It’s almost here! Pile of Craft is coming up this Saturday, June 26 from 10-5 at 2640 St Paul Street. There will be over 40 vendors selling everything imaginable, printmaking and letterpress demonstrations, coffee and snacks, plus a FREE PHOTOBOOTH for taking (free!) crazy prop-filled photos. As part of the Charm City Craft Mafia, I’m in full-on craft show mode now- printing programs, making sure we have enough decorations, helping out with last minute issues- tomorrow is setup and then it’s Saturday! I hope to see everyone there- come check out the new coasters and reduction woodcut print!

Soufriere, St Lucia

A new print- this is a  4-color reduction woodcut, based on a house I saw in St Lucia. These were printed on the Vandercook Universal 1, which allows for perfect registration throughout the entire printing process. I’ll be posting the different stages of a reduction woodcut to illustrate how the image is created from one block of wood.

Prints are $75 and will be available at Pile of Craft or soon through the website.

Painted and ready to re-assemble!

The nameplate (also holds the roller arms in place). I’m using a satin black (gloss was too shiny for me- this looks older.) Someday all the parts will look like this, with nice shining metal parts, and maybe some gold and red decoration, depending on how long it takes to get this baby working again. Although I don’t think C&P’s had any decorative painting, someone please correct me if I’m wrong and send pictures

The other newest addition to the shop is a hundred-year-old foil stamping press, which just needs a little cleaning and a sturdy table built to hold it. Gold-foil coasters, anyone?

Primed to protect against rust.

Chase hook, part of the system that moves the ink disk, and the part that holds the throw-off lever on. Go Rustoleum.

Cleaned up, with flaking paint removed.

The ink disk holder, guard, ink disk, and throw-off lever, after much scrubbing with a wire brush and de-greasing. Ready for priming!

Step 1: Dirty. Rusty. In serious need of WD-40.

Next few posts are going to be a step-by-step look at the process of cleaning up the C&P (as far as I’d gotten as of last weekend.)

Sadly, this is the vast majority of the press right now- dirty.

Here’s a preview of the latest project- we’re printing coasters!

This set is 4 woodblocks- this is a scan of the actual blocks, carved and ready for proofing.

Coasters

There will also be a set of ocean coasters designed by Chad Clikeman! Come see these at the Charles Village Festival, June 5th at the corner of Charles and 29th!

Bowerbox Press will also be showing at the Pile of Craft and Artscape- check back for more details soon.

I found a post about 3 books by Leonard Baskin coming to market at a rare book fair- the “super-limited” numbers in the edition. So, perhaps, out of 20 books total produced, numbers 1-4 would have an extra couple of prints, and an actual plate from the edition- a copperplate, or a woodblock. As one of my ideas had been to sell the blocks themselves, this is an interesting concept- and maybe, when I’m done my alphabet birds, there will be some super-limited offerings of the book with one of the original blocks included.

Image from Lux Mentis

If you’re lucky enough to be going to The New York Antiquarian Book Fair, you should check it out at Lux Mentis’s booth.

… is finished! This print was debuted at the BMA’s Print Fair last weekend. A companion print to The Raven, it measures 15×21 inches and is printed from a woodcut and polymer plate. The woodcut (bird, title and border) was carved in aspen and inked up by hand; then the block is sent through the etching press for printing. After drying overnight, I added the text on the Vandercook- this poster size maxes out the press (time for a bigger one?)

Yes, the original poem is in French- many thanks to Abigail Uhteg for the French translation (which I changed slightly to my own liking.)

Available for purchase for $125; ships rolled in a sturdy tube via Fedex.