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.
Last Sunday, Mom spotted this crate of assorted wood type under a tree at the Monteagle Flea Market. i tried to keep a poker face while she haggled with the seller. In the end, we paid $80 for the whole crate- the score of a lifetime as far as I'm concerned.
Then we sorted the type on her deck and marveled at our flea market winnings. There are at least 5, mostly complete, chunky fonts in there. I'm already plotting some Christmas printing with wood type...
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.
This morning I finished a Halloween invitation for a friend. The print quality is cruddy, which is okay only because of the goth subject matter. It’s probably the last job I’ll print on the Gocco.
As I feared, my beloved toy screen printer is dying. It took 4 screens and a whole box of bulbs to get a decent master, and these supplies are becoming rare and precious. Too precious. Overpriced, hard-to-find supplies are taking all the fun out of what used to be a cheap and fun way to print.
I’ve been reading rumors for at least a year that Riso, the manufacturer, was discontinuing all Gocco products. I signed a petition at savegocco.com, and it appears that even those crusaders have given up (the website is gone). Searching for supplies today, I had to finally accept defeat. This is the message I kept finding:
This is dumb. Gocco could be a huge success in the US. There should be one in every home. Since 2001, at that fateful dinner party with Susan Orlean, I have faithfully passed on the Gocco gospel to scores of devoted design enthusiasts and scrapbookers. This is the end of an era.
From now on, it’s all about letterpress. My new rollers will be here tomorrow. As Dad said, I’m running out of excuses.
So we took the Skeledog show to Chicago last month for the legendary Renegade Craft Fair. The weekend was a washout- it rained nonstop- but it was still a very successful festival for both sales and exposure. After spending a weekend with the superstars of Craft, I’m mulling the distinctions between fine art and craft, commercial art and what may be the lowest form of commercial art- the pet market.
Since we started making our arty dog t-shirts, I’ve been wrestling with the question of where we belong on that continuum. I’d like to think we’re straddling all those markets by sheer force of our own coolness, but who am I kidding?
I remember having dinner with friends after one of our first festivals. I mentioned that shoppers kept requesting the oddest breed- a Corgi. For some reason, I felt totally resistant to producing that mutant, aristocratic breed, no matter how popular it might be. The discussion became tense when one guy at dinner, an organic farmer by trade, passed on some old farmers’ wisdom: “You don’t sell what grows, you grow what sells.” Then another friend chimed in, giggling, “It’s not like it's a question of artistic integrity. They’re dog t-shirts.” I felt my face go red as I started defending that very thing, the slim artistic integrity of dog t-shirts.
So we're at this upscale festival. Context is everything. Walking the booths makes you numb to the cleverness. You notice the strong repetition of motifs: last year’s owls and cherry blossoms have given way to squids and mustaches. However genuine and painstakingly made, it becomes a blur. I veered from feeling like our dog t-shirts were not cool enough to possibly the most honest and original thing there.
In some ways, we’re whores. We’ll do what people will buy. Sort of like those maniac breeders who developed a Corgi, with its impractically stubby legs.
We sell dog shirts. We appeal to one's “most unyielding love,” as Shawn says- not necessarily the “lowest common denominator.” Is there a way to gauge if art is trendy or timeless? The art market is just trading in intellectual currency. Are we any different than a Crafter who traffics in pirate motifs or whale-shaped pillows?
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!
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