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.

Spring is here my friends. I had a fantastic time at my first Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair. Books were ogled, read, flipped through, manhandled. People liked my field guide. I talked about myself without too much difficulty.  It was a good day. The Field Guide to Extinct Birds, standard edition, is officially available, by the way. Five whole copies are bound, with more on the way. Contact me if you are interested in having a copy.

I spoke about the WONDER and the JOY of Letterpress at the Strand last Thursday. Thank you to Jessica C. White and Kseniya Thomas, the founders and leading light of the Ladies of Letterpress for inviting me to join them, along with the lovely Gina Houseman of Papersheep Design on a panel in honor of the publication of their new book:

WHICH IS AMAZING and you should all get a copy now. Really.

But the best thing about spring is undoubtedly New Spring Informational Pamphlets:

The Spring 2015 Brain Washing From Phone Towers Informational Pamphlet is done, and copies are going out in the mail to subscribers, strangers, and friends right now as we speak. You should be receiving your copy shortly, if you haven’t already. The Spring edition concerns the history of cryptography, and asks the following questions: How do we solve the problem of communication at a distance? What is the best way to communicate secrets? Has the government always been reading our messages? What kinds of things do we substitute in place of language in order to keep things private? And other related issues, in easily portable paper form. I promise no one will eavesdrop on you while you read it.

I’ll be at the Brooklyn Zine Fest this Saturday, April 25th at the Brooklyn Historical Society in Brooklyn Heights, with pamphlets in hand and subscription forms at the ready, as well as a few other small-scale productions. Come say hello!

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.

Come to the opening of the Winter shows at the Center for Book Arts tomorrow night, January 17th at 6pm.

Published by SP Weather Station (Natalie Campbell and Heidi Neilson).

Featuring six years of monthly editions by 85 artists. SP Weather Station is an interdisciplinary project that collects weather data and produces weather-related events, publications, and exhibitions. Each year, SPWS publishes a collated portfolio of weather reports. One artist (or artist group) per month is invited to ‘report’ on the weather data taken by SPWS instruments on the roof of Flux Factory in Long Island City, NY. This open-ended assignment may be interpreted strictly or loosely; artists have created prints, booklets, drawings, audio files, photos and video. On view at the Center for Book Arts are six years of SP Weather Reports (2008-2013):72 reports by 85 artists.

My contribution concerns the 19th century mania for looking for water vapor using prisms in a tube as a way of predicting rain. Totally works. Read the pamphlet. 

AND it’s only one of 72 amazing projects, AND there’s also two other shows to see AND we always throw the best openings ever, with lots of free liquor and reception cheese, AND you don’t have something better to do in January. Right?

Also, hand decorated weather cookies. That is all, have a good night.

That time of year when we shuffle around the house in dirty sweat socks, navigating sudden dips in mood and blood sugar as we absentmindedly munch on leftover holiday cookies. I’m so ridiculously happy not to be working on three things at once. Do I really have to blog? Can’t I just sit here? Did I mention I had a busy fall? Did I mention no days off for months, while marathon training? Two holiday parties on one day? I don’t even like parties?

Here’s some pretty photos from the open studios on Governor’s Island, lovely people came (thank you!) and said interesting things (yes!). I got to freely distribute informational pamphlets to a willing and receptive audience, from my lovely information rack and information desk. Leftover pamphlets are soon to be dropped in the mail, don’t worry. I made my fantasy business card (Sarah Nicholls, pamphleteer) and pressed it into sweaty palms.

God, I made a lot of work there. Damn, that means a lot of internet updating. Crap, that seems like work. I’m gonna go to bed now, all this interneting makes me tired. Go watch this video here, it’s all you need to know about my fall. I’ve got some things to take care of, I’ll tell you about them soon.

It’s here! The final week of the Governors Island Swing Space residency. Come to the Open Studios this Friday, 2-6pm! Info and RSVP here.

I’ve got new pamphlets to hand out:

I’ve got some early submarines to see:

I’ve got a diagram of the history of the pamphlet:

There will also be amazing work from my fellow artists in residence:

Work by: Jonathan Allen, Nobutaka Aozaki, Lena Bergendahl, Rachel de Joode, Lisa Fairstein, GOOD WORK Productions (Tijana Miskovic and Nina Wengel), Dominic Mangila, Eileen Maxson, New Draft Collective (Michi Jigarjian and Libby Pratt), Sarah Nicholls, Really Large Numbers (Chad Stayrook and Julia Oldham), Raúl Díaz Reyes, Romy Scheroder, Jennifer Schmidt, Max Stolkin, Ginta Tinte Vasermane, Carlos Vela-Prado and Claudia Cortinez, Elizabeth White, Jade Yumang, Jiajia Zhang.

You should come. It’s on an island!

It’s finals week in pamphlet land. Runs 3 4 and 5 went off mainly hitch free: 

The text is written, I have more type than I used to this time around, and slightly fewer words. Hopefully I will do something other than feverishly set print and distribute type this weekend. It looks nice. I think I’m happy so far. But no title!

In Island news, this is happening:

And I’m still deciding on pie for this week’s Famous Pie Holiday. Got any suggestions?

Ok, this will be quick.

1. I did not win the marathon.

But I did FINISH it without dying, or giving up, or injuring myself. Which isn’t bad.

2. Run 2 of this happened today:

But with a certain amount of technical difficulties, mostly having to do with the crappy block that Dick Blick sent me, and partly having to do with operator error. I originally planned this side as a reduction print, but I think that idea is out the window now, to be replaced with Plan B, otherwise known as, well shit, what now? Luckily I am (slightly) ahead of schedule. It does look nice on the press, though, doesn’t it?

Onwards to run 3. Wish me luck.

You can totally guess what this is going to be, right?

I’ve been neglecting this poor blog due to a life that is literally scheduled down to the minute. So here’s an obligatory catch-up post:

I’ve been working on Governors Island since the beginning of August. And there is an open studio weekend coming up this very weekend! So if you’re not participating in or doing or putting on or hosting one of the twelve million other cultural events taking place in New York this weekend, COME TO MY STUDIO TO READ WORDS AND PICTURES. Afterwards, you can pet a goat. No, really, I’m not kidding.

Also a fancy chicken. If that’s what you’re into:

You can also check out my amazing view into NY harbor (where I totally saw the President fly into town on Monday.)

Working on Governors Island is wonderful; I’m there on Sundays and Mondays right now. On Sundays hordes of NYC families come out for a variety of wholesome activities, as well as the young kids in their fancy costumes for the occasional jazz age dance party:

Or the antique carousel aficionados, they come out too, to see the beautiful vintage amusement park things:

I’ve been working on a new book while there, and tentatively working on a fall pamphlet, among other things:

This weekend is the last public weekend on the Island; starting in October it’s insiders only. So if you want to visit a ghost town, during the week is where it’s at:

Other than that, I don’t know, there’s been some work in some shows:

New York Bound: International Book Art Biennial at the Islip Art Museum. (Literally round the corner from Mom’s house. Hi Mom!).

Some pamphlets went out to a lake in Minneapolis back in August for a water-based adventure called The Floating Library :

Using a boat to dispense paper goods on a lake may seem like a juxtaposition of two things that don’t go together (books + water), yet this project draws on the common past time of beach reading.

In the summer, Minneapolis lakes are crowded with boaters drifting leisurely and folks reading on the sandy shores. The Floating Library looks to provide artist-made reading materials to these folks who are already gathered on the water.

Awesome, right?

There’s an ephemera show coming up in October:

918 Letterpress Ephemera Show

Ephemera is defined as any transitory written or printed matter not meant to be retained or preserved. Examples of letterpress printed ephemera include: posters, greeting cards, pamphlets, postcards, tickets and zines.

And of course the printed media steam bath known as the New York Art Book Fair:

And marathon training, and fall CBA scheduling, and some other things that are none of the internet’s business. I don’t know, it’s too much. Come to my studio this weekend and we can talk it all over.

Ferry schedule: click Here.

This is what wall #1 of the studio on Governors Island looks like so far.

This is what the other looks like. I’m there Sundays and Mondays for now, at the Center the rest of the week, and on Mondays after leaving the island I do this:

Go on a long run in preparation for the NYC Marathon. Last night was 15 miles. It’s a bit much, and come Tuesday morning I’m noticeably stupider than normal. But right after I’m done? I have the heart of a lion.

I’m working on free! informational! pamphlets, hopefully a few different ones, in slightly smaller, new-and-different formats, in the hopes of distributing some to a captive audience at the open studio events that LMCC has planned. I’ve got one started already and plans for another are underway. I’m not sure if these are going to be all letterpress, all the time, (probably not), and they will be slightly less complex that the final one I’ll mail out at the end of the year, but I think they will be nice, and they are a place to put all the extra research that doesn’t really fit with the main storyline. Which will remain a secret, but rest assured that it will be awesome.

Oh, and the birds? They’re still coming, though slower than before, but I am chipping away at that in the evenings the rest of the week. I’m not a sprinter, after all, and it’s not a race. My time right now is almost completely scheduled, which is very productive, and mostly full of things I want to do, but it’s a lot.

In case you’re wondering what the first new mini-pamphlet will be about, it’s about this, which might be a portrait of Lord Cornbury, former colonial governor of New York and New Jersey, or else just a random homely Englishwoman. Lord Cornbury build a pleasure house on Governor’s Island at the beginning of the eighteenth century, which sounds a lot more decadent than it probably was.