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How does your garden grow?

"P-Patch" letterpress broadside by Chandler O'Leary

A couple of months ago I was asked to create a letterpress broadside for a collaborative print portfolio for a show in Asheville, put together by the Ladies of Letterpress. The theme was Expanding Communities—beyond that, we could do anything we wanted. So I focused on a unique element of Seattle’s community: the P-Patch.

A P-Patch is a community garden like any other—and completely unlike any other. The name comes from the Picardo family, who converted their farm into the city’s first truly communal garden in the 1970s. So to this day, if you life in Seattle, you tend your p-patch, not your garden plot. That just charmed the heck out of me, and I wanted to create a tribute to it.

P-Patch is completely hand-lettered, as well as hand-painted with watercolor, in homage to the hard work required to maintain a thriving garden. Many thanks to the Ladies of Letterpress gals for inviting me to be a part of the portfolio—I can’t wait to see what everyone else came up with!