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I don’t recall exactly where I came across ILSSA the first time – some blog or another that I read – but I do remember my initial reaction. I felt . . . understood. It’s not often in this fast paced, technology driven world that you come across a group of people whose motto is “AS MANY HOURS AS IT TAKES.” As someone with a serious love for letterpress printing and the process involved, I very much believe in contributing as much time as is needed to a project to allow it to be done right.

Their mission statement resonates as well:

Impractical Labor is a protest against contemporary industrial practices and values. Instead it favors independent workshop production by antiquated means and in relatively limited quantities. Economy of scale goes out the window, as does the myth that time must equal money. Impractical Labor seeks to restore the relationship between a maker and her tools; a maker and her time; a maker and what she makes. The process is the end, not the product. Impractical Labor is idealized labor: the labor of love.

That line, “the process is the end, not the product” is exactly how I feel – about all of life. I mean, we all remember my THE JOURNEY IS THE DESTINATION print, right?

Anyway, I’m getting way off track here. Every year ILSSA celebrates the Festival to Plead for Skills on July 7th. On that day, all participating members make a set amount {determined by the number of participants – this year it was 40} of an item. What that item is is entirely up to the member, the only restrictions are that it must be no larger than 2 inches in any dimension and it must allow you to practice a skill.

It took me several weeks of thinking to come up with what I wanted to do. I decided to take some of the vintage maps that where too worn to use for posters and cut them down into 2×16″ strips which I would then print an original quote on and accordion fold into small triangular books. Below are the results!

The show was a lot of fun and I got to meet a lot of  wonderful people. Thank you so so much for stopping by and saying hello, and thank you even more if you bought something or took a business card. It means the world to me to have all of your support!

For everyone that couldn’t make it out, here are some photos of the booth Gary Rothera and I shared!

I’ll spare you a look at Day One’s setup, as it was frightful. I finally got everything down on Day Two. So, if you had walked up to our booth on Sunday, this is what you would have seen!

I laid out my postcard sets on the table and used a thread rack to display them in an upright manner. Also on the table were hand-bound travel notebooks with letterpress printed covers made from vintage maps and letterpress printed Moleskine journals.

I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to display the postcards so that you could see each and every one until Saturday morning. I was looking at the IKEA shelf that I use as a drying rack {making do with what I have!} and realized if I strung up some yarn and grabbed some bulldog clips {which I had to steal off of ALL the prints hanging in the house} I could successfully line up all 22 postcards.

The shelves also provided a place to lay out more notebooks, my wallets, and an assortment of THE JOURNEY IS THE DESTINATION maps.

My favorite display element was this little green vintage suitcase. I picked it up a few months ago at a thrift store in town, having absolutely no use for it. When I realized earlier this month that it would make the perfect case to house an assortment of cards, I got very excited. It turned out really well, though I think next time around I’d want to have 2 or 3 suitcases with cards. A couple times there were people who couldn’t get to the cards because someone else was thumbing through them. Live and learn, right?

Oh, also visible in that photo is the patchwork backdrop I hung. It’s actually the canopy that is usually draped over my bedframe! I made that over the course of a year and a half – it’s definitely not the most perfectly sewn canopy, but it certainly brightened up our space, just like it does my bedroom!

I am STILL trying to get decent photos of all of my prints, so that I can put everything you’re seeing here up in my Etsy shop. I promise you it will be completely up and running by June 1st at the absolute latest! Currently the “you are LOVED” cards are in the shop, so feel free to check those out!

I’m currently working on printing POSITIVE MESSAGE postcard sets. Every set will include 5 postcards, each with a different message, in a different color. This run is printed on French Paper’s Muscletone in Sno Cone.

A stack of prints on my makeshift drying rack.

This is the main wall of the studio. On the far left you can see my Kelsey Excelsior 3×5 press, which gets little use these days. Next to that is my guillotine paper cutter, and then my 14×20 showcard proof press. The showcard is my main printing press.

Finally, here’s a closer shot of one of the finished cards!

I’m very sorry that I’ve been such a terrible blogger for the last several months. You’d think being basically unemployed {I now have two sweet babysitting gigs!} and stowed up inside my house with all the winter storms would have made me a blogging fiend, but alas, it did not. I’m back though, and I’ve got some great news for you all! Are you ready?

I’m vending at this year’s Art Star Craft Bazaar with my talented {and handsome!} boyfriend Gary Rothera! I know, it’s exciting!

Two years ago I set up shop at ASCB, selling stuffed animals that I called Amandamals. Last year I slacked off on my own work and instead helped my dear friend Sue Eggen of Giant Dwarf prepare her goods for the show. When application time rolled about this year though – after my multiple trips to Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum and my Book Arts course at Fleisher with Michelle Wilson – I decided it was time to give it another go.

Gary and I were fortunate to get accepted, and so on May 15th and 16th we’ll be setting up shop! He’ll be selling his unique, high quality cycling caps and I’ll have prints, notebooks, stuffed animals, postcards, and anything else I manage to throw together in the next month!

Keep your eyes peeled for updates as I get my ass in gear and start getting shit done!

Do I need to back up at all? I know I mentioned Hamilton in my post about my road trip and then, sadly, I dropped the ball and never blogged about it. Well guys, I went to Hamilton and I fell in love.

My sister and I arrived in Two Rivers after 16 hours of driving and a less than pleasant night in Chicago, but our spirits were high once we saw our hotel’s proximity to Lake Michigan. Though Kel has no interest in type or printing, she was a trooper and stuck it out for our nearly two hour visit to Hamilton, which I suspect was possible thanks to the promise of cheese curds for lunch.

The type museum is housed in a portion of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company compound and the facade boasts large blocks of what I suppose is not actually wood type, but appears to be. Manning the desk was Jim Moran, a friendly gentleman whose love for printing probably trumps my own. I spent an hour and a half wandering around gasping in wonder and geeking out with him over anything and everything – including his archival process. When I realized that Kel was probably bored to tears, I wrapped up my visit, but not until I became a member of the museum.

Jim offered us some suggestions on places to eat and things to do while in Two Rivers and told me I’d have to come back to use my membership for discounted access to Hamilton’s press room. I left with my head full of letterpress daydreams and spent the rest of my time in Two Rivers fighting the magnetic pull that the museum most certainly had on me.

The membership to the museum included a digital replica of a wood typeface, and when I made it back to Philadelphia I received the email from Jim containing the file. He mentioned how nice it had been to spend time chatting with a kindred spirit and wished me well. Being the awkward but endearing young lady that I am I sent him a gushing response thanking him for his time and saying, “I feel like the next time I come I’ll have to spend a month in Two Rivers, and then just spend every day perusing your type. Honestly, I would love to do that, and I have the free time, so if you’d have any interest in apprenticing me for a month or so, I would do everything I could to get back there,” and then later acknowledging what a geeky fangirl I felt like for even suggesting such a thing.

As it turns out it really is true that it never hurts to ask, because this opened up a dialogue between Jim and myself hashing out the details of an apprenticeship. When I sent the initial email I was so embarrassed and terrified and expecting to get literally no response, so this exchange came as quite a relief.

Last Monday I received the official email from Jim accepting me to apprentice for two weeks in September at the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum. While the museum has seen many visiting artists and their students for instructional sessions, this is Hamilton’s first foray into apprenticeship, and I couldn’t possibly be more elated to be the lady to hold the honor.

In just under a month I will board a plane for the first time in nearly 10 years and take off for two weeks of intensive printing and archiving in sleepy, beautiful Two Rivers. I’m excited and anxious and a little in awe of my luck. In preparation I’m reading General Printing: An Illustrated Guide to Letterpress Printing and Ellen Lupton’s Thinking with Type, plus Bill Bryson’s The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America. I’m creating a list of things to see which so far includes only the Bernard Schwartz House and a repeat trip to the Historic Washington House for an ice cream sundae.