Dad's favorite bard, Ogden Nash. Seems like only yesterday I was cranking out Myra's wedding shower invitations... Oh if this little screenprinter could talk! (it would probably speak Japanese)

The limitations of this medium are just more motivation to work on the garage/studio so I can letterpress the next project. While each print run was drying, I would wander out back and excavate more yard sale material from my future workspace. Warm weekends are so inspiring!

Printshop Resolutions

Here's a not-to-scale sketch of the printshop in my head. This weekend I will excavate the garage a bit and take measurements to see how close to reality this might be. I wrote down a heap of resolutions for 2008... most of which I hope will become lifelong habits for artmaking, time management, credit cards, and yes, eating and exercise. But the biggest and wildest resolution is:

TRANSFORM THE GARAGE INTO A WORKING PRINT STUDIO.

-Inventory Equipment and develop workspace plan (bike racks? Yard equipment?)
-List big items on Craigslist and eBay
-Entirely clean out the garage & go to the dump
-Hire contractor and set a date to spray insulate the ceiling
-Remove all equipment
-Seal/refinish concrete floors
-Replace and install equipment in permanent positions
-Finish wiring and walls
-Hire a professional to complete electrical work
-Research glass roll-form doors

I am blocking off all my Saturdays to make it happen and saving money for the cause. Check here for developments or harass me if I get distracted!