bookish lady

Join me this Sunday, May 31, in Silver Spring MD for Handmade Mart!

Crafts, music, and free workshops at the Pyramid Atlantic Store!

10am-5pm
Ellsworth Drive between Fenton Avenue and Georgia Avenue
Silver Spring, MD

Support Community Powered Radio this Saturday, May 30 from 3pm-7pm in Mt. Pleasant at the Second Annual Radio CPR Record Sale!

Pick up or donate your records, cds, books, and movies. I’ll be there with my posters, cards, and journals!

3pm-7pm
La Casa
3166 Mt. Pleasant Street NW
Washington, DC

I had a busy winter, but mostly focused on custom work and travel.  Here are some highlights:

A hand-set poem by Denise Levertov:

This close to a bison in western Montana, this close to lava at Volcan Pacaya in Guatemala:

Helping Ian print text for this album cover:

I’m in the middle of 4 artists’ books so I’ll have more custom work to post soon!  One is a companion piece to this installation by Kate Carr, Tatiana Ginsberg, and Lee Emma Running. Kind Favors, Kind Letters is in the gallery at Pyramid Atlantic through July 17.

Once again I decided to make my life somewhat ridiculous by organizing Crafts & Kisses.  But it’s so fun!  Victor’s gonna run the kissing booth again, and there are 25 rad local crafters selling goodies for Valentine’s Day.  Today I finally stopped running around and started getting really excited.  And the weather’s gonna be beautiful!  See you there.  2437 Fifteenth Street, NW, noon til 6pm.

When I started working at Pyramid I decided that one of the first things I wanted to do was make a type catalog showing examples of all the typefaces there.  But with 88+ cases of type, that job was wayyyyyy easier said than done.  (I just learned from this New Yorker article that your average four-page newspaper took 16 hours to typeset in the early 18th century…and typesetting is just as slow today.)  It was clear that any catalog I made would have to be pretty damn exciting in order to hold my interest through all that assembly time.

My idea was to make a book of love letters, each one set in a different typeface.  Steve Cole, my friend and the Pyramid volunteer responsible for the “What Type Are You?” poster I’ve been selling at some shows, started working with me and about 4 months later, we’re almost finished!

(I) Love Letters features 15 letters (from the likes of James Joyce, Albert Einstein, Edith Wharton, Lewis Carroll, Lucrezia Borgia, Allen Ginsburg, George Bernard Shaw, and more)–chosen for their wit and originality–and about 20 typefaces.  Each letter was set by hand and letterpress printed at Pyramid Atlantic.  Then we bound them into a limited-edition 24-page pamphlet.  It’s available at a special pre-sale price for only a week!  The book ships February 3 and I think it’d make a gorgeous Valentine for a typography lover, a book art collector, or just a romantic!

Here are some pictures from along the way:

I’m headed to NYC for the BUST Craftacular, happening in less than 12 hours!  It should be a blast–hope to see you there!

Details:

http://www.bust.com/Craftacular/BUST-Holiday-Craftacular-2008-NYC.html

Saturday, December 6, 2008:

The Craft Mutiny Holiday Booty Market is happening at 5 Thomas Circle from 12pm-6pm!

Deets: http://www.craftmutiny.com/events/bootymarket.htm

Experienced letterpress printers:

Start those holiday projects tonight at Pyramid Atlantic during Letterpress Happy Hour!

Pay only $10 ($20 for non-members) to mix, mingle, and set type or print whatever project you’re working on. We’ll choose ink colors together.

Email me at letterpress (at) pyramid-atlantic (dot) com to RSVP.

8230 Georgia Avenue
Silver Spring, MD 20910
(5 minute walk from the Silver Spring Metro)

Haven’t tried letterpress yet? Email me to set up a lesson before the next Happy Hour (December 3)!

Last night I went to the second meeting for Moving Parts, a collaboration between Pyramid Atlantic and CityDance.  The idea was to make an edition of artists’ books, and I was invited to be one of ten artists to contribute.  We will each design and produce 50 (!) copies of a miniature art book inspired by the company’s dance performances.  Then collectors can purchase a box filled with one of each artist’s books.

The director of CityDance, Paul, encouraged us to immerse ourselves in the activities of the dance company over the next 7 months or so, going to whatever rehearsals and performances we want, and even invited us to participate (as dancers) in their classes every morning!  I think it’s an amazing opportunity but I have some fear/intimidation to get over before I do that!  If you know me even slightly you probably know I spend a lot of my time dancing, and I’ve wondered how I could incorporate my love of dancing and movement into my artwork but was at a bit of a loss, so this will be an interesting opportunity.  I’m excited and a little intimidated by the project and the other artists participating.Currently I’m just collecting ideas.  I’m interested in exploring the term “moving” in its emotional context, as I’ve been thinking about the way I communicate my feelings and practicing being more expressive.  I’m also thinking about the link between dancing and anatomy, and “parts” in the anatomical sense, and the way that we locate emotions in parts of our anatomy.

I’ve got no idea what will come of these ideas once I start attending rehearsals and performances–I can’t wait to be inspired by the dancing I’ll be witnessing in the coming months.

I’ve had wolves on the brain.  I forget where the obsession started.  I know Sabeth made a great etching of a wolf during our workshop a few weeks ago.  Around the same time I had the urge to track down Maxine Kumin’s poem “After Love” to quote it to someone:

Afterwards, the compromise
Bodies resume their boundaries

These legs, for instance, mine.
Your arms take you back in.

Spoons of our fingers, lips
admit their ownership.

The bedding yawns, a door
blows aimlessly ajar

and overhead, a plane
singsongs coming down.

Nothing is changed, except
there was a moment when

the wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the self

lay lightly down, and slept.

Then I started listening to Tender Forever a bunch, especially “Tiny Heart and Clever Hand,” in which wolves make an appearance.  Then I was thinking about all this on a walk to the library, where on the new fiction shelf I noticed 2 fantasy novels about people living with wolves.

Anyway this is what came of it:

I’ve been thinking about a wolf as a stand-in for a person, in particular one who doesn’t express emotion easily, but Becca pointed out you could also read it as a statement about habitat destruction and aerial hunting.