Author: springtidepress@me.com

They clean up nice, don’t they?

"Prop Cake" process sketches by Chandler O'Leary

Well, I only just realized that my only photo of last night’s opening (stupid phone!) was so out of focus, but oh well. It still gives you an idea of how nicely the Wayzgoose steamroller prints look on a gallery wall!

Thanks to everybody who made the trek down to Parkland last night for the shindig—and to Jessica for organizing, curating and installing these beasts!

Water off a goose’s back

2014 Tacoma Wayzgoose photo by Chandler O'Leary

Don’t be distracted by Ric’s smile—see the puddles everywhere? See the winter gear people are wearing? Sunday was the craziest Wayzgoose yet, hands down. That’s because we had both the biggest crowd ever and the worst weather imaginable. So that smile is one of triumph: getting a decent steamroller print that day required beating some serious odds.

Process photo of "Park Place" steamroller print by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

It rained sideways while Jessica inked.

Process photo of "Park Place" steamroller print by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

It hailed while we lined up our block.

Process photo of "Park Place" steamroller print by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

Photo by Dr. Jamie Brooks

It froze while we peeled our prints up.

Process photo of "Park Place" steamroller print by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

Photo by Dr. Jamie Brooks

It blew a gale while I painted.

"Park Place" steamroller print by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

Still, despite the mishaps, I think it turned out alright. Jessica and I are calling our print “Park Place”—created in gratitude over the passage of a bond that would fund our city park system. The map in the center shows most of Tacoma’s parks, with twelve of our favorites called out like properties on a Monopoly board.

2014 Tacoma Wayzgoose photo by Chandler O'Leary

We even took a snippet of the illustration and sent it over to the talented screenprinting booth folks, who turned it into a t-shirt design during the event (you can just see a peek of it in the upper left corner).

Steamroller prints from the Tacoma Wayzgoose in the Woolworth Windows

Since the rain and wind prevented us from hanging the finished prints outside during Wayzgoose, most of the people who came that day didn’t get to see anybody’s finished print. So today Ric, Jessica and I remedied that.

Steamroller prints from the Tacoma Wayzgoose in the Woolworth Windows

Thanks to Spaceworks Tacoma, all of this year’s steamroller prints are on exhibit in the Woolworth Windows downtown…

Steamroller prints from the Tacoma Wayzgoose in the Woolworth Windows

…where you can see them—in fair weather or foul—now through August 21.

Thanks to everyone who visited or volunteered at Wayzgoose this year, and to King’s Books and the Tacoma Arts Commission for making it all happen!

Version 10.0

In-progress carving of "Park Place" steamroller print by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

Here we are: year ten. Since the time Jessica founded the Tacoma Wayzgoose all those years ago, it’s become one heckuva beast—and a veritable Tacoma institution.

So here are a few sneak peeks of the giant linoleum block she and I are carving—and we’ll reveal all on Sunday:

10th Annual Tacoma Wayzgoose
Sunday, April 27, 2014
11 am to 4 pm, Free!
King’s Books
218 St. Helens Avenue, Tacoma, WA

In-progress carving of "Park Place" steamroller print by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

If you’re new here and don’t know what a Wayzgoose is, or you just want to relive the glory days of old, here are links to all the Wayzgeese (gooses?) I’ve been a part of:

2009 (Tacoma)
2010 (Tacoma)
2011 (Tacoma)
2011 (San Francisco)
2013 (Tacoma)

Itching for more? Well, then, see you on Sunday!

Focal Point

"Focal Point" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

If you earn your living by drawing pictures, you have to spend a lot of time with your head down and your eyes on your paper. Yet at this time of year, with spring coming along fast (at least in the Northwest…), life hurries by at a frantic pace. I hate the idea of missing any of it—so I’m always happy for any reminder to stop and really look around me. So for our newest broadside, we’re heeding the words of one of America’s greatest photographers:

The seeing eye is the important thing.  — Imogen Cunningham

This piece is a major departure from what we’ve done in the past—as you can plainly see. For the first time ever we’ve printed the broadside on black paper—which helped us “pull the focus” (if you will) onto the quote. It also provided a beautiful backdrop for a tribute to someone who spent her life creating black-and-white images.

Surrounding the quote is an intricate metallic silver filigree of spring botanicals and portraiture, creating a pastiche of the subjects of some of Imogen Cunningham’s most iconic photographs—while the color choice references the traditional silver-gelatin photographic process. In the eye of the storm of imagery is the all-seeing camera lens, looking out onto the world.

Ink mixing photo by Chandler O'Leary

Jessica has her own secret-sauce recipe for gold ink, and while we’ve used it before in our series (like in Gun Shy), nothing makes it look so fabulous as a dark background. The gold ink looked amazing on press—we kind of wished we could just leave the ink on there permanently, because that’s some serious bling. (It almost made the Vandercook feel like some sort of super-cool Bond gadget.)

Process photo of "Focal Point" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

As always, we donate a portion of the proceeds of the series to a nonprofit that aligns with the message of each piece. To help sharpen the seeing eyes of the artists of tomorrow, this time we’ve chosen Youth in Focus — a nonprofit that puts cameras in the hands of at-risk youth to “teach them how to develop negatives into positives.”

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Focal Point: No. 19 in the Dead Feminists series
Edition size: 164
Poster size: 10 x 18 inches

Printed on an antique Vandercook Universal One press, on archival, 100% rag (cotton) paper. Each piece is numbered and signed by both artists.

Colophon reads:
Imogen Cunningham (1883 – 1976) graduated from the University of Washington in 1907, earning a degree in chemistry with her thesis on chemical processes in photography. Shortly afterward she was hired by photographer Edward Curtis, who taught her platinum printing and portraiture. She opened her own successful studio in Seattle, and published an article entitled “Photography as a Profession for Women.” In 1917, Cunningham and her husband and son relocated to California, where she gave birth to twin boys. Her children and the plants in her garden then became key subjects of her work. Her experiments with double exposure throughout the 1920s and 30s contributed to a growing appreciation of photography as art. She was a founding member of Group f/64, a collective of influential west coast photographers including Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. The group mounted a 1932 exhibition at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, united by a manifesto declaring “photography as an art form by simple and direct presentation.” Cunningham’s vision came through in both her personal and commercial work: unvarnished celebrity portraits for Vanity Fair; documentary street photography; nudes and botanical images — a lifetime of work that continues to challenge and intrigue viewers.

Illustrated by Chandler O’Leary and printed by Jessica Spring, grateful for artists who remind us to focus.

UPDATE: poster is sold out. Reproduction postcards available in the shop!

Detail of "Focal Point" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

Gallery goose

"Art of the Wayzgoose" exhibition flyer featuring artwork by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

This year marks the 10th Anniversary of the Tacoma Wayzgoose! The festival isn’t until the end of April, but we’re celebrating early with an exhibit of all the giant steamroller prints created over the years at the Pacific Lutheran University Gallery. It’s going to be a doozy!

And we’re honored to see the artwork we created gracing all the promo materials for the exhibit! (Thanks, PLU.) If you’re in the Seattle-Tacoma area this Wednesday, stop by for the opening, won’t you?

In the meantime, we’re about to get crackin’ on this year’s steamroller print…look for a teaser soon.

Hand-lettered holidays

"Dome-inatrix" letterpress mini print by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

Even though it’s nearly as late as it could possibly be, here I am thinking, “Already?!?” But it’s true—even if you don’t do Black Friday (as you can probably guess, I’m partial to Small Business Saturday myself), today’s the “official” opener of the holiday season. And for perhaps the first time ever, we’re actually ready for it! (Well, mostly.)

We have some new additions to the shop to kick off the holidays—starting with a small letterpress keepsake version of the Birth of Venus steamroller print we did earlier this year.

Hand-bound, letterpress "Lemonade Journal" by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

And we’ve finally restocked our supply of mini letterpress journals (you folks cleaned us out last time we had them in the shop, and it took quite awhile to make and photograph more!). We call ’em “Lemonade Journals,” because we made them from the “lemons” that crop up during printing—misregistered prints and tiny flaws that otherwise would have ended up in the recycling bin. But with some cute stitching and fun colored paper on the inside, Jessica turned them into perfect little stocking stuffers.

Hand-bound, letterpress "Lemonade Journal" by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

Be sure to get your orders in early!  We’ll be shipping holiday orders daily until 4 pm PST on Tuesday, December 17 (when the shop will close for the holiday break).

In the meantime, I’m raising a virtual glass of eggnog to you: happy holidays!

Nightsong

"Nightsong" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

As the school year begins again and the pace of life quickens, the easy pace of summer has made way for a season of bustling, planning, and dreaming of times ahead. Yet worldwide, over and over again, the plans and dreams of so many women and girls are cut short by violence. In light of recent high-profile crimes halfway around the world, Jessica and I though it was high time we spoke up. This time we drew inspiration from the Nightingale of India:

What hope shall we gather, what dreams shall we sow?  — Sarojini Naidu

“Nightsong” honors the hopes and dreams of women and girls in every culture—in defiance of the world’s dangers. The illustration depicts a lush dream menagerie printed in bright, exotic hues. Tigers, peacocks, elephants and nightingales stand sentinel around our heroine, surrounded by detailed paisleys and florals drawn in the style of Indian mehndi designs.

Detail of "Nightsong" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

To make this print more dreamlike, we decided to throw a tricky technique called split-fountain printing into the mix—or “rainbow roll,” for short.

Split-fountain inking photo by Chandler O'Leary

A split fountain is extremely difficult to control (advanced Eagle Scout printing here, folks), but the results are so lovely that it’s absolutely worth the effort. As an added bonus, we were careful to keep our inks translucent—so when we registered the second color, that mixed the colors even further, giving us an entire rainbow spectrum with just two passes on press.

Process photo of "Nightsong" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

I should add, though, that while we love printing with a rainbow roll, the process is completely unpredictable, and the finished prints are far from uniform. So rather than an edition of absolutely identical broadsides, we ended up with a beautiful range of yellows, oranges, pinks and even reds, that vary from print to print. So my scans here are representative of the edition in general, but no two prints are exactly alike (so if you order a print, please allow for some slight variations from what you see here).

Detail of "Nightsong" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

To help restore hope to victims and in honor of our dreams for the future, a portion of our proceeds will be donated to Take Back the Night. In order to create safe communities, Take Back the Night seeks to end sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual abuse and all other forms of sexual violence.

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Nightsong: No. 18 in the Dead Feminists series
Edition size: 147
Poster size: 10 x 18 inches

Printed on an antique Vandercook Universal One press, on archival, 100% rag (cotton) paper. Each piece is numbered and signed by both artists.

Colophon reads:
Sarojini Chattopadhyay Naidu (1879 – 1949) — also known as “The Nightingale of India” — was born in Hyderabad, the eldest of eight children. She was a gifted student, proficient in five languages, and by age 16 left the country to attend King’s College to pursue her interest in poetry. Inspired by the suffragist movement in England, she joined the struggle for Indian independence, traveling the country to lecture on social welfare, women’s rights and nationalism. Naidu played a leading role during the Civil Disobedience Movement and was jailed along with Gandhi. Naidu wrote beautiful lyrical poetry, focused on Indian themes, to inspire the nation. She was the first woman to serve as president of the Indian National Congress, and the first woman to become the Governor of the state of Uttar Pradesh. Though Naidu humbly claimed, “I am only a woman, only a poet,” her birthday is celebrated as Women’s Day throughout India.

Illustrated by Chandler O’Leary and printed by Jessica Spring, calling for an end to violence against women all over the world.

UPDATE: poster is sold out. Reproduction postcards available in the shop!

Detail of "Nightsong" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring