Category: Events

April 30, 2013

Steam punks

Note: this is an excerpt of the Wayzgoose post over on Chandler’s studio blog. You can read the full post about the event here.

Wayzgoose worked like a well-oiled machine this year—and that’s the way we like it. (Even if we were just a little extra tired afterward.)

Photo by Victoria Bjorklund

And it’s no wonder we were so tired. This year, we added something a little different to the mix—just like we did in 2011 in San Francisco. After Jessica inked up the block…

Photo by Victoria Bjorklund

…and the steamroller packed its punch…

Photo by Victoria Bjorklund

…I set up shop across the parking lot, adding a few hand-colored touches to the piece.

Here’s the finished product—and for those of you who don’t happen to live in T-town, I’ll need to provide a little back-story. You probably recognize the reference to Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, but there’s a second tribute to pop artist Andy Warhol, as well. And I’m not just talking about Venus herself—to whom Warhol did pay homage in 1984.

You see, over thirty years ago now, Warhol was one of several artists to propose a permanent public artwork to adorn the roof of the Tacoma Dome. Not only was his proposal rejected at the time, but the whole project resulted in an enormous backlash of public opinion, insurance nightmares and political in-fighting—which literally derailed the city’s entire public art program for nearly two decades afterward. Fast-forward to today: not only is our public art program back in the saddle and going strong, but now there’s a growing movement to put Warhol’s flower on the Dome after all—which, in fact, would be the world’s largest Warhol original.

Whom do we have to thank for both the…uh…Renaissance of our public art program, and the push to bring Warhol back? Our wonderful City Arts Administrator, Amy McBride (click to see her talk about the Warhol story)—who, incidentally, drove the steamroller that printed our Venus linocut on Sunday.

How’s that for coming full-circle, huh?

Many thanks to everyone who stopped by on Sunday, and to Amy and the Tacoma Arts Commission for continuing to make art happen—both for Wayzgoose and for Tacoma.

February 12, 2013

The view from where I stand

Right now I’m in California, manning my table and representing the Dead Feminists at the Codex Book Fair. But I have to say, it’s a little hard to concentrate.

I mean, not only am I surrounded by incredible work by a couple hundred artists—but just look at this space! We’re in a new venue this year, and it is absolutely spectacular.

Plus, we’re literally right on the water (really—the pavilion sits right on a pier), so as if all the artwork here weren’t distraction enough, all anyone has to do is just gaze out the window.

Now, it’s a good thing my studio isn’t in a place like this—I don’t think I’d ever get any work done!

September 12, 2012

Penland sketchbook

Since Jessica and I got back from teaching at the Penland School of Crafts, I’ve been struggling to put the experience into words. But no matter how I go on about how beautiful the Blue Ridge Mountains are; or how unique Penland’s creative culture is; or how amazingly talented each and every one of our students were; or how seriously delicious a hot bowl of cheese grits is after a walk in the chilly morning fog; or how many wonderful people we met; or how much we loved the challenge of basically teaching two classes in one intense week—well, I get a little incoherent. So I’ll let my sketchbook do the talking. (I kept a little notebook in my apron pocket all week, and every time I had a second to spare, I was scribbling away.)

In short: we can’t wait to go back. Huge thanks to the lovely folks at Penland for hosting us and creating such a wonderful place to learn and make things; to our seven fabulous students for their enthusiasm and willingness to dive right in; and to our angelic friend Mary-Alice for being the absolute hands-down best teaching assistant the world has ever seen. Hope to see y’all again soon!

August 29, 2012

Mountain dispatch

All I can manage is a quick note today—because this is where I am right now … and this place has got me pretty speechless.

I’m here teaching with Jessica this week, with a studio full of smart, sassy, and seriously talented women.

The class has got us inspired to stay up late printing every night, but it’s hard to feel tired—

—when you’ve got this view waiting for you when you return to work every morning.

April 9, 2012

Printing at Penland

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 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?

October 1, 2011

Even Keel

Jessica and I just got back from San Francisco, where we got to raise a fantastic ruckus and make guerrilla street art with a whole bunch of people looking on. It’s hard to think of anything better than that, actually.

The San Francisco Center for the Book invited us to be among the featured artists at their Roadworks festival this year.

We were pretty excited about that—not just because of the excuse to spend a weekend in San Francisco, but also because it’s the folks at SFCB who invented steamroller printing!

As you can probably imagine, SFCB has got this stuff 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 in my own work, 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.

UPDATE: We now have reproduction postcards available in the shop!

September 22, 2011

We heart SF

Splurging on a giant bag of salt water taffy is probably a weird way to research a new project, but I swear it’s relevant.

That’s right—Jessica and I are carving again. We’ve been invited by the good folks at the San Francisco Center for the Book (big shout-out to the amazing Rocket!) to be among the featured artist at their eighth-annual Roadworks festival this weekend! Needless to say, we’re super excited.

So if you’re in the Bay Area, swing on by the Potrero and check it out—it promises to be a real hootenanny. The party will be taking up a whole block, chock full of artist vendors, food carts, letterpress demos, and, of course, steamroller printing! And since these guys are rumored to be the original, no-kidding inventors of steamroller printing, they’ll show you how it’s done, for real. Here’s the scoop:

Roadworks 2011
Saturday, September 24
12 to 5 pm, Free!
Hosted by the San Francisco Center for the Book
Rhode Island Street, between 16th and 17th Streets
San Francisco, CA

As a bonus, stick around afterward for a gallery reception for the steamroller prints at 6 pm. There’ll be drinks, music, and a whole lot of loopy artists covered in ink.

We’ve designed a brand-new, San Francisco-themed, honorary Dead Feminist for the occasion. I won’t reveal who she is until we get back, but here’s a hint: she knew her way around a fo’c’sle and a taffy pull equally well.

And of course, in honor of our muse, we’ll be sharing that salt water taffy at our table. It’s the good stuff, we promise. (Well, we had to sample it, didn’t we?)

See you in San Francisco!

August 11, 2011

Feminists of letterpress

Virginia Woolf said that “a room of one’s own” was essential for women to do creative work—so imagine what 150 women could do with such a room. Jessica and I got to unveil our newest broadside at the first-ever Ladies of Letterpress Conference in Asheville, NC, where we were asked to speak about our series. It was unbelievably inspiring to stand in a room full of heavy equipment—

and even more exciting to help our fellow lady printers turn that room into a powerhouse. The conference was a smashing success, and we were both surprised and heartened to discover just how many of us are out there.

The three days of LofLCon were jam-packed with panel discussions, demos and presentations with the most prominent and skilled members of the letterpress community;

an exhibition to introduce us to a vast array of talent;

and a whole lot of hard-won know-how—like when to salvage an old press, and when to hold a funeral. (Sigh.)

Absorbing letterpress goodness by osmosis was wonderful—

—but the best part was meeting dozens of long-admired artists and brand-new, fresh faces alike.

I can’t express enough how excellent the weekend was—Jessica White and Kseniya Thomas (pictured here in white, giving a die-cutting demo on the platen press) deserve a standing ovation for organizing such a fabulous event, and wrangling so many printers to make it happen.

And for those hundred-plus people who shoehorned themselves into that tiny space to attend our Dead Feminists talk, we can’t thank you enough. Your support and enthusiasm for what we do was completely overwhelming—and it was so much fun to be able to get technical with y’all! (Sorry, the accent rubbed off a bit.)

One more thing: I know it somehow didn’t come across in my photos, but we were blown away by the sheer number of feminist fellas who came out of the woodwork and outed themselves as fans of the series. We love you guys—you make us feel like we must be doin’ something right. And thanks to the conference, we’re fired up and ready to get back to work.

August 3, 2011

Revolving door

With both of us traveling all over the country lately, this summer has had us scattered to the four winds. We’ve hardly seen each other all season, but we did manage to squeeze a little printing into our schedules between trips.

There’s just one compass point left to explore: Jessica and I are off to Asheville, NC for the first-ever Ladies of Letterpress Conference, finished goodies in hand. When we come back next week, we’ll have a new broadside for you and a whole lot of tales to tell.

Happy trails!

April 19, 2011

Goosed!

Holy flying gaggles, but we upped the ante this year!

I don’t know if it was the gorgeous sunshine that graced us after literally months of dreary rain—

—or Sweet Pea’s extra-awesome 2011 poncho—

but this year’s Wayzgoose was larger than life.

(In case you’re curious, that little Sigwalt press is inked up to print “I got goosed in Tacoma!” in an eye-frying safety orange that would make any Ducks Geese Unlimited hunter proud. I mean, come on—we have standards. This is some high-brow entertainment here.)

Anyway, speaking of geese…

Ta-daaaa!

As you can see, we took our little Dead Feminists theme somewhat loosely this time. And in fact, we’ve dubbed our print Lucy Goosey, so there! There is a bit of a story behind this one, though. We’ve been equal parts amused and annoyed by the recent crafty and pop-cultural trends involving moustaches and putting birds on things—and for months I’ve been threatening to put a moustache on a bird on something, just to prove a point. I don’t know what that point is, exactly, but I figured it was time to put my moustache where my mouth is.

Which reminds me:

we weren’t kidding about the ‘stache wax. Hey, if you’re going to go, go all out.

Jessica seemed perfectly at home while operating heavy machinery and sporting a full-on Wilford Brimley look—

I mostly just looked like Ned Flanders. Good God, but that mustache looks real on me. Sheesh!

That’s okay, though—synchronized inking is serious business, and we don’t mess around.

Many, many thanks to all the supporters, enthusiasts and volunteers who turned out in droves; to Katy Meegan and Mary Holste for snapping ‘stache shots for us;

to King’s for being the host with the most;

and to the Tacoma Arts Commission for sponsoring our steamroller shenanigans.

So … tell me.

Is it too soon to start cookin’ up next year’s ‘goose?