Category: Wayzgoose

October 1, 2011

Even Keel

Jessica and I just got back from San Francisco, where we got to raise a fantastic ruckus and make guerrilla street art with a whole bunch of people looking on. It’s hard to think of anything better than that, actually.

The San Francisco Center for the Book invited us to be among the featured artists at their Roadworks festival this year.

We were pretty excited about that—not just because of the excuse to spend a weekend in San Francisco, but also because it’s the folks at SFCB who invented steamroller printing!

As you can probably imagine, SFCB has got this stuff down to a science. Between the small army of volunteers who took care of the inking and registration (line-up), and their probably-patented methods for keeping street schmutz off the prints, the results were impressive. In fact, this is my fourth steamroller print (and Jessica’s fifth), and I’ve never seen one turn out this well before.

Photos of us by Jesse Mullan

Besides, we really needed to keep our hands clean this time, because we upped our personal ante and just plunked ourselves down on the sidewalk for a bit of on-the-fly hand-coloring (though avoiding the very wet ink felt kind of like playing Twister).

That turned out to be the perfect tag-team job, actually. I do a lot of hand-coloring in my own work, but never anything this big—

having two sets of hands to blend colors and two sets of eyes to look for missed spots was definitely the way to go.

So thar she blows. Let me introduce you to Eliza Thorrold, and our latest honorary Dead Feminist print, Even Keel. Eliza was the first licensed female tugboat master on San Francisco Bay. After Charles, her husband who piloted the Ethel & Marion before her, died an untimely death, she fought for and received her operator’s license to continue their tug business in his stead and provide for her family. Her quote says it all: “My circumstances compel me to become master of my own boat.” Hear, hear, Eliza.

After she left the high seas and entered retirement as a landlubber, she became master of her own taffy pull by opening a successful ice cream and candy shop with her son. Hence all that salt water taffy.

And as if the nautical sweet-shop theme weren’t enough, we couldn’t resist throwing in all our favorite things about San Francisco. So go hunting around the image, and see what you turn up. Then, on your next trip to the City by the Bay, learn more about Eliza’s life (and those of other women mariners) at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.

So, yeah. It might not fit the traditional idea of a productive weekend, but it’ll do. We came away with new friends, blue fingertips and a whole lot of ideas to make our own humble little steamroller party better.

Many thanks to all the staff and volunteers of the San Francisco Center for the Book, who made the day a smashing success—

and to all the kindred spirits who lent a whole bunch of helping hands. Like the super-nice TSA employee who took such great care of our linoleum block and didn’t bat an eye that we had to bring something so huge and bizarre onto an airplane. Like Sarah, who manned our table; and Jesse, who shot most of the photos; and the huge, huggable posse of Jessica’s extended family, who helped schlep things and kept us company and bought us beignets. And especially Jessica’s ten-year-old niece, Luciana, who basically designed our table arrangement. ‘Ciani, you’re one awesome ragazza.

And of course, to Eliza—thanks for standing proud at the helm.

UPDATE: We now have reproduction postcards available in the shop!

September 22, 2011

We heart SF

Splurging on a giant bag of salt water taffy is probably a weird way to research a new project, but I swear it’s relevant.

That’s right—Jessica and I are carving again. We’ve been invited by the good folks at the San Francisco Center for the Book (big shout-out to the amazing Rocket!) to be among the featured artist at their eighth-annual Roadworks festival this weekend! Needless to say, we’re super excited.

So if you’re in the Bay Area, swing on by the Potrero and check it out—it promises to be a real hootenanny. The party will be taking up a whole block, chock full of artist vendors, food carts, letterpress demos, and, of course, steamroller printing! And since these guys are rumored to be the original, no-kidding inventors of steamroller printing, they’ll show you how it’s done, for real. Here’s the scoop:

Roadworks 2011
Saturday, September 24
12 to 5 pm, Free!
Hosted by the San Francisco Center for the Book
Rhode Island Street, between 16th and 17th Streets
San Francisco, CA

As a bonus, stick around afterward for a gallery reception for the steamroller prints at 6 pm. There’ll be drinks, music, and a whole lot of loopy artists covered in ink.

We’ve designed a brand-new, San Francisco-themed, honorary Dead Feminist for the occasion. I won’t reveal who she is until we get back, but here’s a hint: she knew her way around a fo’c’sle and a taffy pull equally well.

And of course, in honor of our muse, we’ll be sharing that salt water taffy at our table. It’s the good stuff, we promise. (Well, we had to sample it, didn’t we?)

See you in San Francisco!

April 19, 2011

Goosed!

Holy flying gaggles, but we upped the ante this year!

I don’t know if it was the gorgeous sunshine that graced us after literally months of dreary rain—

—or Sweet Pea’s extra-awesome 2011 poncho—

but this year’s Wayzgoose was larger than life.

(In case you’re curious, that little Sigwalt press is inked up to print “I got goosed in Tacoma!” in an eye-frying safety orange that would make any Ducks Geese Unlimited hunter proud. I mean, come on—we have standards. This is some high-brow entertainment here.)

Anyway, speaking of geese…

Ta-daaaa!

As you can see, we took our little Dead Feminists theme somewhat loosely this time. And in fact, we’ve dubbed our print Lucy Goosey, so there! There is a bit of a story behind this one, though. We’ve been equal parts amused and annoyed by the recent crafty and pop-cultural trends involving moustaches and putting birds on things—and for months I’ve been threatening to put a moustache on a bird on something, just to prove a point. I don’t know what that point is, exactly, but I figured it was time to put my moustache where my mouth is.

Which reminds me:

we weren’t kidding about the ‘stache wax. Hey, if you’re going to go, go all out.

Jessica seemed perfectly at home while operating heavy machinery and sporting a full-on Wilford Brimley look—

I mostly just looked like Ned Flanders. Good God, but that mustache looks real on me. Sheesh!

That’s okay, though—synchronized inking is serious business, and we don’t mess around.

Many, many thanks to all the supporters, enthusiasts and volunteers who turned out in droves; to Katy Meegan and Mary Holste for snapping ‘stache shots for us;

to King’s for being the host with the most;

and to the Tacoma Arts Commission for sponsoring our steamroller shenanigans.

So … tell me.

Is it too soon to start cookin’ up next year’s ‘goose?

April 28, 2010

A flat-out smashing time

Note: this is an excerpt of the Wayzgoose post over on Chandler’s studio blog. You can read the full post about the event here.

Inked up,

hand-pulled,

and voilà! Our second collaborative steamroller print, an “unofficial” Dead Feminist print, inspired by Cora Smith Eaton King, who in 1909 climbed Mt. Rainier with a party of Seattle Mountaineers and placed a “Votes for Women” banner at the summit.

This year’s Wayzgoose was the biggest bash yet! We had lots of helping hands—

our beloved ringleader,

and of course the steamroller (which I actually got to drive this year!).

Many thanks to the enormous crowd who turned up to cheer us on—you’re the reason we do this, and we can’t wait to see you next year!

April 18, 2010

Start your steamroller engines

Jessica and I are carving like mad this week, getting ready for some quality steamroller time.

Next Sunday, April 25, is the sixth-annual Wayzgoose at King’s Books, right here in Tacoma. This year promises to be the biggest hullabaloo yet, with letterpress magnetic poetry, B.Y.O. t-shirt printing, papermaking demos, artist tables, and the star of the show: steamroller printing! Last year over 500 people came to check it out, despite a torrential downpour—and this year, the weather just might promise to behave, so we’re bracing for a mob. There’s a reason for the crowds: this is a heckuva lot of fun. Here’s the skinny:

6th Annual Wayzgoose!
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Noon to 4 pm
Free!
King’s Books
218 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma

Eight artists and artist-teams will be printing gigantic three-by-four-foot linocuts in the street, including Jessica and me—we’ll be adding another unofficial Dead Feminist to our roster. (Take a gander at our last steamroller print here.) This is just a sneak peek; stop by next Sunday to see this block in action.

See you there!

April 7, 2009

Hot off the Steamroller

This big gal is an unofficial member of our series because of her sheer size, and let me tell you, she is huge. (Four feet tall!)

And why is she so enormous? Why, she was printed with a steamroller, of course!

Yes, you read that right. The folks at King’s Books asked us to be a part of their fifth annual Wayzgoose* celebration on the first of March, and steamroller printing was the main event. Thanks to a grant from the Tacoma Arts Commission (seriously, thank you!), each artist or artist-team was given a four-foot slab of linoleum to carve as they saw fit. Jessica and I decided to pay tribute to Tacoma’s own Thea Foss—business pioneer, Waterway namesake, feminist extraordinaire, and inspiration for the Tugboat Annie stories and films.

The trouble was, our Feminist Broadside format relies on a quote by the subject, and we were having an awful time finding anything attributed to Thea herself. Luckily we discovered Finding Thea, the excellent documentary film by Nancy Bourne Haley and Lucy Ostrander—which, by the way, also provided great reference material for sketches.

This should give a rough idea of the scale we were working with. To transfer our image onto the linoleum (backwards, so it’ll print correctly), we photocopied my design drawing at 600% size, placed the copy face-down onto the linoleum, sprinkled it with mineral spirits, and ran a hot iron over the wet paper. The heated solvent transferred the copy toner onto the linoleum exactly the way we wanted it. Then we just had to spend a week carving it!

Here’s the finished block, all inked up and ready to print.

And here’s the print, hot off the press. Nancy, the director of the documentary, even jumped in to help!

Despite weather that absolutely refused to cooperate and ink turned soupy by the rain, the Wayzgoose was a huge success. We had over 500 people in attendance, and every steamroller artist knocked out at least a few prints.

Since the prints are so unwieldy, and since we can only print a handful of them at an event like Wayzgoose, we’ve decided to retool the design of Tugboat Thea. We’ll print a (smaller!) letterpress edition as the next in our “official” series. Look for it here soon!

I have to say, though, I’m grateful we were able to find a genuine Thea quote—it was either that or this nugget from the old Tugboat Annie stories:

“O.K., ye ol’ gafoozler,” she replied quietly and stood up.

Alright, I admit it: anything using the word “gafoozler” is going to be a major temptation.

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* Wayzgoose (origin obscure): a celebration given by a master printer to his workmen each year to mark the traditional end of summer and usher in the season of working by candlelight. Generally held as an annual celebration of letterpress and the book arts today.