Unofficial Flower Week

I started this blog too early, perhaps, since I am not yet printing with my letterpress. I was joking to a friend of mine that it seems like all I want to do is post pictures of flowers and have been trying to resist.

Then, the very next morning Abby Try Again declared it unofficial flower week, so I'm getting my post in just in the nick of time. Independently of 'unofficial flower week' in the blogsphere, automatism and Roe have both recently shared lovely flower posts too.

San Francisco Ephemera

My husband sent me this great film clip (set to music, Air's "La Femme D'Argent") of old footage taken from a streetcar going down Market Street in 1905. That's right, 1905 - before the big earthquake.



I love the slow hustle and bustle, the way everyone seems to be going in every direction. It makes me feel rather small, the way we replace each other but the street remains.

Keeping Calm - With Wine

Inspired by the proliferation of the "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters currently sold as decor, this limited edition "Keep Calm and Drink Pinot" poster was purchased at our local wine bar: Internos Wine Cafe. It was created for a vintner's festival and the wine cafe has limited quantities for sale, in person.

The flowers, by the way, are rather unusual. Called pincushions, I believe, and picked up at our local grocery.

Keep Calm and Drink Pinot is a fun play on the original propaganda poster created by the British government during WWII. We have one of the Keep Calm and Carry On posters in gray, but you can buy them online and in multiple colors from sfgirlbybay's etsy shop. The poster is now public domain, and a brief history of its non-use during the war is here on Wikipedia.

The posters are trendy, yes. I will say, however, on less pleasant days or weeks, as these last couple have been, they do lend a moment of reflection and calm.

And: Other really cool, bossy prints:

~Make Art Not War
~Get Excited and Make Things

Guest posting today at Muse Silk Paintings!

Thanks to Angel of Muse Silk Paintings who invited me to post over here today. Less a sneak preview and more #11 on my 10 stylish stationary finds:

are these Gracias Cactus Letterpress note cards from delphine STUDIO. I just love them; they're stylish, but also fun and not too fancy. Just in time for the weekend, right? Thanks for visiting me at Muse Silk Paintings, and have a wonderful Friday, all.

Remember it Now: Field Notes

My husband was cleaning his music studio space recently. He found a little blank notebook and gave it to me:

It's a 48-page memo book, and they come in 3-packs at the Field Notes Shop with plain, ruled, or graph paper, or a mixture of all three inside. I don't know if it's the simplicity, vintage-y look, or just the sensible, small size of it that I like, but I'm almost afraid to write in mine. I'll get over it.

The company's site has the tagline: I'm not writing it down to remember it later, I'm writing it down to remember it now.

I love that. In truth, I rarely go back to look at my writing notebooks. It can be fun, but it's something about the act of writing that helps me remember. And if my memory fails, then I've got my bases covered.

Field Notes has a color series named, charmingly, "Packet of Sunshine Edition" available by subscription - for the serious note-taker.

There's also a Flickr group for Field Notes in Action. Here are a few of my favorite contributions:


~from riley_hopeman


~from tienvijftien


~from luz


~from le prince noir


~from revbean


~from beaucolburn

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.