A detail of our new 2013 calendar. This detail is of calendar No. 10/60.

From the beginning

In school, I only ever studied art because I loved it. Photography, printmaking, ceramics, bookbinding, and drawing were electives; things I loved to do, not things I was required to learn. High school was your standard blur of self-doubt and academic ambition, and when I was at Grinnell I tried to take myself seriously in an academic way and majored in History and English–two things I use indirectly every single day of my life.

But the moments of greatest clarity and comfort were the times I found myself in various studios and darkrooms, usually by myself, over-dedicated to making images and objects of varying quality. The smell of ink in a printmaking studio, the feel of paper under my hand as I tore pages for books, and the moment in the darkroom when the image begins to appear in the developer tray–those turned out to be the markers on the road heading toward where I am now.

Anna Atkins cyanotype of sea algae

Images & artifacts

In October of 1843, the British botanist Anna Atkins published Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, considered to be the first book ever illustrated with photographic images. The algae specimens recorded in Atkins’s book are splendid, sprawling cyanotype samples in the white-on-brilliant-blue characteristic of that process.

Cyanotype is an early photographic technique made by coating paper with an ultraviolet-sensitive iron salt solution. When exposed to the sun, whatever covers the paper leaves a filled white outline, and the remaining negative space turns a brilliant, deep, oceanic blue.

I pored over my mom’s copy of Ocean Flowers, a catalog for an exhibit that ran at the Drawing Center in 2004. The exhibit featured 19th century botanical illustrations in a variety of media at the meeting point between drawing and photography, with Atkins’s cyanotypes as the centerpiece. I was sucked into their deep blue and I was hooked. The images were captivating, and the text as compelling; a discussion of natural history preservation techniques and approach. To me, the most fascinating idea was the following thought:

“Conserved specimens do not tell the whole story about living nature.”

In short: We can’t tell the whole story of anything from a preserved specimen because the specimen is removed from its natural, living habitat. The remnant we study is a cold sample; the structure is there, but none of the life. The hard truth hits: we can’t take the living past with us, just the tangible artifacts of it.

New techniques & new directions

As a 7 or 8 year-old, I remember making my own cyanotypes (sun prints) with paper from a kit we probably got at the Science Station in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We would lay rocks and flowers on the papers, set them out in the sun, and rinse them in water to develop the image. With this new, grown-up look at Atkins’s sun prints in a historical context, I wondered whether the technique I first knew as a child might be something I could use in my own work. Would this style of imagery be just the thing to pair with the ideas that filled my head? An idea germinated.

Early evening over the Mississippi

Every year, I think about making a calendar for the coming year. It’s not that I feel some urgent need to mark specific days and times, but I want to acknowledge the beauty and significance of each moment of our brief lives. That’s heavy, I know, but honest.

This summer, Matt’s mom was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. If you want something to put a fine point on the fragility of life, that’s a pretty good way to go about it. Memories, joys, regrets, curiosity, frustration, sadness, love, family, worry, confusion, uncertainty, and urgency replaced any and all thoughts otherwise and we were instantly headed down a brand new patch of road we never saw coming.

We’ve already made several visits back to Iowa in the months since and have our next visit on the books for Christmas. We don’t really know what to do, or if there’s much we can do, but we are navigating this road as best we can, learning how we can be helpful, and focusing on what’s most important.

Pressed & dried Queen Anne’s Lace

When we visited this July, I gathered a bucketful of Queen Anne’s Lace from Matt’s mom’s backyard in rural Iowa, overlooking the Mississippi River. The view is nothing short of sweeping, and taking this bucketful of invasive weeds made no dent in the vast sea of lacy white that swathed every edge of the yard and bordering woods. I hauled the flowers back to my folks’ in Marion, and pressed several stems between glass.

“We live by no mind, that is only reason,
For there are in us strengths older than thought–
Memory of moon-earthed seeds, the treason
Of spring in our hearts, old family-named corn lands–
Eternal in us as ancestral-wrought
Curve of our thigh and the gripped shape of hands.”
- from “Earth in our Blood”, Paul Engle

Printing, printing, and more printing

We returned to Iowa in September, and I had a plan in hand. I ordered letterpress plates for a calendar I hand lettered, as well as paper, cyanotype chemicals, and the necessary tools in advance. We arrived in Marion and I began to coat the large sheets of letterpress paper with the iron salt solution. I coated 150 or 175 14″ x 26″ sheets with the yellow liquid, dragging a glass dowel across the paper lengthwise, then crosswise to spread the solution as evenly as possible. I wasn’t aiming for smooth precision, just a coating that would allow me to create a number of varied images.

Coating paper with iron salt solution

Exposing coated paper in the sun with Queen Anne’s Lace compositions

Once the papers were coated and dried, I set up shop behind my mom & dad’s gallery (where they also live). I sandwiched 3 large pieces of heavy glass on top of the compositions I assembled as I went: stems of dried Queen Anne’s Lace on the iron salt-treated papers. Three at a time, I exposed the images to the Iowa sun for 5 to 15 minutes. What is that, about 12 1/2 hours, all together? When the time was up, I moved the sheets to a water bath to stop the exposure, and moved on to the next composition. Over the course of about 5 days, I ended up with 140 or so finished prints.

I stacked the prints and weighted them a bit to push out most of the moisture and, with many still-damp sheets in tow, my dad and Charlotte and I packed up the Subaru and headed to Dubuque to use a large letterpress (a Vandercook 219, to be precise) at Slow Print, the letterpress home of Peter Fraterdeus in Dubuque’s buzzing millwork district.

Developing cyanotypes outside in a water bath

Tearing edges

At Peter’s shop, I set up the press with the photopolymer plates for the calendar I drew back in Brooklyn. After a few runs with inks that–though gorgeous–were totally illegible on the cyan background, I mixed a dark gray that worked beautifully on top of the images that I’d exposed for less time to the sun and were a paler blue. I ran each sheet through the press, checking the impression, registration, and the look as I went.

Of course, I didn’t stop at the plain cyanotype; that would be too easy. I’ve also hand torn the margins of all the images to leave a softly deckled edge, and bound each into an accordion fold book with linen covers that is punched for easy wall hanging display. All said and done, I ended up with a host of beautiful images, including 60 final calendar prints that are now available for sale.

Gluing up Books of Days covers

Limited edition Books of Days / this is No. 1/60

As for the remaining beautiful-but-didn’t-make-the-cut cyanotypes? I’ve used them as the gorgeous decorative papers they are and created a limited edition series of Books of Days perpetual calendars. I made a limited edition of 60 of these beautiful volumes. The 2013 calendars and the Books of Days are available on our site in batches of 10, beginning today.

Bringing it all together & giving back

That’s not the end of the story, of course. We like to give back a little with everything we do, and this year’s calendars and Books of Days are no exception. $15 from the sale of every calendar and $5 from the sale of every Book of Days will be donated to the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund, an organization that works to find a cure, as well as stop the disease before it even strikes, with early prediction and prevention.

2013 Calendar No. 1/60

2013 Calendar No. 3/60

2013 Calendar No. 4/60

2013 Calendar No. 6/60

2013 Calendar No. 10/60

Every one of this year’s calendars and Books of Days are a labor of love; a project I envisioned many months ago and am proud to have completed as I saw it in my mind’s eye. I’m even prouder that this project enables us to give a little something back to a cause much bigger than ourselves. 2012 has been a tough but rewarding year and we find ourselves on a great side of things as we head into everything 2013 has to offer.

It’s one thing to be busy and go on and on about it (see: almost all previous posts). It’s quite another thing to actually show off what it is that has kept me so busy. There are a number of custom wedding albums, binding of family letters, wedding invitations, etc. in the works around here, but I thought, rather than tackle the whole stack at once, I’d bring them to you one at a time since they’re all pretty involved and elegant.

Elizabeth Carey Smith, she of The Letter Office, is a dynamite designer who came to me for a custom wedding album for some good friends of hers. We met up on one of the sweatiest days of last summer in Bryant Park, and bonded over design, materials, and our adorable, similarly happy and vibrant little girls. E dropped off the photos for the album mid-holiday season, and last week we got together for the hand off of the finished album. (It doesn’t generally take me for-e-ver to make a book, but this was a casualty of one seriously crazy holiday season…so here we are, mid-March.)

Hard workin’ hands, custom album & slipcase, interior

Elizabeth wanted something clean and elegant, but fun and with some bright colors that played a role in the wedding. I set to work making a casebound (traditional hardcover) album covered with a linen/cotton blend cloth. The cloth is that brilliant combination of stylish and durable, and a letterpress printed panel with the couple’s name and wedding date is inset into the front cover. Elizabeth designed the emblem, which also appears on the first page of the album. Inside the front covers, we used bright-as-bright-can-be fuchsia endpapers; a Nepalese Lokta that is fibrous and thick and just lovely. On the slipcase, covered in the same linen/cotton, we chose a wide, leaf-green grosgrain ribbon to complement the pink interior. The whole thing is understated and bold, celebratory, and timeless.

Letterpress cover panel, Endpaper & slipcase ribbon, Cover page, Slipcase, Album & slipcase

This album was such fun to put together, and it’s always a total treat when you meet–and get to work with!–a kindred spirit on a project. And! This album is just one little piece of what I’ve been up to…with plenty more to come! In the meantime, go check out the rest of Elizabeth‘s work. She’s a powerhouse.

P.S. Chandra Greer interviewed me for Felt & Wire’s blog in February, and I talked a little bit about just why I love making books like this album.

P.P.S. Are you interested in a custom album of your very own? Please send me a note and we’ll make it happen!

“Even now; with a thousand little voyages notched in my belt, I still feel a memorial chill on casting off.”
- E.B. White

A few weeks ago, there was a flurry of announcements that scientists had found the largest black holes in the universe yet. The beautiful thing about announcements of that magnitude is that they make us all quiet for a moment, as we are reminded of just how tiny we are.

I made this newest Post-Marked collection to celebrate the vastness of the world around us and the universe beyond. This is the last collection for 2011, but I’m excited to let you know that I’m going to keep making books in this series in 2012. For now, the plan is to make a new collection on a different theme each month, so stay tuned for what’s to come!

“Huge elephants! Huge jellyfish! Huge whale!”

That was Charlotte, as we made our way through the American Museum of Natural History about two months ago. There’s nothing quite like going to the museum with an active, curious toddler in tow. You see everything as if you’d never laid eyes on it before and it’s all magic, all over again.

We make it up to the natural history museum whenever we can, and the last time we went, about two months ago, she was on fire. We spotted jellyfish, seals, zebras, squirrels, owls, butterflies, fish, deer…just about every animal you can think of. Nevermind for the moment that every specimen at the museum is long dead; it will never cease to amaze me that in New York City, where you can feel so removed from any sort of wildlife, you can walk in and see all of these incredible organisms that inhabit(ed) our planet. It’s incredible.

Post-Marked #5: Animalia is now available exclusively in our shop through Monday, December 5, 2011…and Post-Marked #4: Remaining Wilderness is available through this coming Monday, November 28 – two at once, for the weekend!

And, suddenly…it’s November!

My mom has an incredible green thumb, and her dad, Grandfather Bud to me, studied forestry at Syracuse. Growing up identifying every plant that crossed our path (or was even close to our path), I’ve learned enough to identify most common plants, but I’m still no expert. More than anything, I have a serious appreciation for the astounding complexity of plant life.

Between printing, packaging, and sending out holiday card orders like mad, I also launched the third new collection of Post-Marked journals and albums on Tuesday. The stamps on these books celebrate everything botanical, and feature a gorgeous, bright selection of vintage U.S. and international stamps. My favorite would have to be the Moroccan olive branch…although the diamond Russian mountain flowers stamp is a close second!

There are a few of the Botanica books left in our shop and they’re available until November 14. On November 15 we’ll launch the fourth collection in the Post-Marked series and Botanica will be all gone!

Yesterday I launched the first collection in a very large batch of new work; a series of approximately 125 (very) limited edition photo albums and journals I’m calling Post-Marked. I’ve been making these books up for the last few months so they’d be ready to go this fall…and they are finally ready to show off. A new collection of books will be available every two weeks through December on our site. Collection #1 is full of vintage Air Mail stamps and it’s live in the shop now!

Process and materials

I developed a pretty solid stamp obsession earlier this year and wanted to find a great way to showcase each of these tiny gems. Each book in the Post-Marked series is covered in a cotton/linen blend cloth and a vintage postage stamp is inset into the cover. In addition to the Air Mail collection, there will be great US state stamps, natural history specimens, and world travel stamps coming in the next few months. Each collection is available exclusively on our site for 2 weeks, and then they’re gone! There’s a great selection coming and I hope you’ll check back often to see all the new books. I’m very proud of this work and I hope you enjoy it, too.

31 cent 1976 Red, White & Blue Air Mail Accordion Fold Photo Album (5″ x 7″)

Many of the stamps I’ve used on these books are from the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s and I’m hoping to get into some of them in detail here, so stay tuned for a few more frequent updates very soon!

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!

The burst of warm weather earlier this week (50! In February!) was a desperately needed reminder that spring really will come again and that the feeling of warm air on your face is, indeed, the tonic and near cure-all it’s always been. Similarly satisfying as the feeling of warm air on your face after a long winter is the feeling of completing a substantial project that began as a tiny seed in your mind’s eye.

On that note, I’ve just finished a new collection of three invitation designs and am proud to finally show them off.

Entwined suite, Signature suite, Leaves suite / All photos by Christopher Walker, Gotham Pixel

Each design has a slightly different feel and each takes advantage of the tactile quality of letterpress printing, layering type, images, and color in delicate and elegant ways. There is loads of information about the designs, options, and ordering on our weddings page, and I am always delighted to talk about paper and printing at length, so please be in touch if you have questions.

And – of course – we’ve been up to lots of other things, too! I’ve been cranking out new books using vintage postage stamps and have lots more to come, and we’ve been reading The Metropolitan Museum of Art ABCs, Numbers, Shapes, and Colors till we’re blue in the face, and I just finished reading Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life. If you need a little inspiration, it’s a great read, no matter what sort of work you do.

Spring is, indeed, on its way in the next month or two. In the meantime, I think I’ll keep my energy up by drawing, printing, building Charlotte’s vocabulary while we walk all over Brooklyn, poring over design & lettering inspiration, and soaking up just how good we’ve got it.

P.S. If you need a great wrapping-up-winter song, I highly recommend Josh Ritter’s “Snow Is Gone“. It’ll shake you right out of any funk you may be in.

Coptic stitch journal spines

In the middle of a regular rotation of reading Olivia, The Circus Ship, Knuffle Bunny, Goodnight Moon, and Where the Wild Things Are, I’ve also made more books in the last week than I’ve possibly ever made in such a short period of time. Hello, holiday season!

P.S. You might like to sign up for our email list (no junk, I promise!) to stay up to date on new card designs, holiday fairs we’re doing, etc.

It’s absolutely redundant to say that I love the physical structure of books. If I didn’t love the structure, I wouldn’t be doing this work. That said, I have aspirations of creating books that beautifully and successfully blend text, imagery, and binding. That interest led me to The Fine Press Book Association and I became a member the moment I saw the letterpress printed cover of the Fall 2010 issue of their journal, Parenthesis.

My copy arrived Thursday and I’ve had it in my hands every moment I can since. There are wonderful reviews of fine press editions, as well as articles about process, technique, and about printers and binders and their background and inspiration. There is a wonderful review of Deep Wood Press’s incredible edition of Heart of Darkness and of Carolee Campbell’s edition of Nathaniel Tarn’s collection of poems, The Persephones (Ninja Press), featuring lushly textured leaves of domestic etch shaded with sumi ink layered with salt. Just the photos are breathtaking; I can only imagine the actual poems.

The moral of this little Saturday post: It’s important to keep feelers out for great inspiration all the time.