Category: Events

April 12, 2011

Gearin’ up the ‘Goose

Jessica and I have locked ourselves in her studio with an armful of Talking Heads records (go, portable turntable!) and some very sharp knives. Don’t worry about us, though—it’s just an annual tradition here in T-town.

That’s because this Sunday is the seventh annual Wayzgoose, that crazy letterpress block party that draws hordes, flocks, gaggles of people to King’s Books for some seriously huge fun. And we’ll be polishing up our street cred with the main event—steamroller printing. We’ll be pounding that pavement come rain or shine (please, pray for shine), so stop by and check it out!

7th Annual Wayzgoose
Sunday, April 17, 2011
11 am to 4 pm, Free!
King’s Books
218 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma, WA

Near the top of a very long list of things I love about Tacoma is the sheer number of people here who know what the heck a Wayzgoose is. If you haven’t experienced ours yet for yourself, you’re in for a treat. Meet a whole host of local and regional artists; shop a huge array of letterpress art and gifts; make your own books and posters; and don’t forget to bring a t-shirt! The D.I.Y. screen printing booth will back by popular demand, and this year, some of the street-printing artists (including yours truly) are going to have bite-sized versions of their steamroller designs ready to be made into t-shirts. I know what I’ll be wearing this weekend.

Speaking of which … Jessica and I don’t want to ruin the surprise, so we’re keeping our design under wraps for now. But let’s just say that this year we’ll be getting our feathers ruffled—

—and breaking out the ‘stache wax.

See you Sunday!

March 5, 2011

Codex-ified

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

You know, I spent the whole time we were at Codex just trying to process everything around me. I thought the few weeks since that I’ve been telling stories and rehashing memories would make it easier to sort it out in my mind, but I still just can’t seem to articulate the impressions bouncing around the inside of my skull.

It was just too big … too rich … too much.

Which probably explains why I never managed to get any decent photos—even with Jessica at the next table to spell me when I needed a break. I was too busy standing there goggling at the enormity of it all to document the experience properly. It was all I could do just to man my table and keep track of all the folks who stopped by to talk to me.

Here’s the short version of the story (if you want the long one, feel free to visit my studio blog):

Jessica and I spent four days exhibiting our wares (including our Dead Feminists broadsides) at the Codex International Bookfair in Berkeley, CA. We were among 140 exhibitors at the book fair, plus many hundreds of visitors: students, educators, private collectors, librarians, museum curators, conservators and archivists, hobbyists, publishers, supply vendors, gallery reps and dealers, bookstore owners, clubs and organizations, and every stripe of enthusiast were in attendance.

Photo courtesy of the Codex Foundation.

So yeah. Codex is huge.

It was both intimidating and inspiring. I was immediately and constantly confronted with my own insignificance (I kept imagining that at any moment, some cartoon alarm would go off—woop! woop! woop!—alerting everyone to the fact that I didn’t belong there)—yet at the same time, everyone I met was warm and welcoming.

Jessica’s done Codex once before, so she was prepared for the overwhelming onslaught of people.

She suggested that we put together a letterpress-printed take-away catalog of our work so that after the fair, when everyone was just as dazed as I was, they’d have something to remember us by. (And that ended up being a great idea, and a big hit—we had tons of follow-up messages afterward, and we didn’t see anything like the catalog at the book fair.) Since we collaborate on so many things, we decided to combine our efforts into one joint catalog—with a twist.

We figured we had an opportunity to clear up a little of the confusion over who does what around here, so we had fun playing with the design possibilities. Jessica came up with a flip-flop format, and I designed two covers that would come together at the spine to form a single image if laid flat. Held one way, you’d read her half of the catalog; flip it over and read from the back, and it becomes my half. We converged in the middle with a Dead Feminist “centerfold” (ha!).

It’s hard to remember that we were in a city as fabulous as Berkeley—the folks at Codex had created a complete world just in that one room. (Though we did get out enough to discover that when the overstimulation had us in a daze, a hot-cookie ice cream sandwich down the street was just the ticket. Thank you, Berkeley!) The next fair is two years away, but I came home with what seemed like a decade’s worth of inspiration. And I find I’m already looking forward to Codex 2013—sensory overload and all.

Bring it on. I’ll be there.

November 9, 2010

Suffragist City

Today I bundled up and headed down to the state capitol in Oly for a once-in-a-century party.

One hundred years ago today, the state of Washington approved an amendment to the state constitution granting women the right to vote.

To celebrate the occasion, the capitol rotunda played host to the Centennial Day of Jubilation. Forget collaborating on Jell-o recipes; I think even May and Emma would have agreed on how cool an idea this was.

Everyone in the Rotunda got in on the action. The Lieutenant Governor’s office, here, was transformed into a picket line,

while reenactors turned the foyer into a debate chamber.

And upstairs, in the Reception Room, a feisty demonstrator channeled the spirit of the suffragists—

and did her best to drag the audience into the past with her.

It’s too bad I don’t own any Edwardian clothing—I felt a bit underdressed for the occasion.

Still, I managed to channel my inner suffragist, even without the corset and bustle.

And on my twenty-first century overcoat, I found a way to wear a little pride. In my head I did a little thank-you salute to all the Washington suffragists of old. Ladies, we couldn’t celebrate without you.

September 11, 2010

Flock of feminists

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

Lately Jessica has been cooking up something pretty great.

Thanks to her hard work and our wonderful curator Brian Hutcheson‘s invitation, we are pleased as punch to announce our first-ever dual exhibition!

Feminist Wiles: Jessica Spring and Chandler O’Leary
Now through November 5
Ted Sanford Gallery, Charles Wright Academy
7723 Chambers Creek Rd. W
Tacoma, Washington
Open 8 to 5, Monday through Friday

It seems weird that after more than two years of collaborating, giving lectures and printing in the street, we’ve never had an honest-to-goodness show together.

But when Brian offered us a cavernous space, his help with installation, and the chance to indoctrinate the innocent introduce our series to the kids at Charles Wright—well, we’d be nuts to pass that up.

For the first time, all nine (and-a-half) broadsides to date, plus our two steamroller gals, are on display together.

We also have a little mini-exhibit about our process,

and lots of little goodies to introduce people to letterpress.

We’re rounding out the show with a few pieces of our individual broadside work, as well (you can see mine over at my studio blog). We hope you’ll have as much fun seeing the work as we did putting it on display. Big thanks to Brian and Charles Wright Academy for having us!

August 31, 2010

Almost ready

Just wanted to give you a little teaser of what’s about to come…

I’m not going to say much, so as not to spoil the surprise, but I thought I’d drop a few clues by way of my messy drawings—

warts and all. As you can see by all the smudges and arrows, doin’ it by hand is hardly a perfect process,

but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

On a Mission is on press as I speak, inching closer to the finish line every moment. Look for it here on Friday—see you then!

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!

October 2, 2009

On display

Big thank-you and shout-out to Laura Russell of 23 Sandy Gallery in Portland, for featuring End of the Line on the promo materials for a new show that opens tonight. Broadsided! is national, juried exhibition of letterpress broadsides featuring the work of thirty-four artists. Here are the details from the 23 Sandy website:

Broadsided! The Intersection of Art and Literature
October 2-31, 2009
23 Sandy Gallery
623 NE 23rd Avenue
Portland, OR 97232
Opening reception: Friday, October 2, 6-9 pm

Before books, before blogs and before broadcasts, there were broadsides. Historically, single sheet broadsheet posters were ephemeral in nature. They were developed in the fifteenth century for royal proclamations, official notices and even advertisements. Today, broadsides hang at the intersection of art and literature. Letterpress printed broadsides are valued as fine art designed and printed by a true craftsperson; but also as fine literature featuring stellar poetry or prose.

The best part about the Broadsided! exhibit is that you don’t have to be local to see it! Laura has set up a fantastic online catalogue of the work in the show, with photos and the complete text from each broadside. Nothing beats seeing art in person, of course, but if you can’t make it to Portland this fall, this is a brilliant alternative.

May 7, 2009

Thea returns

Thea’s back! This is just a sneak peek of the pencil sketch for now; Jessica and I are unveiling Ms. Foss’s new look on Tuesday, so we’re saving the surprise for then. In the meantime, though, we thought we’d offer up a few snippets.

The latest broadside in our series has been a little bit of a different process, at least on my end. We had the chance to create a prototype of sorts when we were asked to make steamroller prints at the Wayzgoose this year. But while several hundred people were there to witness the steamroller in action, only eight huge Tugboat Thea prints exist—not exactly ideal in the supply-and-demand sense. By redesigning the piece, we we’d no longer be limited by what we could hand-carve out of a slab of linoleum. So we let the first Thea serve as a rough draft, and took another crack at it for the official series.

This time, though, there’s a bit of a twist. That’s all I’ll say for now.

As part of the unveiling of the new Tugboat Thea, Jessica and I will be speaking at TAM on Tuesday morning. If you’re in the area, and you can fit the weird time slot into your schedule (sorry about that), here are the details:

Pressing Matters:
Contemporary Collaborations Highlighting Women in History
Tuesday, May 12, 10:30 a.m.
Tacoma Art Museum, 1701 Pacific Ave.

Tugboat Thea will be available for sale at the event, too—look for it to appear here afterward!

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.