Blog – Campbell Raw Press

From broken dreams,
We wake to every day’s
brave history,

the gravity
of every moment
we wake

to let our lives
inhabit: now, here, again,
this very day,

passionate as all
Yeats woke in old age
to hope for, the sun

turns up, under
an off-shore cloudbank
spun at 700 and

some mph to meet it,
rosy as the cheeks
of a Chios woman

Home may have been
touched by, just
as Janet

is touching, climbing
familiar steps, granite
locally quarried,

to work at 04421,
a peninsular village
spun, just as

Janet is spun,
into light, light appearing
to resurrect

not simply its own
life but the whole
improbable

system, tugging
the planet around to
look precisely

as Janet looks,
alight with the gravity
of her office,

before turning
the key that opens up
its full

radiance:
the familiar arrivals,
departures,

and even predictable
orbits in which,
with excited

constancy, by how
to each other
we’re held, we keep

from spinning out
by how to each other
we hold.

–"Relations: Old Light/New Sun/Postmistress/Earth/04421", Philip Booth

Despite the silence, there’s no lack of activity around the homestead – not to worry! We’re just lacking in hours in the day and energy enough to conquer it all. We’ve been up to plenty.

A few custom projects – one a birthday celebration book filled with letters to the client’s mother; another an illustrator’s portfolios and slipcases, and invitations for dear friends.

Informal botanical study three to four times a week at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Printing invitations at The Arm

I’ve been printing and designing invitations like a madwoman in between juggling one and sometimes two toddlers. Coming soon: studio space! Around the corner! Seriously!

Beach!

We just returned from a lovely wedding, followed by a luxuriously long week in Martha’s Vineyard. I had a chance to draw a bit and work on some hand lettering ideas that usually fall by the wayside (you’ll see them soon, I promise!).

My sweet dad, moving yet another press for me in Iowa! This one’s a Challenge MP-15 and I can’t wait to see it!

We have another wedding, and friends in town this weekend, then we’re spinning off to Iowa to celebrate my mom’s 60th (60!) birthday and see some of my recently acquired letterpress equipment in the flesh, as well as take some deep breaths under star-filled skies. We’ve been at a distant point on our orbit, and are looking forward to circling back in close to those people with whom it all started.

P.S. Matt’s been documenting our summer much better than I over here!
P.P.S. I’m sending out some fun letterpress snail mail when we get back from Iowa – email me your address if you’d like to receive a little mail!