Tag: process

Almost ready

Teaser for "On a Mission" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

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

Detail of process drawings for "On a Mission" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

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—

Detail of process drawings for "On a Mission" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

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

Detail of process drawings for "On a Mission" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

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!

 

Yes, there is a manatee in it.

"Drill, Baby, Drill" hand-lettered process drawing by Chandler O'Leary

The next print in our series will be making its in-person debut on Tuesday—these few snippets might give you a clue as to our latest theme. Jessica and I will be doing our dog-and-pony show at the Gig Harbor branch of the Pierce County Library; if you’ve missed our previous lectures, come check it out! If you have seen seen it, you’ll already know our schtick, but you’ll still get to see the new piece first! As always, you can also get up to speed by reading about our process here.

Pressing Matters: local letterpress artists combine craft with history
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
7:00 p.m., free!
Gig Harbor Branch, Pierce County Library
4424 Point Fosdick Drive NW, Gig Harbor, WA

"Drill, Baby, Drill" hand-lettered process drawing by Chandler O'Leary

We’re a month late with the new broadside for a couple of reasons. The longest (4 months!) and most annoying delay came from the fact that we’ve had to switch to a different paper. I know that sounds silly, but the paper industry is very volatile, and if you’ve ever used a type of paper that you love, only to have it be discontinued (or worse, the company goes out of business), you’ll know how frustrating it can be to find a reasonable facsimile. I guess we should have seen this one coming—the paper we’ve been using is not only extremely unusual (made from recycled clothing!), but it’s also made by a tiny, independent paper company. It’s a long story, but the short version is that the paper is now perpetually on back-order, and we had begun to notice quality issues. So! We’ve finally found a very good, high-quality replacement, and while it doesn’t quite have the Cool Factor of the other stuff, we certainly have a lot less to worry about.

"Drill, Baby, Drill" hand-lettered process drawing by Chandler O'Leary

The broadside will appear online (both here and in the shop) on Wednesday, so stay tuned for more information. And in the meantime, in case you’re debating whether it’s worth the Sturdy Gertie bridge toll to attend the talk, you can say hello to the giant octopus* on the way!

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

*I just learned that one of the world’s largest species of octopus lives in the Tacoma Narrows, right under the bridge—a fact that completely made my week, and that I’ve obviously been dying to work in to a blog post.

Start your steamroller engines

Process photo of "At the Summit" steamroller print by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

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

Process photo of "At the Summit" steamroller print by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

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

Process photo of "At the Summit" steamroller print by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

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!

Girl power

"Kiki" magazine with feature on the "Dead Feminists" series by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

Jessica and I have had some seriously huge smiles for the past couple of days: we just received our copies of the latest issue of Kiki Magazine, which contains a feature on the Dead Feminists!

Before we were contacted for an interview, neither of us had heard of the magazine, but I can tell you that we became instant fans when we read its mission. Unlike so many other magazines written for teenage girls, which usually (even if inadvertently) tend to focus on questioning one’s body, popularity, attractiveness and overall self-worth, Kiki aims to empower girls with self-esteem, confidence, and a wide variety of knowledge and skills. As someone who is generally dismayed by the lack of respect with which our society tends to treat girls and women, and the self-loathing and doubts still being ingrained from their earliest experiences onward, Kiki seems like a breath of fresh air—and a huge relief.

"Kiki" magazine with feature on the "Dead Feminists" series by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

And hey—who are we really creating these broadsides for, anyway? What is it that we’re trying to change in our world? It’s not just about the social issues we cover with each piece—it’s about teaching the women and girls around us that they can be heard, that what they say and do matters.

"Kiki" magazine with feature on the "Dead Feminists" series by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

So Kiki gets an A-plus in my book, not just for the thoughtful content (no ads! No boy-crazy quizzes! All substance!), but for the fantastic design! This thing is seriously fun to read and gorgeous to look at. And look! My favorite part:

"Kiki" magazine with feature on the "Dead Feminists" series by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

Rock on, Kiki. We’re honored to be a part of what you do.

Just Desserts

"Just Desserts" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

This year marks the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in Washington—a feat only made possible by the collaborative efforts of many dedicated people of every walk of life and political stripe. In this spirit, we present our seventh broadside in our series, Just Desserts.

Washington Women's Cookbook

Through our research at the Washington State Library, we discovered that our state’s suffrage movement had many leaders, rather than one prominent figurehead. We also learned that there was so much head-butting, personality-clashing and partisan in-fighting going on within the organizations involved (Mesdames Hutton and DeVoe, I’m looking at you!) that it would be impossible to tell the whole story in one letterpress poster. So instead of quoting a single historical feminist, we cited a collaborative publication—the Washington Women’s Cook Book, published in 1908-1909 for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition—and featured four women symbolic of the movement: May Arkwright Hutton, Bernice Sapp, Cora Smith Eaton, and Emma Smith DeVoe. The quote:

“Are not our desserts and salads things of beauty and the joy of the moment?”

The book was a clever piece of propaganda that operated on the principle that the way to a man’s heart—or vote—is through his stomach. All those jellied centerpieces and whimsical soufflés must have done the trick—the following year, women got the vote.

Vintage jellies

And for my part, the quote turned me into an almost-literal kid in a candy store; the design was just begging for elaborate confections and candy-coated typography. At first, though, I was turned off by the idea of having to draw salads (I wanted more ice cream!), until Jessica read off a litany of aspic salad and gelatin dessert recipes from the book. That’s when the light bulb turned on: Jell-o salad! The decade-plus I spent in the Midwest was about to serve me well.

Vintage jellies

Turns out that Jell-o fit right into the turn-of-the-century theme: molded gelatin desserts were a Victorian favorite, and the name “Jell-o” was first coined in 1897 (and if you look carefully, the “J” from the original Jell-o box makes a cameo in the print). There seemed to be no end of antique recipes, advertisements and illustrations at my disposal.

Vintage jellies

I might be horrified by the idea of eating gelatin salads, but drawing them was the most fun I’ve had in a long, long time. We spent hours researching vintage Jell-o molds—probably more for the pure fascination than for the value of the reference material.

For the sweets portion of our little menu, we turned to an old favorite of mine for inspiration: Andy Warhol.

"Wild Raspberries" by Andy Warhol

Forget what you know about Campbell’s soup cans or Elvis portraits; Andy got his start as an illustrator specializing in fashion and food. In 1959 he illustrated a spoof cookbook called Wild Raspberries (it’s been on my shelf since high school, and I finally found a direct use for it!), filled with ridiculous “gourmet” recipes for things like “A&P Surprise” (those of you in New England will get that one) and “Seared Roebuck.”

"Wild Raspberries" by Andy Warhol

The illustrations are fantastic (and the polar opposite of my style), but the thing that really drew me in was the lettering. Andy had his mother, Julia Warhola, write all of the text of his early illustrations in her shaky, school-girl script. Mrs. Warhola spoke little to no English, and simply copied her son’s notes letter-for-letter, so the text in Wild Raspberries has charming errors and misspellings throughout.

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

I loved the down-to-earth quality of Mrs. Warhola’s cursive, so I wrote a recipe from the Washington Women’s Cook Book along the border of the broadside in a similar hand (though to warn you, it’s a recipe I wouldn’t recommend trying!).

Detail and inspiration of "Just Desserts" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

And of course, I couldn’t do without a little ice cream homage.

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

Like The Curie Cure, this piece is printed in three colors—although the three we chose let us create many more. Our color scheme allowed us to print in a similar fashion to commercial printing, where a minimum of colors (CMYK—cyan, magenta, yellow, black) are layered to create a full-color image. Our layering of translucent pink, blue and yellow ink allowed us to create a full rainbow and a convincing depiction of foreign objects floating in jelly.

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

Heaps of thanks to everyone who came to our talk at the State Library the other night, despite lousy weather and rush-hour traffic—we had a tremendous turnout, and a huge show of support for our state’s oldest cultural institution.

One more thing: three cheers for the incredible staff at the Washington State Library (many of whom are among those whose jobs have been cut and will end very soon) who made our talk and this very piece possible. Because we couldn’t have done it without them, we have donated a portion of our proceeds to support the State Library’s collections.

After all, it’s about preserving (in jelly?) that joy of the moment for everyone to share, right?

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Just Desserts: No. 7 in the Dead Feminists series
Edition size: 100
Poster size: 10 x 18 inches

Printed on an antique Vandercook Universal One press, each piece is printed on archival, 100% rag, recycled paper, and signed by both artists.

Colophon reads:
In 1909 suffragists saw an opportunity to forward their cause in Seattle at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific (AYP) Exposition. The Washington Equal Suffrage Association (WESA), led by president Emma Smith DeVoe, provided an AYP exhibition on the importance of women’s right to vote and hosted Women’s Days, distributing pamphlets alongside displays of domesticity. WESA treasurer Dr. Cora Smith Eaton, joined The Mountaineers’ AYP expedition to climb Mt. Rainier and placed a “Votes for Women” banner at the summit. Suffragists from eastern Washington, led by May Arkwright Hutton, came by the trainload to attend the AYP and WESA’s National Convention. Many of the details—from ideological clashes to victories—were archived at the Washington State Library, thanks to Bernice Sapp.

Women from around the country also contributed to the Washington Women’s Cook Book, published to sell at the AYP. Filled with recipes, domestic advice and inspirational suffragist quotes, it reassured male voters that the women in their lives would continue homemaking once they had the right to vote: “Give us the vote and we will cook, the better for a wide outlook.” Compiled by Linda Deziah Jennings, the preface extolled the virtues of making beautiful things, and the simple joy of desserts and salads. Suffragists in Washington worked through differences in personalities, social backgrounds and political parties to create a winning recipe, gaining their right to vote in 1910.

Illustrated by Chandler O’Leary and printed by Jessica Spring with gratitude to allthe cooks. 100 copies were printed by hand at Springtide Press in Tacoma. February 2010

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

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

We heart archivists

Washington State Suffragists archives at WA State Library. Photo by Chandler O'Leary

It’s just about that time again: Jessica and I are working hard on the next broadside. She’s poring through texts and historical facts, and I’m pencilling as fast as my tendonitis will let me. This time we’ll be unveiling the new piece at the Washington State Library near Olympia; the staff invited us to give a lecture about the series next month.

Washington State Suffragists archives at WA State Library. Photo by Chandler O'Leary

The library boasts the entire collection of letters and personal papers of Emma Smith DeVoe (pictured above, right), women’s rights activist and leader of the Washington suffragist movement. And since this year marks the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in Washington, we figured Emma would be a perfect fit for the new piece.

Washington State Suffragists archives at WA State Library. Photo by Chandler O'Leary

So a couple of weeks ago, Jessica, my intern and I took a field trip to visit the archives and conduct a little research. When we arrived, we realized what they meant by “collection:” twelve enormous boxes packed full of letters, clippings and souvenirs. A “little” research obviously wasn’t going to happen.

Washington State Suffragists archives at WA State Library. Photo by Chandler O'Leary

Luckily, the incredibly knowledgeable and helpful library staff (thank you, Sean!) let us take as much time and as many photos as we needed. So we cozied up to a work station and dived in, one box at a time. Together we went through literally thousands of pieces of paper.

Washington State Suffragists archives at WA State Library. Photo by Chandler O'Leary

What we found was a fascinating collection of souvenirs, business cards, newspaper clippings,

Washington State Suffragists archives at WA State Library. Photo by Chandler O'Leary

leaflets and other propaganda,

Washington State Suffragists archives at WA State Library. Photo by Chandler O'Leary

fan letters (Emma had an impressive array of admirers),

Washington State Suffragists archives at WA State Library. Photo by Chandler O'Leary

telegrams, notes from sitting U.S. senators and presidential aides, and reams and reams of correspondance between the members of the Washington suffragist movement.

Washington State Suffragists archives at WA State Library. Photo by Chandler O'Leary

The trouble was, most of these documents were utterly mundane—letter after letter simply acknowledged receipt of previous correspondance, or gave detailed instructions for planning events and delegating tasks. Worst of all, Emma rarely made carbon copies of her half of the correspondance, so there was very little in her own voice.

Washington State Suffragists archives at WA State Library. Photo by Chandler O'Leary

We spent nearly four hours poring over every folder and box, and the only potential Emma quotes we found were mined from this instructional card. Still, it didn’t feel like we had found our inspiration—just a few weeks from our talk, we had no quote and no social topic for the piece.

Washington State Suffragists archives at WA State Library. Photo by Chandler O'Leary

What we did have, however, was a much clearer picture of the women behind the fight for suffrage in our state (that’s May Arkwright Hutton above; she and Emma didn’t exactly get along), right down to addresses of homes and buildings still standing in Tacoma (the headquarters of the movement).

Washington State Suffragists archives at WA State Library. Photo by Chandler O'Leary

From the documents themselves to the individual script hands of each letter writer, we had an incredible window into political life from a hundred years ago.

Washington State Suffragists archives at WA State Library. Photo by Chandler O'Leary

And we found a good lead. Just as interesting as Emma (and more forthcoming with their own voices) were Cora Smith Eaton King, M.D. (pictured above, right)—correspondent, fellow leader of the movement, and one of the first women to scale Mt. Rainier!—and Bernice Sapp—friend, activist, and the one who compiled this collection of documents and donated it to the library.

Washington State Suffragists archives at WA State Library. Photo by Chandler O'Leary

Bernice’s letters were full of quirky character and wit. We loved how she called Emma “the General,” and referred to herself and other suffragists by male titles: “Brother King,” “Mr. Hutton,” or simply “him.”

Washington State Suffragists archives at WA State Library. Photo by Chandler O'Leary

Cora, on the other hand, was a real firecracker. Her letters (often scribbled on scraps of paper, even her own prescription pad!) revealed an eloquent intelligence and a sizzling sense of humor. We fell head-over-heels for Cora, and began to doubt that Emma was the right voice for the broadside—still, though, we had no quote from any of these women.

A few days later, Jessica hit up the astounding Northwest Room at the Tacoma Public Library, and hit the jackpot. She discovered a document that linked all of these women together, which decided us on a slightly different approach to quoting historical feminists. That’s all I’ll say for now, except that the new broadside may or may not depict a certain quivering, questionable “food” substance:

Vintage jellies

If you want to be one of the first to see what the heck I’m talking about, I invite you to come check out our talk at the Washington State Library. Here are the details:

Pressing Matters: an evening with Chandler O’Leary and Jessica Spring
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
6:30 p.m. (doors open at 6:00), free!
Washington State Library
6880 Capitol Boulevard, Tumwater, WA

Libraries and archives face a tough reality in the current economy—especially here in Washington, where a regressive tax system has left the State Library with a 30% staff reduction and major cuts to its operating and acquisitions budgets. The 2003 earthquake damaged their building on the historic capital campus in Olympia, and forced them to relocate “temporarily” to a suburban office park a few miles south in Tumwater. Even when the economy recovers, it is unlikely the library’s funding will return to the levels it enjoyed in more prosperous eras, so the move to Tumwater is looking increasingly permanent. Despite these setbacks, the State Library continues to acquire new items (including our artwork!) for the collection and provide an essential service in preserving our state’s history. So please come and show your support for the library—a good turnout will help them provide more public events in the future, and might just go a long way toward saving them from another visit to the chopping block.

Behind the scenes, part two

Metal type photo by Jessica Spring

When it comes to letterpress printing, process is everything. And since that process is not always evident in the final product, I thought I’d share the technical aspects of the Dead Feminists series. Now, as I said in the last post, letterpress printing is traditionally done using metal or wooden type—or in the case of the photo above, relief images cut into type-high (.918 inches in the US and UK, in case you wondered) blocks. What Jessica and I have been doing, however, ain’t your grandpa’s letterpress. Thanks to a fairly new technology called photopolymer, we’re able to create our own relief plates right in the studio, without having to carve a block by hand or etch a plate with nasty chemicals. Photopolymer has also created a bridge between the traditional print shop and the modern digital world—as you’ll see in a moment. As far as the Dead Feminists go, Jessica and I still have both feet firmly planted in the traditional world—we just dip a toe into the digital realm now and again. Here, let me explain.

Process pencil drawings for "Come Come" and "Tugboat Thea" letterpress broadsides by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

This is how it begins for each print: a pencil drawing, at full size. This is the stage where I not only design and illustrate the piece, but also start thinking about color choices: what the colors will be, what element will be which color, where the colors will overlap, how to make things work logistically. Now, this pencil layout isn’t enough to make a plate; for the photopolymer process to work properly, I have to translate the sketch into a solid black-and-white ink drawing.

Process drawings for "Victory Garden" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

After everything is pencilled in, I lay a sheet of vellum over the drawing and trace everything in ink.

Color separations for "Victory Garden" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

Since each broadside is printed in two colors, each color means a separate run through the press. So as a result, I had to trace each color separately—being careful to stay as true as possible to the original drawing, since the colors had to line up exactly on press. If you were to line these two color separations up, on top of one another, you’d see how the colors will interact in the final piece.

Process drawings for "Tugboat Thea" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring Process drawings for "Tugboat Thea" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

Here’s what I mean. You can see the separation that will become the grey color in Tugboat Thea here, laid directly over the inked octopus below. This is definitely the old-fashioned way of doing things; there are plenty of digital methods of color separation. I guess I just prefer the physical connection between the pen and the hand—even despite the greater risk of screw-ups (as you can see if you look closely at the word “to” above).

Detail of process drawing for "Tugboat Thea" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

Here’s where I dip that toe into digital waters. Once I’m finished inking, I scan the finished line drawings at a super-high resolution and load them into Photoshop. This is where I clean up any mistakes (ahem) and convert the drawings into bitmap (pure black and white, with no grey) files. Jessica sends me her written colophon, and I set the text digitally. Then I export everything to the proper file type, and send the files to a local service bureau to have film negatives made. So now we’ve gone from analog to digital and back again.

Film negatives for "Tugboat Thea" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

Here are the negatives for Tugboat Thea; grey separation on the top half of each one, teal on the bottom. As you can see, there aren’t any right angles in the bottom half (octopus) of the teal separation, so if you look closely you can see the little tick marks I added (above and to the right of the starfish) to aid with color registration. Those marks line up with a grid etched on the metal base we use to lock up the plates on press; once we had the plates exactly where we wanted them, I simply shaved those little tick marks off with an Xacto knife, so they’d no longer print. Real slick.

Photopolymer platemaking photo by Chandler O'Leary

Anyway, photopolymer is a light-sensitive plastic that works just like making a contact exposure in a darkroom does. First I take a negative, place it face-down on an unexposed plate, and load both pieces onto the exposure tray of Jessica’s platemaker (which looks remarkably like an Easy-Bake Oven).

Photopolymer platemaking photo by Chandler O'Leary

The negative is held flush with the plate by a layer of plastic and a vacuum system; the plate is exposed with UV light (some DIY enthusiasts also accomplish this using glass and a bright, sunny day, but photopolymer is awfully expensive to use in sketchy experiments in the cloudy Northwest).

Photopolymer platemaking photo by Chandler O'Leary

Next I place the exposed plate in the wash-out unit, where it is scrubbed gently with soft bristle brushes in a tank of cool water. Everything that is exposed is hardened enough to resist scrubbing, while everything else dissolves away. (And turns the water a sickly shade of yellow. Mmmm….plastic byproducts. Still, it’s less toxic than many other printmaking techniques.)

Photopolymer platemaking photo by Chandler O'Leary

What we’re left with is a raised plate ideal for relief printing. The real benefit of photopolymer is that it can reproduce nearly any image, and can hold an incredible amount of detail. I can transfer my drawings directly to the plate, without adding the laborious step of carving the image into wood or linoleum (backwards!), or etching copper with acid, for example. It’s not exactly an economical option for letterpress printing, but the results can be exquisite, and the possibilities are nearly endless.

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

Here’s our new octopus plate on press, all inked up and ready to print—it’s stuck to that gridded base with removable adhesive. The thickness of the plate and base together add up to exactly .918 inches. Ah, precision feels good.

Printing process photo of "Tugboat Thea" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

And here’s how it looks on paper.

Printing process photo of "Tugboat Thea" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

Here you can see the registration between the colors. This is the hard part—I’m sure that despite my best separation efforts and useful tick marks, Jessica is ready to tear her hair out whenever she sees what insane registration issues I’ve thrown at her this time. She’s not a master printer for nothing, though—tiny, 9-point colophon type? Large, solid color blocks? Exacting registration with no margin of error? She can handle anything.

Jessica Spring mixing ink at Springtide Press; photo by Chandler O'Leary

Actually printing these broadsides is where all our careful planning and preparation goes right out the window. We can sketch and plot as much as we like, but many of our artistic decisions end up being made on the fly, right on press. Here Jessica is mixing ink for Prop Cake, according to some choices I suggested in our handy-dandy color recipe book.

Jessica Spring mixing ink at Springtide Press; photo by Chandler O'Leary

You can see our original draw-down (color test) in the upper left corner. So far, so good.

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

The orange turned out exactly as we’d hoped, but when we started printing the pink separation, we hated the result. What looked so good in the draw-down lost all its contrast in the print. It was awful, trust me.

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

So Jessica changed the color right on press, until we were happy with it.

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

Here’s the finished product, all lined up in the drying rack.

If lining up the color areas is the hardest part of printing, keeping an eye on the ink consistency was probably the most fiddly. We’re using a very unusual paper for these prints—one made from recycled clothing—that is extremely “thirsty.” Not only are there inconsistencies in the paper that can throw off the overall quality of color; but we had to add ink to the press after every fourth or fifth print. As you can see, this is a pretty organic process—lots of variables, small corrections and compromises along the way. (And a whole lot of cursing and starting over.)

All of this is par for the course for a letterpress project—it’s an exacting, sometimes frustrating process, but that’s what we love about it. And the finished product … well, it’s like nothing else. Ah, letterpress, how we love thee.

 

Behind the scenes, part one

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

Holy cannoli, everyone! I’ve only just now come up for air—I’ve been buried under invoices, subscription forms, kraft mailers, and email print-outs, and Thea’s face is repeated all around me as reserved copies are spread all over the studio. Since I posted her here on Tuesday night the orders have just poured in, and over three-quarters of the edition is spoken for already. And Prop Cake is disappearing fast, too; we’re down to our last handful. Wow—just…wow. Thank you all so, so much.

Since Jessica and I talked about our process at the Tacoma Art Museum the other day, we thought it made sense to share that process with you, as well. But since there’s rather a lot to say on the subject, I’ve decided to break it into two posts.

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Before I get into the technical details behind our series, I should probably share a little background information on letterpress and the art of the broadside. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the process, letterpress printing refers to a type of relief printing, where pressure is applied to a piece of paper placed over a raised form that is covered with a thin layer of ink. This pressure transfers the inked image onto the paper, and can be repeated to create a batch, or edition, of prints. The form can be a carved block of wood or linoleum; a raised plate made of magnesium, photopolymer (plastic) or other materials; or as the term letterpress implies, movable type made from metal or wood.

chandler_oleary_studio_2652

The innovation of printing words from individual letter blocks that can be rearranged and reused was actually invented by the ancient Chinese (seriously, what wasn’t originally invented in China? We owe those folks a whole heap), but the process that evolved into modern letterpress was most famously perfected over 500 years ago by Johann Gutenberg, of Gutenberg Bible fame. By the first half of the twentieth century, when more modern commercial printing came along, it was still common for printers to perfect their layouts using movable type and relief-cut images on a proof press (such as Jessica’s Vandercook below). They’d then use the resulting print to make more sophisticated plates for their more efficient and advanced commercial presses.

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

As commercial printing became more streamlined, the cylinder and platen proof presses (see photo of Jessica printing above) fell out of vogue, and eventually were no longer manufactured. Artists quickly saw their potential, however, and have adopted letterpress printing as an art form—using, refurbishing and maintaining this antique equipment to create original works of art.

Vintage broadsides

Hand-in-hand with letterpress printing, the art of the broadside has also survived and evolved into a modern format. The term broadside means any single sheet used to convey information, often of a political kind—the great-grandpappy of the modern poster. While today the words broadside and poster are sometimes used interchangeably, the broadside has remained a favorite of the letterpress community because of its emphasis on typography and content (hey, we need an excuse to use all that gorgeous metal type!).

Dead Feminist broadsides by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

Jessica and I had this history in mind when we began the Dead Feminists series. As I said before, we never dreamed of starting down the path we’re on now; we just wanted to make a political and artistic contribution to the election. And to pay homage to the history of the broadside and the era in which each of our feminists lived, I designed each piece with historic broadsides and posters in mind. And to keep the series consistent, Jessica and I came up with a few rules of engagement:

1. Each poster has to feature a quote by a feminist. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a woman, but there are already plenty of posters highlighting the words of dudes, so we figured that one was covered already.

2. Said feminist must be deceased. (Hence the name.) You’d be surprised how many challenges that’s created for us.

3. Each quote is tied into a current sociopolitical issue or event. This is usually Jessica’s job, as she’s got a particular knack for finding relevant quotes.

4. The whole piece (except the colophon at the bottom, of course) is hand-drawn.

5. We try to stay away from well-worn tropes like “women can do anything men can do!” in favor of broader topics and concepts.

Who knows how long people will be interested in these things, or how many broadsides there’ll be in the series—all we can say is that we’re grateful for the response people have had, and we’re having way too much fun to quit now. The fun of art-making and the joy of the public response aside, the best part of creating this series has been exploring the lives and work of so many inspirational people. “Feminism” has become somewhat of a dirty word these days—mostly because of misconceptions. To us it’s a positive thing, and creating this series is our way of celebrating those who championed far more than just gender equality. Besides, we’d like to make our own contribution to our social history—and using the “power of the press” in the literal sense is the best way we know how.

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Coming in part two: the nitty gritty details behind our process.

 

Thea returns

Process drawings for "Tugboat Thea" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

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.

Process drawings for "Tugboat Thea" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

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!