Blog
April 17th, 2015
Already 2015 is shaping up to be a year of new projects and lots of changes—I have a barrage of new things to share with you, but rather than bombard you with everything all at once, I’ll stick to just a couple for now. For one thing, I’m excited to announce that a selection of my prints and stationery is part of the Shoppe collection at Scoutmob! So these days my normal stack of packages leaving the studio each week has gotten considerably taller.
Scoutmob is a curated online marketplace of goods by independent makers all over the country. Everything on Scoutmob is made by artist-entrepreneurs—small businesses run by makers like me. So when they invited me to be a part of the collection, I felt like I was in good company. I’m inspired by the diversity of goods being made by independent artists—Scoutmob has everything from cards to art to jewelry to housewares to food and drink—and the collection is constantly changing and being updated. So whether you’re new to Scoutmob, or you’re a seasoned shopper looking for new favorites, stop by my Shoppe!
In other news, I’ve been selected for a Tacoma Artist Initiative Program (TAIP) funding award from the Tacoma Arts Commission! This is the second time I’ve been funded by the Arts Commission (the first time was for my Local Conditions artist book)—and this time I’ll be creating a new body of work called Farm to Table.
As you can see above, I’ve been interested in agricultural imagery for some time, and the subject has been creeping into my work for years. This time, though, I’ll be focusing an entire series of illustrations on local, sustainable farming. I’ll be developing a collection of prints and cards in the next two years, and the project will culminate in a solo exhibition in October 2016. Look for more info and new images soon!
April 13th, 2015
You’ll have to excuse the grainy photos—snapping pictures in the basement is never ideal. But this shelf sure is—last week the Tailor built me an enormous inventory storage system, and over the weekend I finally organized my entire stock of stationery. It’s hard to see the scale here, but this monster is about 8 x 7 x 3 feet in size. (Not pictured: the giant metal print cabinets that haven’t arrived in the post yet, which will take up the rest of that whole wall.) I am one happy camper.
One of the pitfalls of manufacturing your own line of products is finding room to store the stuff you make. It’s only cost-effective to produce cards in quantities of 1000 or so—and when you multiply that by dozens of different items, you suddenly need a staggering amount of space for it all. For years I’d been limping along, sharing my workspace with my storage space, and making use of what little square footage I had by stashing items into shared boxes and then shifting and stacking and repacking those boxes endlessly. Every time I made a new product, I had to divide it amongst whatever nooks and crannies had a little space free. Reordering stock when it ran low was a nightmare, as I first had to check and make sure I didn’t have extra quantities hiding anywhere. More shifting and stacking and repacking ensued. And every time I did a live event, like a craft fair or Studio Tour, the prospect of taking everything out and putting it all back again made me want to tear my hair out.
So this, by comparison, feels downright luxurious. Now that we’re in the new house, I finally have separate spaces for working and storage. The studio (another work-in-progress, which is why I haven’t posted about it yet) is just for making things, and I have two annex spaces to house the things I make. For the first time ever, I can store the entire quantity of each item, and display every item for easy access. Now that it’s done, all I want to do is spend the day staring my new tiny OCD kingdom.
And best of all, there’s plenty of room to grow. I have big plans for the next few years, and not only can I see what sorts of things lie ahead—I can also see exactly where they’re all going to go.
December 16th, 2014
Every day this month I’ve brought a stack of packages like this to the post office, fulfilling orders and sending my goods to every corner of the country and beyond. Normally this is the week that the orders taper off, as folks finish off their Christmas list or the holiday USPS deadline looms. This year, though, the orders are still coming in thus far, at an astonishing rate that keeps me busy the whole day, every day.
So I just wanted to pause a moment to say thank you—for your support for what I do, for your support of small and local businesses like mine, and of artisans of every stripe who make their living from what they create. I can’t begin to express what that means to me—except to keep making things, in the hope that it’ll mean something to you, too.
November 17th, 2014
Slowly but surely, this place is beginning to look like home.
Good thing, because the days are absolutely flying by,
the weeks passing me in a blur of time.
Neither the Tailor nor I could really take any time off from work for our move, so we can only settle in a little at a time. There are so many boxes to unpack, fixtures to mend, hidden spots to clean, surprises to deal with, infrastructure to set up—a million things to build and scrub and fix and dismantle and assemble and purchase and beautify and polish and rewire and dig up and plant and patch and strip and undo and restore and set up just so. Some parts of the house are perfect as they are; others need attention immediately; still others will just need to be lived with as-is for some years, until we can get around to tackling them. If I think about any of it too long, I go a little mad.
So for now, we’re focusing on the corners. There isn’t a single room that’s done yet, but little corners here and there are starting to shape up nicely.
These images, then, are little glimpses of what my days have been like lately, of the moments that have alternately focused and fragmented my attention.
Through it all, work goes on, as close to uninterrupted as I can make it,
while the hum of everyday life picks back up around me.
I’ve gotten in the habit lately of keeping my camera on a shelf behind my work table. It’s a good reminder that while forward momentum is nice—
—I need to remember to stop every now and again and take a good look at where I stand.
October 12th, 2014
This weekend was the biggest and best Studio Tour yet—and I even remembered to take pictures!
Well, sort of, anyway. I managed to document my space for the last time,
but then chaos took over. It’s a good thing I bought just about every last organic jellybean in the city of Tacoma, because we needed them!
This was the only “action shot” I managed to grab all day—most of the time it was so packed there wasn’t room to stand on anything to snap a quick photo. We blew last year’s record out of the water, with well over 200 visitors this year!
And then afterward the only photo I managed was the view from the floor, where I lay in a heap.
To everyone who came to bid the old house farewell, as well as the many new folks who stopped by for the first time, thank you so much for making the weekend an enormous success. It feels so good to be a part of such a supportive and enthusiastic community—I would not be able to do what I do without you.
And I’m already thinking up ideas for 2015. See you next year, at the new studio!
October 9th, 2014
I know I’ve been a little quiet online lately, but it’s certainly not quiet around my house. This is the state of things right now—at least in the back half of the house. The Tailor and I are moving to a new house/studio in just over a week (still in Tacoma! Just a couple of miles away is all…).
To give my studio of the past six years a proper send-off, I’m doing one last Studio Tour at the old house, this weekend. (Don’t worry, this isn’t my last Studio Tour—next year it’ll be at the new house.) Since the event is a month earlier from now on, we’re all crossing our fingers for better weather! I’ll have my fancy hand-crank die cutter set up for folks to make a take-home keepsake, and there’ll be new artwork and goodies for sale, as always. Here are the details:
13th Annual Tacoma Studio Tours
Saturday and Sunday, October 11 and 12, 2014
11 am to 5 pm, free!
(Anagram Press studio is #18 on the tour)
More info and maps available here
See you this weekend!
September 1st, 2014
For those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile, you’ve probably noticed the change of decor around here. Well, more than that, really—this website has been completely overhauled from stem to stern (big thanks to Erik and Kevin for making that happen!). And it’s not just because I needed a change of pace—I did it to mark an occasion.
Anagram Press, my little business and studio moniker, is now ten years old. Ten! I can’t believe I’ve been doing this for a decade already—it still feels like I’ve only just started. (It definitely feels like I’m still figuring things out!) 2004 doesn’t seem so long ago to me, but I didn’t even have a website then—nor even a studio space to call my own. I spent the first few years balancing my work with a day job, and only went full-time with my business after a cross-country move to start over in a place where I didn’t know anybody. (Pro tip: that is the absolute hardest way to start a business.) Yet somehow, it worked out, and here I am, happily drawing and painting and printing away, as ever.
No matter how much time has gone by, or how much experience I’ve gained, my business would be nothing if not for you. Some of you have been along for the ride since the very beginning—others have happened here just recently (welcome!). As a little thank-you for your support, I’ve set up a coupon code for my new online shop: 10% off all letterpress prints and cards,* through the end of September. To use the coupon, add your item(s) to your card, then simply enter the code “tenyears” on the Shopping Cart page and hit the “Apply Coupon” button.
Thank you so much for joining me on this little journey of mine—I can’t wait to see what the next ten years will bring.
* The fine print: coupon is only good on items in the “letterpress prints” and “cards & stationery” categories. Does not apply to tax or shipping. Expires on September 30, 2014.
August 18th, 2014
Life around here is pretty frantic this week, while I finish up a bunch of projects and get ready for new ones appearing over the horizon. Since the thought of telling you about them in coherent paragraph format gives me hives (as I can’t even wrap my own brain around them all yet!), here’s what’s going on this week, in a simple, handy-dandy list:
1. Jessica and I have (finally) finished printing the new Dead Feminist broadside! All the prints are signed, numbered, bagged and ready to go. All I have to do is finish writing all the things that go with it (shop copy, blog post, email newsletter, etc.)—so look for it here in the next couple of days.
2. If you’re local, this Thursday I’ll be doing a little demo of my Local Conditions artist book at the Tacoma Art Museum. The book is currently in the Ink This! exhibit at TAM, but as it’s in a glass case, it’s not possible to actually interact with the book. So as part of the free Third Thursday activities, I’ll have my prototype copy of the book to demonstrate with, as well as a sampling of my process materials. I’ll be there from 5 to 8 on Thursday (though I’d suggest getting there closer to 5 so you don’t miss stuff!); TAM is located at 1701 Pacific Avenue in downtown Tacoma.
3. The lovely guys over at The Artist Rolls have featured me in a podcast! Jamie and Sean have a little different way of doing things for their interviews—they have each guest roll dice before each question, like you might in a role-playing game, and the results determine the course of the interview. We had a great conversation about process, the roles artists play (get it?), and the Whale of Preparedness—and they even let me draw pictures all over my data sheet. I hope you’ll have as much fun listening as we did chatting—you can stream it here, or you can download it for free from the iTunes Store. Thanks, Sean and Jamie!
4. I’ve got a new solo exhibit opening in mid-September, at the Tacoma Public Library’s Handforth Gallery. It’s a show of my sketchbook drawings from Drawn the Road Again, with a special emphasis on roadside attractions (can you hear me cackling already?!). Look for more info here soon, but for now you can get your feet wet by reading a new series of features on the travel site Atlas Obscura. They started with an interview about Drawn the Road, and last Friday began a series of weekly features on my roadside attractions posts. Each post will go into more depth about each attraction, using my sketch(es) as a starting point. It’ll be the perfect companion to my exhibit—and a great alternative for everyone who can’t see the show in person.
Whew! That’s it for the moment…back with more soon.
August 14th, 2014
For months now I’ve been busy drafting ideas, scribbling sketches and painting—painting and painting and painting!—icons for a new project I’m working on with my friend Sonja. We’re still keeping a pretty tight lid on things for now, but we’ll be launching soon, so she gave me the green light to show you these little snippets.
Any guesses??
July 21st, 2014
It’s that time again—Jessica and I are hard at work on the next Dead Feminist broadside. Actually, we’ve been hard at work on this piece for months already. I think it’s safe to say that this piece has the most research and labor behind it than any we’ve done so far.
There’s a lot at stake this time, and we want to get things right. And besides—as you can see, the piece is chock full of teeny tiny bits, and the registration is going to be tight. So we’re doubling down on the proofreading skills and triple-checking every detail.
Now the design is done, I just sent out the finished files for the plates, and we’ll be on press starting this week. More soon!
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