Urban Ore

I recently signed up for another workshop at the San Francisco Center for the Book, in which I'll learn to make my own polymer plates, including how to hand draw - or etch - designs onto the plates. The class should have been last week but was post-poned until mid next month (happily, the day before a Yann Tiersen concert and not the day of, as I feared). Kind of par for the course in terms of how easy or fast it's been to get my letterpress up and running.

Still, just when I think progress will never be achieved, I'm wrong.

One setback has been, despite its heft, that the press is relatively delicate and must be bolted onto a sturdy surface so that it does not tip over and break. This means I've been needing a new desk or table, which we are going to put, for now, into an already crowded room. But new adventures often have these romantic (or not so) beginnings, right?

My husband and I have been meaning to go furniture shopping for quite some time now. The press table needs to support nearly 200 lbs., be something we can drill holes through, fit into our apartment, and, have room for storage beneath.

So yesterday, on a beautiful and warm day, we began in Berkeley at Urban Ore. I had never been there before, and for so many people I know, this place is a gold mine. For others, it's merely a place to donate items you no longer want or need. Urban Ore re-sells, and cheaply, just about anything you could imagine. We walked through a yard of toilets, doors and windows, old VCRs and electronics, a graveyard of cassette tapes, costume jewelry, tubing for light bulbs, you name it.... Amidst it all, we found the furniture and, immediately, a perfectly-sized, sturdy old desk.



It's perfect as-is, including the rings from coffee mugs that have damaged the paint, and ZOOLOGY UC stamped into the side. The desk is going to, at some point, get ink on it, and continue down a path of being well used and worn.



We found what we were looking for so quickly, we spent our time afterward just wandering around:

The Impossible Project

Some time ago, on my facebook profile, I posted a link about The Impossible Project - where Impossible b.v. bought an old Polaroid factory with the intent of making a new kind of analog instant film. Thank goodness, because the last packs of Polaroid sold out quickly at Urban Outfitters and are crazy expensive on eBay.

For some reason, it took me a long time to look at The Impossible Project's shop, where they're selling a collection of "rare analog Polaroid treasures" - limited edition film in cool, colorful boxes designed by Paul Giambarba. Luckily, they're still in stock.

I have a modern Polaroid, so I use the most common film stock: 600. You can still get that old school feeling:

While also being able to benefit from remarkable quality:

I'm excited to finally have some new film on the way, and excited, too, to hear the fate and future of The Impossible Project, which will be announced at a press event in NYC on March 22, 2010.

Design*Sponge on Letterpressing

Design*Sponge, a blog I love, has a great post about making a letterpress printed product: here.

Images are from Design*Sponge. Please hop over and see the whole post there! The image in the bottom left corner is a tabletop platen press very similar to my own.

Rollers have arrived!

There is a saying that sometimes gives me great comfort: Even delays can prove beneficial.

I hope that is the case here. Though my excitement about my letterpress has not faded, it has been tempered by reality, which is to say that there are many things besides the press itself to consider.

But, at long last, the rubber rollers arrived!





I can't show them fitted on the press because the press needs adjusting - by, hopefully, a professional. If I mounted the rollers now, they'd knock against things they aren't meant to touch.

My Boxcar Base finally came too, after being back-ordered and then lost in the hubbub of the holidays.





It's heavy. And magnetic. Card designs and type will be turned into thin polymer plates that will mount onto this base. As beautiful as wood and metal type are, this nifty base eliminates the need for sets of fonts.

Sometimes small victories should be celebrated, no?  I have yet to find somewhere to put the press besides the living room floor, or a table large and strong enough to hold its weight, and I need to order some custom ink, and, certainly not last and not least - design something to be made into a printing plate!

Happy Valentine's Day!

This is a big weekend of holidays: Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year, President's day... Whatever you celebrate, wishing you a good weekend.

 

To quote Oly: "This is not an end, it's another new beginning."

The year of the ox ended with a family brunch, a night at the San Francisco ballet, viewing the Balanchine Masterworks (lovely!), and a delicious dinner and wine with girlfriends. The year of the tiger began just as beautifully. The sun is out and the air is warm. We had waffles for breakfast, read and napped in the sun, and will hole up soon in what's got to be San Francisco's smallest and coziest pizzeria. I feel very lucky.

Signs of Spring

There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon.  

                         ~ Matsuo Bashō

While the rest of the world is apparently carpeted in powder and experiencing a blizzard for the ages, sunny California is, well, mostly sunny. It's been raining a lot in San Francisco so flowers are beginning to replace the bare winter branches.

 

In the spirit of new beginnings, you'll notice I'm revamping my blog. Sometimes when stalled in one area of life, it's a good time to attack another area. I'm not quite done with the blog, and since I'm not sure when I will be (I have a lot more to learn but was helped immensely by Nichole of littlebrownpen, who takes gorgeous photographs, and sometimes of Paris!), I thought I'd leave the blog mostly up. Stay tuned.

new workspace!

Well, not really a new space, exactly, but a new way to be in the same space.

My husband and I share an office/studio space in one room of our apartment. He takes up most of it with his music equipment, but I have my own little corner. After we moved in, I began tacking up photos and greeting cards as inspiration, along with vintage maps of Paris and San Francisco. Eventually, though, it began to feel messy: the wall, the desktop, under and around the desk...

 

Then, around Christmastime, I received a calendar as a gift when I ordered Little Italy by Jennifer Altman, which is a lovely book of travel writing, recipes, and Polaroid photos taken in Italy (my reigning favorite country, with France, Mexico and England close behind). The calendar turned out to be equal in quality and beauty to the book. So, although I had at first envisioned adding the current month's photo to my motley collection of images, I changed my mind and decided I wanted them all up, year round. It's not only time for new inspiration, but for some order.

Although I can't seem to keep my desk clean or organized, no matter how hard I try, I have at least uncluttered the wall. Healthy habits start somewhere, right?