Pile of Craft 2010

As a member of the Charm City Craft Mafia, I’d like to remind everyone that applications are open for Pile of Craft 2010!!!

CLICK HERE TO APPLY
Pile Of Craft is our annual juried Spring craft fair, featuring handmade and original items from 40+ talented artists from all over the country. Apparel, ceramics, handbags, jewelry, fine art, scuplture, homegoods and more - made by hand, sold by the artists themselves!
Want to be a vendor? You can APPLY HERE. Applications to Pile Of Craft 2010 are open until April 2 at midnight, and we will be announcing the accepted vendors by April 9th.

Find more information on CCCM at our new minty fresh website.

A sneak peek at a print in progress:

This will be a companion print to The Raven, printed on the same paper. It will feature the poem, L’Albatros (The Albatross) by Charles Baudelaire, and an English translation by Abigail Uhteg.

I’m carving this in a plank of aspen, which is fairly soft and easy to carve, but I’ve found that it holds detail very well. This size maxes out the Vandercook at Towson, but most likely I’ll be printing the woodcut by hand again to allow for two-color inking.

I hope to debut this print at the upcoming BMA Print Fair, which is coming up on March 27-28 at the Baltimore Museum of Art. I’ll be exhibiting some prints with the MICA table, along with other MICA alums Abby, Ursula, and Hillery.  Come say hi!

There’s a short post of an interview with Dave of the Read Street blog today- check it out! He’s interviewing artists who work with books that were at the recent ACC show. Nice little insights from the people who make and re-make books.

Bowerbox Press will be showcasing new Porthole Books at ACC.

Brown with clasp enclosure, Pennsylvania map:

Brown Porthole Book

Black handmade paper with magnet enclosure and Cape May nautical charts:

Black Porthole Book

Brown with Birmingham map:

Brown Porthole Book

(as long as the next snowpocalypse passes Baltimore by!)

Check out a link to photos showcasing some of the work you can see at the American Craft Council show this weekend in Baltimore:

Baltimore Sun

My Best Peacock card is the first photo! It’s exciting to see my work on other sites

Not all was wasted during the Snowpocalypse- Bowerbox Press was lucky enough to be snowed in with the new little letterpress, which is up and running. These notecards are printed from a woodblock in dark brown, and then each card is imprinted with text in blue or yellow, from various styles of hand-set type. The great thing about making little cards is that I can show off the odds and ends of type I have- many cases of which are missing letters, or are too sparse to set more than a sentence or two. With these cards I get to use the Craw Clarendon condensed that I only have in lowercase, from Paul Duensing’s shop; the italic Baskerville from Mark Carroll; and the italic Bulmer (soon to be joined by brand new (old) Bulmer still in the foundry packages. Plus I can play around with fun little cuts like the telephone.

"hello"

"thank you"

telephone

"tweet tweet"

Come see me at AltCraft Booth #7 at ACC next weekend and pick up a set of Talking Bird Notecards!

Joining the winter birds notecard set are some happy reminders that warmer weather does exist. After the snowpiles have melted, Baltimore will welcome these birds back to the area-

Baltimore Oriole

Robin

Mockingbird

Eastern Bluebird

Visit me at ACC to see the entire cards! A set of 4 cards, digitally printed on 100lb cover, is available for $10. You get one of each bird to remind you of spring!

Bowerbox Press is pleased to represent Baltimore at this year’s American Craft Council show! Running for 4 days this year, the retail section is open Feb 25-28 at the Convention Center downtown. Discount tickets can be purchased online at www. craftcouncil.org/baltimore.  You’ll be able to find Bowerbox in the AltCraft section, which is set up straight back from the entrance (by the food!), along with other Baltimore crafters Elisa Shere, Sherry Insley, Danamarie Hosler, and Juliet Ames.

Check back for sneak peeks at new work I’ll be bringing to ACC!

Last weekend when we got snowed in I decided to get the new press working. We inked it up in a nice brick red ink, taped up the rails to raise the rollers to the proper height, slowly built up the packing to achieve a nice even impression, and got busy!

Test impression with a big piece of lead type went well,

so we locked up the text for a new card and printed about 250 cards. (One’s leg does tend to get tired after a bit, kicking the treadle for hours- but once I got into the rythym of it, I was able to hand-feed easily and turn out all those cards in roughly an hour.)

Chad also gave it a try- he needs a little practice but soon he’ll be printing linoleum blocks on CD sleeves for his band, Bear & Walrus.

Bowerbox Press is proud to announce the arrival of a new press- this little guy!

Purchased from the studio of Nancy Reinke in Alexandria, this press came to its new home in the middle of January. At only 345 pounds, it was a much easier move than the Colt’s (1800 lbs, 2 strong, experienced riggers, and a huge truck.) We took the flywheel off and removed the press from its stand for easy transport in the family’s minivan.

After a quick cleaning and repainting, it’s ready to go in its new home- hello, living-room-studio!

As far as we can tell, it’s a “United States Press”, manufactured in New York after 1887 by Joseph Watson. His company was purchased by the Kelsey company a little later, which may explain why the treadle looks just like the treadle on Kelsey’s floor model presses (seen at briarpress.org).  A couple of non-original chases came with it, included the spider chase seen above- great for doing small areas of type!

If anyone has more info about this press, please email me! val (at) bowerbox (dot) com