2009 National Stationery Show Pt 2: Repping the Alumnus

BBH alumnus Kyle Durrie takes aim at a baby zebra.

In January I had secretly flown former BBH apprentice and employee Kyle Durrie from Portland to NYC to play a practical joke on BBH shop manager Sarah McDonald at the Winter NYIGF. It was a reunion of sorts, as we had done the last ever Toronto Gift Show together as a trio, and had a smoking good time.


Brandon, Kyle, and Sarah at Niagra Falls on the Canadian Side

The results at the NYIGF were similar, as this photo set of a night with Spitfire Girl will demonstrate. The long evening of debauchery ended very abrubtly. Kristin (the Spitfire Girl) and Sarah were doing cartwheels in the hotel hallway while screaming with hysterical laughter. They came back to the room with a very large and empty Star Wars toy box that had mysteriously appeared. Sarah put the box on her head. Kristin took a swing at Sarah's boxed head and sent her flying into the headboard. Seconds later there was a knock on the door and an armed security guard informed us that there were dozens of calls about the noise and the next call they got would result in us being kicked out of the New Yorker. Kristin's fiance Jason escorted Kristin out as if this was something he was used to.


The following morning I found a destroyed ironing board on the floor. "What the hell happened to the ironing board?" I asked. Photos later revealed that I had destroyed it while trying to demontrate how a proposed photo of Kyle being ironed should look.



This card by Kyle's young letterpress outfit makes me insanely jealous.

During Kyle's visit to the Winter NYIGF she frequented "The Arm" to work on her own line of letterpress greeting cards-- when the show was over, and we were chilling at my mother's crib, she showed Sarah and I what she was working on. Kyle had designed several cards for BBH and they are all favorites of mine-- when I saw her most recent work my jaw dropped to the floor. Clearly she was on the road to her own success.

A couple of BBH products by Kyle Durrie



She and I schemed about things over the following months, and this is what we came up with: She would work the booth at the upcoming Stationery Show for free in exchange for booth real estate to hock her wares, I would take a sales rep percentage of her sales, but would take payment in trade for her cards to sell at Blue Barnhouse. Win win win win win.



I'm pretty excited to have her along at the show, especially because I ain't paying her jack!

In all seriousness I'm really proud how far she's come along, we taught her pretty much every aspect of the BBH business model and my hopes are she'll have an easier time rising to the big leagues than we did. The name of her press is Power and Light, located in Portland, Oregon. You can check out some of her work on her etsy store. The store is currently scarce of product but I know she's working her tail off at the moment, and we should see an impressive line of products in her store in the coming weeks. You can also check out her blog here.