I found out this week what the beginnings of a pineapple look like:

As I’ve been muddling forward trying to learn what the beginnings of a new book might look like. It’s all vague at this point; I’m trying to figure out what I want it to look like, and what kinds of things are going to be there.

I’m not sure what to say about it all. It’s fun, messing around a bit with bits of paint and wood.

NJ was frigid tonight, and I am happy to be back home with a warming cat. I’ve gotten to the good part in this book, (James Cook and Joseph Banks just got to Tahiti) and am looking forward to getting a copy of this one. Here’s to progress, and future endeavors.

If you are in Portland, you may want to stop by 23 Sandy Gallery during the month of February, where they are currently hosting Ink+Metal+Paper, a new exhibition organized by the CC Stern Type Foundry:

 Ink + Metal + Paper features recent letterpress work from a select international roster of renowned printers and includes books and broadsides showcasing the use of metal type, ornaments, and border elements in relief printing.

There’s lots of amazing letterpress work in the show, and I’m proud to have a pamphlet in there. And if you’re in LA this weekend for the LA Art Book Fair, check out the Floating Library, which is making a West Coast appearance in conjunction with the fair. There’s some pamphlets involved, I heard. You can learn more about Sarah Peters’s aquatic reading escapades here. 

So I’m about three weeks into a residency at Guttenberg Arts in New Jersey. It’s been fabulous so far. I’m hoping to flesh out a mockup for a new book to be produced this year, about greenhouses and botanical gardens.

Why did Europeans sail around the globe picking up plants to bring back home? Bring artists on their boats with them to paint samples of plants? Build enormous iron and glass structures so one could grow a palm tree from a pacific island in the middle of England? Develop interconnected analog networks of naturalists and botanists, trading plants among themselves? All of this seems odd to me, but tied into the history of the field of natural history, and colonialism, and the spread of invasive species.

So I’ve been drawing some flowers:

And some windows:

It’s been great fun. I hope to have a plan for the edition at the end of the residency, and some blocks ready to go, paper and structure sorted out. Seems reasonable so far.

As of this week, I’m starting a new residency at Guttenberg Arts in NJ. Three artists enjoy the luxury of 24 hour access to their facilities at a time for three months; I’m planning on starting work on a new book, and am wildly excited. (Details to follow.)

To kick it off there will be an exhibition of my work opening on Friday, January 8:

Reading Time is a reading room installed in the gallery at Guttenberg Arts that invites visitors to engage with monologues, brochures, ephemera, manifestos, scientific matter, propaganda, and alternate histories in the form of printed language. Included are a range of publications and a selection of prints which collectively revolve around the authority of the printed word. Publishing creates community, though that community may only be temporary and hard to hold together. In a culture where visual noise is inescapable, printed matter creates an opportunity to pause, ruminate, speculate, and share.

Totally accessible via a short bus ride from Midtown, Guttenberg Arts is a 4500 square foot gem, with both printmaking and ceramics facilities as well as a gallery. (It also serves as home base for the great artist-driven magazine Carrier Pigeon) Come say hello! from 7 to 9pm. I would love to see you there.

It took a while, but the December pamphlet is ready to go out, and will soon be arriving in a mailbox near you.

Where does money come from? Why don’t I have any of it? Is there something I can use instead of money? Should we just burn the banking system to the ground and start over?

All these questions and more answered in a convenient paper-based portable format.

Edition of 200, printed letterpress from wood and metal type and linoleum blocks. This is the last pamphlet of 2015; if you were a subscriber this year and would like to continue next year, subscriptions are available here. 

Subscriptions support the production costs of the series; each subscriber is guaranteed to receive all pamphlets produced in three mailings a year, plus a thank you, AND have the option to nominate someone in addition to themselves to also receive pamphlets for a year. The balance of each edition is mostly sent out to a variety of folks as a surprise, some people I know, some people I don’t know. The list changes. If you have received a pamphlet and have questions, they might be answered here: http://www.brainwashingfromphonetowers.com

Thank you for all of your support, I am so happy to be able to make these things. 

Things to look forward to:

• A new class to teach next year.
• A visit to Detroit
• A winter residency and exhibition!!!
• Another whole year of pamphlets
• Starting a new book next year. Yes, another one.

I brought my letterpress class to the Center for Book Arts yesterday, and showed them books from the collection made by the students at Scripps College Press. They were suitably amazed. I was especially taken by this book from 2001, Deep Rooted, I love how simple it is:

In other news, I went to Philadelphia last weekend. I somehow missed out on the book fair, but did get to see this:

A video posted by Sarah Nicholls (@phosphorescentfacehighlighter) on Nov 20, 2015 at 6:34am PST

Which pretty much made the whole trip worthwhile.

Apologies for the shameful lack of blogging as of late. I’m finishing up various things, and starting various other things, and rushing around and such, as one does in fall. Having spent a sweltering summer without air conditioning I am really appreciating fall this year. Leaves! Sweaters! Squash-based dessert items!

SO, to sum up: this happened:

Which is the summer Brain Washing From Phone Towers publication Milky Seas. All about the wonders of bioluminescent bacteria. 100 copies in silkscreen and letterpress went out recently, if you received a copy I hope you enjoyed it. They glow in the dark!

I learned to silkscreen this summer, which is still exciting and new. I’ve been doing so at the friendly and convenient Shoestring Press on Classon Ave in Crown Heights. They are lovely people. I have been messing around with various patterns and colors, trying to get a handle on what to do next :

I am, miraculously, almost completely done with binding bird books. The deluxe editions of the Field Guide to Extinct Birds are now available:

which include a set of hand colored additional bird prints for your enjoyment and informative benefit.

And finally, I am looking forward to starting the fall pamphlet this year. I can’t tell you what it’s about, but I can tell you that it involves FIRE.

And that’s my whirlwind report from the last two months. I’ll make more of an effort to keep up in the future.

Just in time for Labor Day, I’m in the last throes of a new summer pamphlet: Milky Seas, an investigation of the unseen and the luminescent.

I’ll be setting the type and printing some of last images this week, and these should be in the mail to subscribers by the end of the month. Tip for subscribers: read this one under strong light, then turn off the lights and read again.

I HAVE FINISHED PRINTING MY NEW BOOK. Folks, I can’t believe it.

I have set and distributed and set and distributed more times than I can count, but here’s the last run:

Which means only one thing: time to start binding. Here’s some signatures pressing, in the improvised studio otherwise known as a shelf in my extra room:

I’m sure it will work just fine. Once everything is folded and collated, it will be time for some spine lining. I plan on using a cast iron pan as a weight. Wish me luck!

New Year’s is barreling down on us this week. 2014 has been a big year of ups and downs and changes and frankly I’m ready to say goodbye to it. But 2015 seems to have some tricks up its sleeve as well, the big one being, well, what now?

The Field Guide is coming along well and most of the printing is going to be done by the end of this week. I’ll have a few weeks of work on that in the new year, and then on to the adventure known as edition binding.  After that, I’d really like to finish a new pamphlet. I’ve got most of it planned out already, it’s unfortunately been on the back burner for most of the past year due to various, hmm, events.

Here’s the tricky part: free studio access for me ends at the end of the week. I negotiated studio time when I left my job, but that ends in the new year, and the studio itself is going through a big reorganization and will be closed for most of January. On top of that, the rental fees are, from what I’ve heard, most likely going to go up by a whopping third, putting monthly rental on a regular basis out of my underemployed budgetary means. So what then?

Well, after some wrestling with it I’ve decided to try a subscription series for the pamphlets. I’d really like to continue doing them, but it doesn’t seem feasible to do them in the same way that I have been. Here’s what I’m thinking:

A year’s subscription to the series would guarantee 3 mailings a year, including at least 2 pamphlets (I’d like to do three, but I don’t want to overcommit). As well as special additional ephemera produced throughout the year.

IN ADDITION, all subscribers will be asked to nominate a friend to be added to the year’s pamphlet mailing list, as a surprise gift. Subscribers will be contacted individually for their nominations. I’ll need their mailing address.

I’ve always resisted doing the pamphlets as a subscription, because I liked two things best about them: the surprise and the gift. But realistically, in order to continue making them, I think I need some kind of income to support them. My intention is that with the “add a friend” part I can keep the surprise gift aspect going as well. It’s an experiment, we’ll see how things shake out.

So, right here’s the link where you can get yourself a subscription. If the spirit moves you, please do! I hope you all are ready for an exciting new year.

No time to blog, have to get back to printing. In a mad dash to finish most of the birds by the end of the year. I’ve started printing the text, I’m going with Consort Light in 10 point.

This is how the book looks so far:

and here:

I’m thinking about giving alternate views for particularly great ones:

And still trying to figure out how to deal with the major stars. Here’s the foot of the dodo, in the meantime:

In other news, if you’re in the market for a holiday card, here’s one for you:

He’s available in my shop, here. There are some individual prints from the book there as well, I’ll be adding more as I go. Back to printing!

Been drawing ornithologists this week, to complement all the birds:

Alexander Wilson

John James Audubon

Florence Merriam

Captain James Cook. Not an ornithologist, but brought naturalists along on his trips round the world.

Also looking forward to Print Week: 2014. The Editions/ Artist’s Book fair is back this year, and Central Booking is holding a new book fair this year: Buy the Book, November 7-9. Here’s a short list of things going on, there is a more complete list of everything on the IFPDA’s main website, (link below). Many of these events are free to the public. 

I printed this guy this week:

He came out well, I think. A little folk arty. I caught up on my photo archiving and posted a bunch of pictures from various sign hunting expeditions:

Someday I may do something with these; at the moment photographing signs is just a way to relax.

I’m printing faster and faster in an effort to get it all done. This guy happened all in one day:

I also posted some new prints in the etsy shop this week; they’re a little something on the side I’m thinking about:

You can see them and get a copy here.  My five point solvency campaign is underway. More work is ahead.