Blog
April 23rd, 2012
Oh, man. I’m beat. You people plum wore me out this time. Every year I keep thinking we can’t possibly top the previous one, but Wayzgoose just keeps getting better and better. And this year, the weather was so unbelievably good* that I think half of Tacoma (plus a good portion of Seattle and a smattering of Portland) put on their walking shoes and marched into our midst.
*See all those pairs of sunglasses? That straw hat? You don’t see those much ’round these parts. We’re the pasty-rainy vampire people, remember? Sunshine in April = naw, son, you must be dreaming.
To put it another way: it was absolute crazy sauce.
Or maybe it was just that the word is fully out now about our little printers’ party. After all, the Weekly Volcano said last week, “There are otherwise button-down, Wonder-bread, vanilla South Sounders who lose their ever-lovin’ shizz over Wayzgoose.” Amen, bros.
Big thanks to everyone who showed up to the party (even if I didn’t get a chance to thank you in person); to the Tacoma Arts Commission for being our fairy godparents; to the small army of adorable volunteers who kept everything chuggin’ along; to Rosemary Ponnekanti at the News Tribune for the write-up; to Kyle Durrie for making an appearance in her travelin’ Type Truck; and to sweet pea Flaherty and Jessica Spring for making it all happen.
Speaking of Jessica, I think I laid eyes on her all of twice, all day. She was scurrying around and herding cats outside, while I was camped behind a steady stream of folks at our adjacent tables (thanks, y’all!). There wasn’t even room to sneak a hip shot of how many people were shoehorned in there, so the only photos I could snag were right at the beginning before folks showed up, or at the end, when people finally started to clear out.
I know this doesn’t look like a big crowd, but trust me—it was a total sardine can in there. (Or clown car, if you prefer circus metaphors. I know I do.) But when the room is packed with all your favorite Northwesterners, it’s a win-win.
Among the talented regulars was my lovely friend Keegan (and of course, Atticus, who frequently thinks he’s a pirate parrot. Yarr!).
There was also a very special newcomer this year. My former student Sara caught the letterpress bug, and caught it bad. In less than three years since she took my class, she and her husband Brad (pictured) have gone from newbie nestlings to fully-fledged, successful business owners. Sigh. My kids are all grown up and making a hand-printed ruckus! It does my heart good.
Outside, the steamroller prints were better than ever. (Special shout-out to Audra Laymon for her goatey Blueberry Park print! I think a hundred people heard me squeal when I saw it.)
Jessica and I decided to sit out the steamroller this year to make room for a few new folks, and that turned out to be a smart move. Just standing at my table for six+ hours hobbled me like an arthritic old woman—I don’t think my knee would have been up to printing. My only regret was not being able to witness much of the spectacle this year.
I did sneak outside long enough to learn that Tacoma’s own Arts Commissioners had been pressed into service (heckuva job, Scott!)—
and that the print quality was the tastiest it’s ever been, thanks to some tweaked techniques Jessica gleaned from our day in San Francisco last fall.
Attendance reached a new record this year—I think we’re an official Tacoma institution now. Mr. sweet pea says the count of men, women, children, babies and beasties approached the 1,000 mark!
(R.J. says: Word to your mother.)
April 9th, 2012
When Jessica and I were in North Carolina last summer, we had just enough sightseeing time to squeeze in a short trip along the aptly-named Blue Ridge Parkway.
Between the dappled sunlight,
the lush Southern greenery,
and the unexpected splashes of color,
we were enchanted in an instant.
(I, for one, was tempted to do a little Katniss Everdeen impression—just run away from it all and head for the hills.)
It wasn’t hard to imagine sitting down and breaking out the paper and paints, with all that blue haze as inspiration.
The folks at the nearby Penland School of Craft certainly agree. Since Lucy Morgan founded it in 1929, Penland has become a national center for craft education. Widely respected for its preservation of handcraft traditions, Penland is centered on total-immersion study and both traditional and experimental techniques. Settled in a quiet pocket of the Blue Ridge Mountains, it’s an inspiring setting for focused work. Thanks to its reputation and location, the school attracts some of the country’s best artists and fine craftspeople to study and teach in the Penland studios.
So you can imagine how thrilled and honored Jessica and I were when they asked us to come and teach a letterpress workshop there this summer.
We’ll be teaching a one-week printing intensive, and doing our very best to turn the printshop upside down. This ain’t your grandpa’s letterpress. Here are the details:
Letterpress: Old Dog, New Tricks
A printmaking intensive with Chandler O’Leary and Jessica Spring
Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC
Summer Session 7: Aug. 26 to Sept. 1, 2012
In the class, we’ll work with both hand-set type (don’t worry, we won’t monkey with any linotype machines…) and photopolymer plates to produce editioned prints that combine the two techniques.
We’re going to get pretty technical, pretty fast, but don’t worry—the workshop is open to all levels of experience. That way we can bring letterpress newbies up to speed quickly, and give more experienced printers the chance to go nuts and geek out with us.
“Unnatural Light” by Jessica Spring
You’ll be doing some death-defying typesetting by hand, using Jessica’s acrobatic techniques,
On a Mission Dead Feminist print
and I’ll teach you the ropes of designing for photopolymer, so you can throw a three-ring hand-drawn circus into the mix.
So get thee to the mountains and join us! Registration is open now, but don’t wait too long—the class is capped at 12 students.
See you in North Carolina! Save me some grits, will you?
April 6th, 2012
Last Sunday, to raise funds for the upcoming Wayzgoose, we had a little “Wayz & Means” film festival celebrating all things letterpress. Even though the show’s over, the main event of Wayzgoose itself is still on deck. So as a little warm-up to get you in the printing mood, I thought I’d share a couple of the films we featured.
First up is an animated short I first saw over a year ago, at the Codex Bookfair in California. I’m pleased to announce that Old Time Film, by Barbara Tetenbaum and Marilyn Zornado, is finally viewable online! So let’s get this party started:
Oh, man. I love that. If you want your very own copy of the film (trust me, you do—there’s a little making-of featurette on the DVD), you can purchase it here. No, Barb and Marilyn aren’t paying me to hawk their movie—I’m just a believer, that’s all.
I’ll leave you with one of my very favorite episodes of The Twilight Zone, circa 1963, where a gleefully terrifying Burgess Meredith gets a newspaper job as the world’s fastest linotype caster. There’s a catch, though: Mr. Smith has a secret. To get in on it, you need to understand the little letterpress inside joke behind the episode’s title.
You see, a typesetter’s inky hands (and quite possibly the inflammatory writ published by the early masters) earned printing the moniker “the Black Art.” So there are all sorts of clever nicknames to go with that title. For instance, a letterpress apprentice was called a “printer’s devil,” and old, broken type gets thrown in the “hell box” to await being melted down. The list goes on.
Get it yet?
Well, watch and you’ll see what I mean. (Gaah! That face.)
Da, da, daaaaaa!
Join us on April 22 for the Wayzgoose, and get in on the devilish fun.
Eighth Annual Wayzgoose
Sunday, April 22 • 11 am to 4 pm • Free!
King’s Books • 218 St. Helens Ave. • Tacoma, WA
In the meantime, I’m going to practice lighting cigars with my index finger.
March 26th, 2012
In between a whole host of deadlines I’m juggling at the moment, I’m exhibiting in the Woolworth Windows again, thanks to Spaceworks Tacoma.
Hillside Sketchbook
Artist book installation by Chandler O’Leary
On view through June 30
Woolworth Windows at 11th and Broadway
Downtown Tacoma, WA
Like last time, I’m creating an installation that comes together in real time. This time, though, I’m not painting in a glass box—I’m doing one huge drawing of a Tacoma hillside that’s made up of many dozens of tiny watercolor sketches. The sketches are done on different days, in all weather conditions and through changing seasons, and are tacked up in the window as they’re finished. The scene grows and takes shape like a puzzle being put together piece-by-piece. So go take a look—and come back often. Tacomans: can you figure out which viewpoint I’m drawing from?
I’ll be posting more photos here as the installation comes together. In the meantime, check out the post about the project on the Spaceworks blog.
November 30th, 2011
This fall my alma mater asked me to illustrate the cover of its alumni magazine. Since the issue’s theme was the spectrum that books occupy these days (from hand-bound artist books to e-readers), it was right up my alley.
As usual (see above, I’m nuts), everything is completely hand-drawn, including the magazine’s masthead. (Major thanks to my editor at RISD for having faith in me on that one—and not sending the Brand Police after me for monkeying with the logo!) I wanted the design to be reminiscent of illuminated manuscripts and their younger printed cousins designed by William Morris. If you look closely, though, there’s a twist:
Tech gadgets, ripe on the vine.
(Sorry, William.)
November 27th, 2011
Hot off the press and just in time for this year’s holiday season, I’m proud to present a mini flock of letterpress bird ornaments!
Just like the larger prints in my Flock series, each one of these is printed from a hand-carved linoleum block.
Then each was individually hand-painted with watercolor (which, I’m not afraid to tell you, is painstaking in the extreme!),
and then hand-cut, hand-assembled, and signed/dated.
There are six songbirds in the set—a northern cardinal,
a black-capped chickadee (you might recognize him from our Thanksgiving table!),
a chipping sparrow,
a common yellowthroat,
a dark-eyed junco,
and a mountain bluebird.
Here’s the catch: they are extremely limited-edition. I only printed 100 sets, so once they’re gone, they’re gone. So flap on over to the shop and pick up your set before they fly away for good.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to deck some halls!
November 7th, 2011
Every three months my all-time favorite magazine, Uppercase, arrives in my mailbox, and productivity in the studio comes to a screeching halt while I drool over each gorgeous page. I’ve been a subscriber since almost the very beginning (if only I could get my paws on those first two sold-out issues!), and impossibly, every new issue is even lovelier than the one before.
So you can imagine my giddy delight to be included in the latest installment. They had a submissions call for a feature on “labor-intensive illustration,” which was so squarely up my alley that I had to laugh at myself. But I never imagined my little birds would actually be accepted—let alone given a full page. A letterpress colleague received her copy a day or two ahead of me and tipped me off, and I swear I did a little dance around the room.
UPPERCASE is the brainchild of a gallery by the same name in Calgary, Alberta. The magazine is tailor-made for anyone with a creative soul; every page is devoted to sharing visual inspiration, shedding light on obscure or vintage art and design work, and detailing the work lives and creative spaces of people who do what they love for a living.
The whole thing is a perfect mix of vintage nostalgia and cutting-edge design, all wrapped up in a sumptuously printed package. If only everything in the world had this much thought and craft behind it.
But my favorite—I mean, favourite—parts of the magazine are the recurring features. There’s an abecedary in every issue, each with a different theme (which does my bookish heart good), as well as a series of collections of vintage objects: bottle caps, cereal boxes, even alarm clocks and fishing lures.
This magazine is truly a thing of beauty, and I hope it’s around for me to keep my subscription going for many years—and issues—to come.
October 30th, 2011
Who is this, I wonder?
You should see the piles of things, er, occupying (hint!) my drafting table this month. You see, Art at Work month is almost here, and I’m scrambling to get ready for all the events coming down the pike.
First up is Studio Tour, that crazy-amazing weekend where it seems like half of Tacoma (the entirely wonderful half, as it turns out) stops by for a visit. This is my third time on the circuit, but our fair city is celebrating its tenth fabulous year of shop crawls and arts extravaganzas. So stop on by next weekend—you can print your own letterpress keepsake (trust me, they’re über cool this year!), pick up free Tacoma swag (better get here early, because it’ll disappear fast), shop for a whole bunch of brand new art and handmade items, and be the first to catch our brand new Dead Feminist, a mystery maiden indeed.
10th Annual Tacoma Studio Tour
Saturday and Sunday, November 5 and 6
10 am to 4 pm, Free!
For more info, full artist list, maps and directions, see here
Look! New stuff!
If you can’t make it to Studio Tour, you can catch a whole bunch of Tacoma artists at the annual Tacoma is for Lovers Craft Fair, put together by the lovely folks at Indie Tacoma and Tacoma is for Lovers. Jessica and I will be sharing a table both days, and it’ll stuffed to the brim with bunly goodness illustrated and letterpress goodies.
Tacoma is for Lovers Craft Fair
Saturday and Sunday, November 19 and 20
11 am to 4 pm, Free!
King’s Books
218 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma
Last but not least, a gigantic virtual heart-shaped thank you to everyone who made a pledge to fund the Apocalypse Calendar! The project is officially a “go,” and we’ll be on press in November. We’re expecting to ship calendars and Kickstarter rewards in early December, and you’ll find calendars in various retail shops this holiday season. If you missed the Kickstarter project, you’ll be able to place online orders here, starting later this week.
Happy Halloween, and see you in November!
October 5th, 2011
Just wanted to give you a peek at what the studio looks like these days. I try not to think about it too hard, because I officially unveiled the thing almost a year ago, but I’m still working on my book.
Big dang pile of box parts; coffee cup for scale.
You see, it’s one thing to get the prototype done for the exhibition, but when you’re making an edition of books, that means you have to finish all the rest of the copies, too.
Obviously, I have my work cut out for me.
October 1st, 2011
It’s hard to think of a better weekend activity than taking a quick trip to San Francisco.
First of all, Jessica and I got to visit the lovely Sarah and Jesse, who live here—
and whose back yard contains this.
And then we got to raise a fantastic ruckus and make guerrilla street art with a whole bunch of people looking on.
SFCB’s got this thing down to a science. Between the small army of volunteers who took care of the inking and registration (line-up),
and their probably-patented methods for keeping street schmutz off the prints, the results were impressive. In fact, this is my fourth steamroller print (and Jessica’s fifth), and I’ve never seen one turn out this well before.
Photos of us by Jesse Mullan
Besides, we really needed to keep our hands clean this time, because we upped our personal ante and just plunked ourselves down on the sidewalk for a bit of on-the-fly hand-coloring (though avoiding the very wet ink felt kind of like playing Twister).
That turned out to be the perfect tag-team job, actually. I do a lot of hand-coloring when I print, as you know, but never anything this big—
having two sets of hands to blend colors and two sets of eyes to look for missed spots was definitely the way to go.
So thar she blows. Let me introduce you to Eliza Thorrold, and our latest honorary Dead Feminist print, Even Keel. Eliza was the first licensed female tugboat master on San Francisco Bay. After Charles, her husband who piloted the Ethel & Marion before her, died an untimely death, she fought for and received her operator’s license to continue their tug business in his stead and provide for her family. Her quote says it all: “My circumstances compel me to become master of my own boat.” Hear, hear, Eliza.
After she left the high seas and entered retirement as a landlubber, she became master of her own taffy pull by opening a successful ice cream and candy shop with her son. Hence all that salt water taffy. And as if the nautical sweet-shop theme weren’t enough, we couldn’t resist throwing in all our favorite things about San Francisco. So go hunting around the image, and see what you turn up. Then, on your next trip to the City by the Bay, learn more about Eliza’s life (and those of other women mariners) at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.
So, yeah. It might not fit the traditional idea of a productive weekend, but it’ll do. We came away with new friends, blue fingertips and a whole lot of ideas to make our own humble little steamroller party better.
Many thanks to all the staff and volunteers of the San Francisco Center for the Book, who made the day a smashing success—
and to all the kindred spirits who lent a whole bunch of helping hands. Like the super-nice TSA employee who took such great care of our linoleum block and didn’t bat an eye that we had to bring something so huge and bizarre onto an airplane. Like Sarah, who manned our table; and Jesse, who shot most of the photos; and the huge, huggable posse of Jessica’s extended family, who helped schlep things and kept us company and bought us beignets. And especially Jessica’s ten-year-old niece, Luciana, who basically designed our table arrangement. ‘Ciani, you’re one awesome ragazza.
And of course, to Eliza—thanks for standing proud at the helm.
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