Blogdammit! A blog about all things Blue Barnhouse.

Blue Barnhouse is Hiring

2011-08-03T11:32:00.010-04:00

The position is filled. Congrats to our new employee, Steve Lusher. We are excited to have him aboard the good ship BBH.

Hey there, just wondering if your book is still coming out?

2011-06-03T12:44:00.002-04:00

Yes it is. There were severe delays due to my publishers signing w/ Random House as their distributor in 2009. Their workload doubled from the deal, but their staff remained the same size, they were overloaded with work and it hurt a number of titles that were being worked on as the deal happened.

This came from the horse's mouth last February:
"Your book has fell into that unfortunate limbo, which is a very real staple of the publishing industry. To be frank -- yours (and two others, in case you were feeling special...) have been put on the backburner so that [Mark Batty Publisher] could turn focus to the onslaught of Random House "new titles" that "needed" to make their release dates (or be damn close). It was a business move -- based on preorders and sales -- that had to happen the way it did. Had your book been any less important we would've wrapped it up, sent you the "we're done brahh, need to get it out!" email and that would've been that. However, we do care about your book on a personal level so [MBP] allowed it to remain in limbo until it could reenter into the production schedule."

My book has been available for presale for so long that they have recently decided to kill the current ISBN and give it a new title so that it doesn't fall under the radar. The new title is as of yet undecided. I met with MBP in NYC a couple of weeks ago to look at the book, there are only a few details to wrap up as far as the design goes. I was told that Jan 2012 is the new date, which is nearly 3.5 years since I first took submissions for the book. I'm a bit embarrassed that all those who are in the book have had to wait so long to see the fruits of our collective effort - the release date has changed so many times it almost seems like a running gag every time someone has asked me for an update on it's release. But the good news is that the book is back on their production schedule, they have made all the changes I requested last November when I saw the last proof, and I'm really happy with its current state.

The ball is now in my court for some missing details but I have been preoccupied by the move of our shop from Asheville to Wilmington NC-- I hope to be able to give them everything they need to wrap up the book's layout/design elements by the end of the month.

Ask about letterpress, wholesale, trade shows, & Blue Barnhouse.

May 26: Blue Barnhouse's Grand Closing of Their Asheville Studio: EVERYTHING 75% OFF!!

2011-05-09T16:36:00.006-04:00

This coaster/poster sez it all.

Blue Barnhouse Grand Closing

Thursday, May 26th 8PM

428-B Haywood Rd

For one night only, starting at 8pm, everything in Blue Barnhouse's West Asheville store will be 75% off, cards are discount priced between $0.25 and $1.25. Free food and beer, DJing by Harvest Records, lots of greeting card giveaways.

The following day BBH starts moving presses to Wilmington, NC. BBH will thence trickle out over the course of June, the last thing to go will be our greeting card store- but on the night of May 26th you will never see a price on our cards like this again!

You are encouraged to say goodbye to our wonderful little letterpress shop!

Yrs fondly,

brandon and the kids at blue barnhouse

An open letter to Asheville: We sadly say farewell.

2011-03-09T18:49:00.006-05:00

Having lived in Asheville for the last 8 years and been a part of this wonderful community for so long, it is with a bit of heartache that I deliver this news: by June 30th of this year of 2011, Blue Barnhouse will be relocated to my hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina.

Below are my feelings about my time here in Asheville, but if you want to skip to the "why" and "what it means for the immediate future" and "what kind of events will you be having before you leave," click here.

I remember the day I first came to Asheville to scout out a new home for Blue Barnhouse. It was early September of 2003, my son Toby was almost 2 years old. I moved here from San Francisco, and arrived dressed in shorts with a T-shirt and a hoodie. I remember a chilly wind coming in as dusk settled and being like "Holy shit it's cold up here." Soon a house in West Asheville was procured, my fledgling letterpress shop was run in the basement, we made many wonderful friends and started sinking our roots into the community.

The original members of the Blue Barnhouse Asheville crew pose at a rocking party in our studio basement.

Alot has happened since we carved our niche in this little mountain town--Blue Barnhouse has seen alot of growth and many transformations as a business, and we've had the pleasure to work with so many people (mostly artists & writers from both local and abroad) who have been a part of our very talented crew.

This was the original studio. It's changed about a million times since then.

In 2005 we partnered with Bookworks to buy 428 Haywood Rd and our studio settled into the sweet little niche of stores that were popping up on the east side of I-240. Back then there was practically nothing in that area in terms of shopping and dining- I believe it was Harvest Records, Ship to Shore, Bookworks, Blue Barnhouse, & the Gas Up (I should also mention the B&B Pharmacy and Image420.) There was alot of crime happening when we first settled in, hookers and drug dealers were working the corners, cars got broken into, I watched arrests happen from my store window at least once a week. But in a very short time the east side of West Asheville was cleaned up and beautified, and soon the sidewalks were populated by young baby carriage pushing folk; slowly but surely more businesses that the area was starving for started popping up. We now have our own little island of great shops, bars, and restaurants--and most importantly: Izzy's coffee! It's amazing that this little neighborhood has turned into a slice of walkable heaven in such a short time.

This BBH classic is one of the 50 original card designs we made for Bele Chere.

It was in the summer of 2006 that BBH was generously offered a free booth at the Bele Chere festival- something that changed our business in a really dramatic way. We didn't have anything to sell, so we decided to make some greeting cards. I think we were pretty wasted when we came up with the card designs, trying to make each other laugh-- we weren't trying to make normal greeting cards, we didn't really know anything about them.

Once we set up our booth and put out the cards, we were cracking up the card browsers all day long. The never-ending laugh fest was a street festival phenomenon best described by one of our minions as being "like a mini-show at the Apollo every fifteen minutes." We sold a lot of cards.

To our surprise, our amateur foray into selling these cards wholesale to boutiques and stationery stores was met with instant success. Since our debut at Bele Chere we have produced more than 400 products, we've been in more than 20 trade shows in 6 different cities, we work with 17 sales reps, and we are carried in more than 400 stores in the U.S. and Canada. In these 5 years we have sold hundreds of thousands of cards and probably have 3 times that number in stock, and every single one of them was printed by hand.

We print night and day!

This was dumb luck. Not my plan. I feel like it was part of the entrepreneurial zeitgeist that was happening in this neighborhood and the more localized zeitgest that happened within the walls of this studio, where writers and artists could have fun, joke around, create shit, and actually make a living at it. This is all we do now, and it's hard work but we have a good time doing it.

I am really thankful for the people who worked so diligently to get this greeting card machine moving, there are too many of you for me to even attempt to count. I am thankful for the huge amount of support and love we have received from the city of Asheville and the community of West Asheville in particular. I'm pretty sure Blue Barnhouse couldn't have happened the way it did at any other time or in any other place. And for that I owe Asheville everything. Thank you, Asheville. Thank you, thank you, thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

Yours fondly,

brandon & the kids at blue barnhouse

*I wanted to keep my letter to Asheville in its own post. Read on for details about what's happening at Blue Barnhouse in the immediate future.

**If you want to relive how we spent our time here in Asheville, you should poke around this blog, and you can check out our flickr account for pictures of our Asheville adventure.

An open letter to Asheville Part II: Our impending move to Wilmington, NC, and some events we are having here in Asheville before we hit the road.

2011-03-09T16:29:00.015-05:00

Why Wilmington?

There were a number of factors involved in my decision to move BBH to Wilmington, NC. The primary reason would be my interest in filmmaking-- I've wanted to be involved in filmmaking for a number of years, and over the course of the last year I have been actively making efforts to dive into it. At the beginning of the year I applied to UNCW with the intention of getting a second bachelor's degree in Film Studies, and just a few weeks ago I was accepted into the program. The film studies program there is pretty amazing and Wilmington is a hotbed for filmmaking where I already have some good connections-- a brand new adventure awaits me and I am thrilled to be able to pursue a new creative medium. My other reasons for relocating are more personal, mostly having to do with going back home, having my family close by, a less expensive living situation, the beach, fresh seafood. I love the ocean, I love Wilmington, I love the prospect of being able to go surfing year round.

In June, this space on the corner of Wooster Street and Dawson Street in downtown Wilmington will be taken over by Blue Barnhouse.

By a stroke of luck when I started nosing around for a possible location to move Blue Barnhouse, I found it on the first phone call: a 10,000 sq ft warehouse in downtown Wilmington that was shared by a number of craftsmen. The landlord was jazzed about the idea of our presence there and was willing to work with us to hold the space until June. It's well lit and spacious and couldn't be a more perfect space for our needs.

How we want to say goodbye to Asheville.

1. For starters, we won't be having a retail space in Wilmington, and we have a lot of gifts and stationery we need to unload. That's why starting today, until the day we leave, everything in the store is 50% off it's marked price, and that goes for our bargain bins too. Please note that due to this transition and all that it entails we have had erratic operating hours. Currently we are open M-F 12-6, sometimes we'll be open on Saturdays, but it is always best to call ahead: 828-225-3991

2. We've had our heads up our asses for the last couple of years and haven't had any local events in the recent past- but we'd like to see all the faces of friends we've made here locally over the years. We will be having a social hour on the last Friday of each month where we'll be serving Free PBR, have some giveaways, and talk about the good old days. These dates are March 25th and April 29th from 7pm-??

GRAND CLOSING

The day before we start rolling the presses away to their new home, Blue Barnhouse will have one last hoorah on Friday May 27th. More details to follow, but we promise it will be a really great event with all kinds of free for-all giveaways. The retail shop will continue to be open until mid-June.

Book Release Party

Hopefully, if it is released on time, we will somehow work in a release party for my book Adventures in Letterpress, which features images of letterpress from more than 70 letterpress studios and artists from all over the world, and is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.

Photographing letterpress for my upcoming book, Adventures in Letterpress.

But where can we get your cards?!

Malaprops and Write On, both downtown, have been carrying our cards for years, and I'm certain they will continue to do so after we leave. There is also our webstore, which has every product we've ever made under the sun for sale. You can also send an email with the subject line "subscribe" to info@bluebarnhouse.org to subscribe to our newsletter, where we will keep you up to date with our most current work and happenings, or you can get up to the minute progress reports via our twitter account.

Space for rent

428-B Haywood Road will more than likely be available for rent by July 1. We are still working out the details about the space before we put it on the market, but please contact me if you are interested in looking at our space.

Can we visit you?!

Our new studio will be a private studio, but we'd love to have visitors. All you have to do is drop us a line to make an appointment at info@bluebarnhouse.org. And if you are interested in following my pursuits in filmmaking, you should check out my filmmaking blog, Dark Academy.

And lastly...

I realize that this is probably sudden and sad news to many people here in the neighborhood. We intend to make the best of our time remaining here in Asheville, and look forward to seeing all of you to say our goodbyes and show our gratitude for so many years of support.

We are very excited for this new adventure on our horizon and the fortunes it may hold.

Yrs fondly,

Brandon & the BBH crew

Letterpress makes me feel home again

2011-01-20T15:38:00.019-05:00

When I first began working at Blue Barnhouse back in Spring 2009 I knew nothing of Letterpress and only a little about printmaking in general. After a few crash sessions on the Vandercook and the C&P, a little hanging around the shop, and a modicum of historical letterpress education, I fell in love.

It was the smell of the ink, the clankety-clack of the C&P and the side-stepping necessary while operating the Vandercook. The feel of the different grains of paper and how they accepted ink. The little bit of fear that gripped my heart every time I fed the motorized C&P and the exhaustion of my body after operating the foot-pedal C&P.

Around the time I began working at the shop, Brandon began the process of compiling submissions for Adventures in Letterpress. It wasn't long before he realized he had a Photographer apprenticing in the shop, and I started shooting some of the submissions we were receiving. Over the next several months, we set up a makeshift studio (versions 1-7) and I was able to learn more than I ever wanted to know about shooting paper. Trust me, Paper is not easy or fun to shoot until you get the hang of it. Which took about 2 months.

Then I moved to Massachusetts.

There was a hole in my heart where a press used to be.

In the summer of 2010 Brandon came to pick me up in Boston (after visiting a few presses on his journey), and we hustled down to NY for Renegade Brooklyn and some fun with the folks at Mark Batty Publisher. (read B's renegade post here.. it's a hoot!)

While in NY we also visited PressNY and the Arm, two of our fav presses run by some really lovely individuals. I got to shoot the shops and drool over type. My love for letterpress was compounded.

the Arm, photographed by lydia see June 2010:

Press NY, photographed by lydia see June 2010:

So now it's January 2011, I am visiting Asheville, and I couldn't stay out of the shop. In fact, I have spent more time here since I've been back for a limited 5-day run than I have spent anywhere else. I've been scoring "Stupid Fucking Lovebirds" both clean and dirty, I've been shooting the shop and filling wholesale orders. I've been taking it all in..

I even made this video of me Operating the foot pedal C&P Wednesday night. So when I get lonely in the cold, white North, I can watch it and remember how warm Letterpress makes me. and how I feel Home again when I'm here.

Fun Mail from Shooting Star Press

2010-11-17T13:27:00.005-05:00

Having a retail store and writing a book about letterpress has its benefits, and one long standing benefit has been free samples of one of my favorite printers, John Horn of Shooting Star Press in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Power & Light's Moveable Type Project: Please support.

2010-11-16T00:01:00.006-05:00

Check out this cool video, and then follow this link here to help Kyle make this awesome project a reality. She's raised more than half of what she needs in the first 24 hours of her fundraising, but as of this blog post she has another $4ooo to go. Every little bit helps, and there are various cool letterpress gifts you can get as a reward for pledging a small amount of money. She's raised more than half of what she needs in the last 24 hours, but as of this moment has another $4ooo to go. If you like the idea but can't pledge, please share her fundraising page (and awesome video) to other folks who

I'm blogging elsewhere...

2010-11-09T22:36:00.022-05:00

And lo it was formed: the Dark Academy.

I've started a filmmaking blog called Dark Academy, where I review books on filmmaking, talk about my favorite films and directors, post cool finds on filmmaking tricks and gadgets, and eventually I will document my own filmmaking process. You should check it out, iffin that kind of shit interests you.

Get you some Janelle!

2010-08-01T10:29:00.005-04:00

ATLiens Janelle Monae & Big Boi collaborate again.

I highly recommend you get Janelle's album The ArchAndroid, which is hot, banging, and crazy weird. She also collaborates on the album w/ one of my Faves, of Montreal. Of Montreal is currently on tour playing new material from their upcoming album, False Preist; Janelle Monae is opening for them for most of the tour--with the intent of alot of onstage crossover action. Not to be missed.

of Montreal performs Coquet Coquette from False Priest on Jimmy Fallon.

C&P Oiling Chart

2010-07-03T20:42:00.012-04:00

Seeing as many oiling charts are difficult to find online, I'm posting them here on my blog, so even I can reference them at my lesiure.

Here is one that is a great outline for oiling points for most C&P's, though certain features will vary. Click on the image to enlarge, and you can print it out for your reference.

We use 30 weight oil on everything- I've heard packing grease between the Pinion Gear & the Large Gear Cam Wheel is a good thing but we haven't done that in a while, pretty messy. If you use a treadle, use vaseline on the treadle hook where it meets the flywheel shaft. Don't forget the Cam Roller & Stud hiding inside the Large Gear Cam Wheel -- it's easy to miss and only appears during a small window during the print cycle. Oiling points on the motor will vary- I've never seen the same motor on a C&P twice!

Brooklyn Renegade Highlights 2010

2010-06-08T16:56:00.021-04:00

The Renegade Marching Band!

We arrived for the National Stationery Show 3 weeks ago and ever since it's been a whirlwind rife with bloggable happenings. I'm still a week away from things truly cooling down and getting to sit down and write it all out-- but I have a few hours to kill between client meetings here in the W. Village so I'm gonna go ahead and do a quick and dirty look at my faves from the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn that we attended last weekend.

Miniature Rhino, purveyor of stationery and embroidery, offered a Letter Writing Service where you can type up a cute little note, which she would put in a nifty corked bottle before she'd send it via post to your intended recipient. It was one of the highlights of my Renegade experience, (though the audience of fair-goers crowding over my shoulder to read as I typed made me a bit self-conscious.)

Renegade is a fantastic venue to find silkscreened posters. Sel & Vinaigre from Montreal was my kind of freaky retro.

Illustrative wonders silkscreened by Clinton Reno of Columbus, OH.

A smattering of shirts from Print Liberation...

including this one sported by Lydia See. Now she can apologize for her tardy ass with panache.

Imaginative and peculiar illustrated posters from Raw Toast.

Got a booth visit from Jeremy, a senior printer at Studio on Fire, who was wandering the fair wearing this sweet t-shirt.

Up next, NSS highlights!

The Avatar!

2010-05-26T13:01:00.026-04:00

Bad Avatar!

Avatar (2010): Dumb Movie about newagey blue critters in a hallucinogenic jungle exploited for their outofstockium or hardtofindium or whatever it was called.

Good Avatar!

Avatar: The Last Airbender (2006): Super cool Nickelodeon action/adventure cartoon series/trilogy that flips Japanese/Chinese culture/mythology on it's proverbial head/ass. Beautifully rendered by an indie Korean animation studio, visually stunning action sequences choreographed by a sifu master (using five distinct styles of martial arts), funny, gripping, complicated, spiritual, compelling, heart-wrenching, well written. Intended to captivate kids, obsessed over by adults. The series was an intricately put together 61 22-minute episodes, and ties up so gorgeously that a box of kleenexes for a) tears and b) jizz is strongly recommended.

One of my favorite action sequences from season 3.

The Avatar cartoon series was finished before Jim Cameron's Avatar was being filmed. However, by the time Nickelodeon was ready to do an Avatar movie for real, Cameron's film was in production, and with a court-order the Nickelodeon was forced to call the film anything but The Avatar.

M. Night Shyalamalamadingdong was a fan of the Avatar cartoon and got dibs on writing and directing the film. You might remember him from his first good film, the Sixth Sense, followed by a string of poorly written WTFs. From the trailers, I can tell that much of the story has been lost and doctored for Hollywood. And even with the expected trilogy that this franchise will dish out, there is no way in hell that anyone could take a movie and recreate the magic, humor and complexity of the original series that took more than 22 hours to play out.

But am I gonna see the movie? Hell yes. All 3 films. The Airbender movie will likely be a blockbuster and take folks by surprise... I've never seen a story that's been told quite like this one, and its a fun world to dwell in and ponder. Just know that there is something way better that precedes what yr about to be spoon-fed Shyamalamadingdong style.

All three Last Airbender trailers:

Thar be real arrggghh in thar blood.

2010-05-22T22:35:00.005-04:00

My Viking buddies Erik and Dane are seriously fucked up.

It's going to be a great day.

2010-05-18T11:41:00.002-04:00

After years of suck, SNL is back on top, the Digital Shorts in particular never fail to please.

You want it? You got it.

2010-05-16T22:34:00.003-04:00

After a customer saw our Alice series at the Stationery Show, she asked if we had a Very Merry Unbirthday card. Nope. But 10 minutes after she left the booth, a new design was borned.

Machete!

2010-05-12T10:54:00.006-04:00

When Rodriguez made his contribution to the fake trailers featured in Grindhouse, it was immediately rumored that he would eventually make the movie for real real. This movie is gonna explode my face off.

just wondering where i could purchase your cards in new york city? thanks!

2010-05-12T01:09:00.001-04:00

Village Invites, Greenwich Letterpress, Cursive, Arthur's, Bowne & Co, Powerhouse Arena, Papel, Oblong Books, Word Books, Skaredy Kat, McNally Jackson Books, Rebel Katz, Shoefly, House of Cards and Curiosities, Green Cottage, Paper Trail, or you can just visit us in June at Renegade Brooklyn.

Ask about letterpress, wholesale, trade shows, & Blue Barnhouse.

How many catalogs do you need have printed up for the NSS? I heard someone suggest 1000, which sounds like a lot!

2010-05-09T22:12:00.001-04:00

We don't print catalogs-- our line is so huge and new stuff is added so often that we opt not doing a catalog. Our entire line is in our webstore, and we just hand out business cards with our info along with a sample. Catalogs at the moment seem a waste of money and paper and postage if we're going to the shows-- though at some point we may stop doing shows and only do catalogs--because they ARE useful, but all depends on where you want to spend your money.

Sorry for the late reply- the notification on this thing doesn't seem to be working right.

Good luck at the show!

Ask about letterpress, wholesale, trade shows, & Blue Barnhouse.

Here comes the reaper.

2010-05-09T21:53:00.004-04:00

This latest design is from Asheville artist and long time BBH collaborator, Lisa Nance. It will debut at the National Stationery show in NYC next week.

New website a comin'?!

2010-04-25T00:13:00.007-04:00

Our current website is horribly out of date, completely off in terms of aesthetic and focus, and somehow the code is de-volving. I'm trying to have something new up in time for the release of my book, and I've designed an incredibly simple two page website I based off of an old printers catalog I inherited with my first press.

Here is the working mockup at the moment, click on it for a closer look.

Crazy Magnetism Shit

2010-04-20T09:41:00.002-04:00

Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

I was just wondering when Adobe would make a new CS version worth purchasing, when...

2010-03-26T01:36:00.007-04:00

The Content-Aware Fill feature being developed for Photoshop CS5 is a complete mindfuck. (So you might want to go full screen on this one...)

Nostalgia Fix: Don Bluth, Ya'll.

2010-03-22T22:39:00.032-04:00

A screen shot from the 1983 Star Wars arcade game, a space simulator in which you are seated behind the steering controls of an X-Wing Fighter. It's amazing that this is all that was required to take a seven year old's brain to untold planes of existence.

It was the year before the release of Van Halen's classic album, 1984; the year they called 1983. MJ's Billie Jean and Bowie's Let's Dance played incessantly on the radio, and arcade classics like Galaga, Centipede, Ms. Pacman, and Spy Hunter were the cutting edge of video game technology. War Games, Return of the Jedi, and Flash Dance lit up the silver screen, but there were no animated feature films to speak of that year.

Rewind to 1959. Walt Disney Pictures is pretty much the only studio releasing animated features for the screen, and Don Bluth gets his first (uncredited) animating gig with Disney on Sleeping Beauty, followed by another stint on The Sword in the Stone. Don Bluth, a Mormon boy hailing from Utah with an English degree from BYU, forged his way to the top of the Disney animation studio, and was an uncredited director of such animated flicks such as Robin Hood, The Rescuers, Pete's Dragon, 101 Dalmations, & The Fox & the Hound.

From the animated classic, Rubbin' Hood. Ooh-da-lolly!

But Walt Disney's head was put in a freezer in '65, and Bluth watched the studio's films, written and run by suits in committees, steadily "lose their charm." In '79 Bluth left Disney, taking 11 other disgruntled animators with him, to start Don Bluth Productions. In 1982 they released Bluth's masterpiece, The Secret of NIMH. It was the first successful animated feature made by a non-Disney studio since the 1950s.

The Secret of NIMH

Some signature trademarks of Bluth's work are his snaggle-toothed cross-eyed toddler creatures ...

...and his blindingly electric lighting effects.

Back to 1983: The youth of that era were well-submerged in all kinds of jerky and blocky video game fantasies, when out of nowhere Bluth follows up NIMH with an epic animated odyssey arcade game called Dragon's Lair. The heads of many an arcade rat exploded that day.

Back then, Dragon's Lair seemed to me a video game from some far-away utopian future. It was fifty cents a game, and nearly impossible to beat, but what this machine had to offer (vs. the rest of the arcade) was beyond compare, and I've never really lost that ache to be immersed in it. Bluth went on to release a less cohesive but equally interesting sequel to Dragon's Lair, as well as Space Ace, Bluth's nail biting 11 minute long metaphor for impotence and virility. Except with lasers and exploding space ships and shit.

Today, though Dragon's Lair is still prettier than what most games these days are offering, it's fairly obvious as an adult that on the gaming level it's a simplistic one trick pony, the idea that you are making "choices" for the hero is for the most part an illusion. But I still can't help but get all bent in the head when I play inside such a wildly imaginative and gorgeously rendered world, and I'm tickled that Bluth had spent a near equal amount of time animating all the horrible ways the hero could possibly die as he spent animating the actual adventure.

Being able to find and play Bluth's games after the slump in the arcade craze has not been that easy--- but I have managed to own the games in a number of formats over the last twenty years. I was thinking about the game just recently, and chuckled to myself at the thought of a Dragon's Lair App for the iPhone. Well lo and behold. It's obvious they've trimmed some video to keep the file from getting too big, and I even wonder if some scenes might be missing, but still, it's a marvel to be holding it in my hands again.

Titan A.E.

Bluth has done alot of stuff since his initial hot streak. He worked with Speilberg on An American Tail and The Land Before Time, both of which met with commercial success, neither of which I've seen in a very long time. His most recent work was the 2000 flop that closed down Fox Animation Studios, Titan A.E. (which probably isn't that bad and deserves another look from yours truly.) He has been shopping a feature length film version of Dragon's Lair around for a couple of years now, though to be honest, I'm hoping he might eventually let that idea go and think of something new. I'd rather Dirk remain as he is, a hero with no lines (who lets out a death curdling scream every time you lose concentration.)

Bananas, Rice, Apple Sauce, Toast!

2010-03-22T16:42:00.002-04:00

Finally took a gander at Of Montreal's appearance on Yo Gabba Gabba. Fun stuff!

NSS newbie here... Do you have any advice that you would like to share? (small company, new to wholesale)

2010-03-22T12:37:00.001-04:00

I think the biggest mistakes made by newbies at NSS is to not have enough product to look at, and to have a booth that doesn't look like much effort or creativity was put into it. It is a sad thing indeed to see someone with their 10 cards and a folding table with a computer printed banner-- nobody is going to visit that booth. You want enough stuff that will keep an interested customer in there for more than five minutes.

Here are a couple of other things I've learned myself:

1) Have several sample decks on hand so that more than one person can look through your stuff at a time (we have 3 decks plus wall samples)

2) Ask for a business card from anyone who shows interest, write on the back of the card any extra details you want to remember and follow up with them at a show.

3) have a give-away of some kind so that they will remember you better. having your booth number with your information may mean a return visit.

4) Do not get disheartened if you don't break even your first time at a show, it will be a bit depressing, but you should take into account that this is a long term investment, it is about maintaining visibility and eventually the money will be there. Some things to take into account:

a) Some people wait to order after the show, sometimes waiting as long as 6 months to a year.

b) if you pick up sales reps, if you are interviewed by the media, then that means dollars down the road.

c) orders you fill are just first time orders and are likely to repeat from the same customers several times a year.

If you have the opportunity to go to these shows as a visitor first I highly recommend it, it is a huge investment and researching your gameplan as much as possible beforehand is going to help make your first show run smoothly.

Ask me anything about letterpress, wholesale manufacturing, trade shows, Blue Barnhouse, and/or our fucked-up greetings.

OK! Wholesale manufacturing - when did you start doing it, what sort of scale are you cranking out these days, and do you only handle your own work, or others', too? And, yes, sorry...I know that was 3 questions and not one!

2010-03-22T12:19:00.001-04:00

1) We started wholesale manufacturing in the summer of 2005, we needed products to sell for a street fair -- they did so well we decided to send samples to stores all over the U.S. and immediately picked up a rep group in Southern California, which created a snowball effect. The rest is history.

2)Most styles start out with a run between 300-800 on its first try-- 300 is a safe number for designs that we're not 100% sure will sell well (i.e. we find them amusing but we're not sure if they'd sell as a greeting card.) It allows us enough for samples for our reps and show plus at least a few months supply for orders if the card should do well. If I am certain a card will sell well we go ahead and bump that number between the 500-800 range. If the card is a 2 or 3 color card I try and keep the runs in the higher range as well- they require more intensive setup and I want to make sure that my labor costs are well spent.

As for reprints, we do much larger runs. If a card sells out within a few months we'll bump the reprints up between 800-1200 cards. If it doesn't sell out within a year then we usually discontinue it. We're trying a new formula for reprint runs for our older cards-- I look at Quickbooks to see how many cards were sold in the last 2 years, and then bump up that number by about 25%-- two years worth of stock is right where I like it-- we have so many styles that I'm trying to avoid getting crippled by reprints when a big show goes down- after our first gift show we were in reprint mode for nearly 3 months as style after style ran out--you'd think we'd be excited about that but it got old and expensive rather quickly.

Our largest client, Paper Source, skews the numbers quite a bit-- stuff we do for them we reprint between 2000 and 3000 per style.

3. We haven't printed other people's cards lines but that's only because we haven't been asked to.

Ask me anything about letterpress, wholesale manufacturing, trade shows, Blue Barnhouse, and/or our fucked-up greetings.

Get smart-ass answers for your dumb-ass questions.

2010-03-20T16:49:00.004-04:00

Recently I've learned about a fairly new question and answer media called formspring, media which Delphine and Boxcar Press have started using to answer all sorts of queries regarding the business of design, wholesale, and letterpress. I'm always looking for new ways to interact with people who are interested in the work we do, and nothing makes experience richer than clearing up the fog for somebody else, but I'm also open to using formspring as a springboard for complete nonsense. And so I introduce to you: BBH on Formspring. Have at it.

So good you'll shoot the cook.

2010-03-09T15:46:00.014-05:00

I've been wanting to make Puerco Pibil for a few months now. It was the mexican dish that Johnny Depp obsessed over in the film Once Upon a Time in Mexico-- at one point in the film, the Puerco Pibil is so perfect that after Depp finishes his plate he walks into the restaurant's kitchen and executes the chef. The recipe is made available on the DVD in Robert Rodriguez's Ten Minute Cooking School, I bought ingredients from 5 different markets: asian, organic, mexican, a specialty spice store, and the liquor store.

I purchased this banana leaf at the Asian Market. When I unrolled the leaves they were more than seven feet long!

Last night I made the Achiote Paste and used it to marinate 5lbs of organic Boston Butt overnight but ended up eating 1lb of it fried straight in the pan pretty much immediately. I'm currently slow roasting the rest of the Puerco Pibil in the oven and the whole house reeks of Yucatan goodness.

I was gonna write about how to make the Puerco Pibil, but found that Robert Rodriguez's Ten-Minute Cooking School is on YouTube and you can just get the whole story and cooking instructions yourself.

I've transcribed the recipe though, so you don't have to try and keep up with the guy.

Grind these ingredients to a fine powder:
5 Tbl Whole Annato Seeds
2 tsp Cumin Seeds
1 Tbl Peppercorns
8 allspice balls
1/2 tsp cloves

Put ground up spices in blender with:
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup white vinegar
8 cloves garlic (chopped)
2 Habanero Peppers (chopped and deveined/deseeded)
2 tbl salt
5 squeezed lemons
splash of nice tequila

Liquify, pour in ziploc bag with 5 lbs pork butt (chopped into 2" squares.) Marinate overnight.

Oven at 325 degrees, cook pork wrapped in banana leaves and covered in foil for 4 hours. (It actually was ready in 3 hrs so I pulled it early. Pork will be ready when the meat is roughly 180 degrees.)

Serve over rice, etc (I sauteed pineapples and served with avacados as well.) Use left over Tequila for Margaritas!

We're so sorry, Uncle Albrecht

2010-03-04T07:20:00.010-05:00

This one didn't take much thought but we'll have some way more intelligent and disrespectful shit we did with Albrecht Dürer etchings momentarily.

Usually we wait until a month before a show before we start gearing up with new products, but its pouring out right now and we've got spare time to attack. NSS is not until mid May, and we're freshly recovered from the winter NYIGF. I think probably what set this off was a really inspiring talk with Delphine about how to make more money. We're about to be making a whole array of new products that we haven't offered before, but I won't reveal what kind of products those are just yet.

The irony of my mad-two-week-long-brainstorm-session-for-new-products-besides-greeting-cards-to-make-more-money-binge is that the 20 some cards we're about to print for the next 2 or 3 weeks are just our regular fare of greeting cards, though I have been focusing a bit more on Birthdays, Love, and Special Occasions.

Lots of 3 color cards coming up, which is something we've steered away since we started, but personally I'm getting bored with being locked into 1 and the occassional 2 color work. Maybe its because we got the V50, whose restoration has been put on hold since before winter NYIGF. When she's operational we can probably suffer a large 3 color reprint run, though some of these cards I'm only doing for fun and probably won't see reprint status.

My friend Erik said this to me at a party. He was pretty lit up.

I posted almost all of the designs here, though several of those images are early drafts. Dropping a load on paper, we have alot of work ahead of us. And then yesterday the complete etchings and engravings of Albrecht Dürer arrived, I got it off Amazon for $5. Also a book of engravings by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, which feature gorgeous depictions of every significant event in the Old and New Testament, $3. Both of which I will send directly to Tyler Dockery for captioning. We're about to unload some unholy shit.

I've been wanting to do this card for years, but this image is perfect, and I'm glad I waited. I love the Jesus's scowling face. Lots of gems like this from von Carolsfeld.

General Announcement regarding the book Adventures in Letterpress

2010-03-02T14:50:00.006-05:00

Inquiries from participants regarding the status of my forthcoming book Adventures in Letterpress are starting to trickle in, so here's the skinny on something I don't really know that much about.

It's been 4 months since I've turned in or even looked at material for the book, original publish date was slated for March, but since I've signed on, Mark Batty Publisher has taken on Random House as its distributor, which has drastically changed their workload (and significally upped their press runs.) This is great news for the book as it will have much more exposure than was previously possible, but this change has pushed the book's release to late spring/early summer.

No firm dates have been divulged-- they haven't worked with any of the material I've turned in yet but as I understand it they will begin working on the book by mid-March. Farrell, who moonlights at Barnes & Nobles, saw the title listed for release in June, which is the most concrete piece of info I have so far, but is not to be relied on.

I'll post more news as things develop.

B.

Another bullshit holiday Hallmark made up so that Blue Barnhouse could make money.

2010-02-14T14:17:00.015-05:00

How we got the nooky in the one-eight-double-zeros.

Today is that day that some of us celebrate the day that the Patron Saint of Lovers was martyred for our dirty little sins. And that Saint's Day was fabricated by Roman Catholics to replace another day which fertile pagans decided was a great day to jizz all over everything that moved. And today some of us fertile pagans are gonna raid their cash register of Valentine sales and blow their money on food, alcohol, and bowling, because they are in the business of making money off of love.

That's right all you love-starved fools, it's because of jerks like you that the greeting card became a cashcow for jerks like me. It all started in 1847, when Esther Howland of Massachussets took the popular British tradition of sending a handmade note to your loved one and made a successful business of it, i.e. selling handmade Valentines. Her wild success at the venture was the "harbinger of the future commercialization of the holidays in the United States." Today more than a billion Valentines are sent worldwide every year, though probably about 10 of them are handmade.

I'm just kidding. I know lots of folks who make a decent living off of handmade Valentines, and the one's I love most have Valentine attitude. This one is from BBH alumnus Kyle Durrie of Power and Light.

And this one comes from BBH employee Emily Wismer's own press, Lady Pilot Letterpress.

What does this all mean to me? Well... truthfully, I am sucker for Valentines day, and have been making handmade greetings for Valentine's Day LONG before I got anywhere near being in the business of letterpress and greeting cards. I don't think its a bullshit holiday, though it is a great day to hate on if you are angry at "the man," or have been burned too many times, or if you are love-sick and alone. It's also a day for someone to get brave and put themselves out there into romantic possibilities with a card, it's a day to let someone know how hot they are, or how they give you a boner, or make you wet, or smile, or shit your pants, or whatever. It is a day that you can put a little extra romance into what is hopefully already a romantic relationship, and a day for lazy men who don't know romance if it bent them over in the showers to say hey yeah I can do that once a year. Wait, today's Sunday? Sports are on TV, and my ass is permanently stuck in an easy chair. Nevermind.

It's a day that has changed meaning in so many ways over the centuries that it can be just about anything we want it to be, so I say we give this day back to the fertile pagans who started it and cover everything in something white besides snow.

Everything the internet taught me about Omer Fast was simply not enough.

2010-02-09T21:08:00.026-05:00

Stills from Bill Viola's video installation, THE CROSSING. In this piece, the viewer walks into a pitch-black high ceiling room with a towering screen hung from the ceiling in the center of the room. The viewer can walk around the screen to view either side, to see either the figure under a trickle of falling water that grows into a deluge, or the same figure as a flame grows into an inferno that engulfs him. By the end, both figures are entirely consumed, and the water and fire die down, leaving nothing.

For a while there I lived in San Francisco, getting my M.F.A. in Creative Writing. Whenever my brain got stuck or stumbling over useful writing material, I ventured out to a museum to absorb, inhabit, and react to various mediums of artwork. For the most part I divided my time between the SFMOMA and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, armed with a pocket moleskine and a pen, and during one of those forays I was sucker punched by more than 16 installations from video artist Bill Viola on display at the SFMOMA. I frequented the exhibit for several months and immersed myself in Viola's work for hours at a time.

SLOWLY TURNING NARRATIVE. A screen mounted on a floor-to-ceiling shaft rotates at the center of the room, as accompanied by a voice recites a long list of states of being and actions in a repetitive, rhythmic chant.

These barrels of water in THE SLEEPERS each have a black and white monitor floating a few inches below the surface, portraying faces of various sleeping individuals.

I am realizing that having easy access art museums was something I'd taken for granted. A single visit would keep me jazzed about writing and creating for weeks on end. But then I moved to a tiny mountain town, and the business of letterpress slowly ate away at my creative hours, and over time I sort of let that side of me go to waste. I would say its been at least five years since I've set foot in a museum that was worth a spit.

Pictured: (INDEX) FINGER 1997 by Tim Hawkinson. Though I am the poster child for gore-a-phobia, I sometimes torture myself by confronting that which makes me involuntarily coil in terror. Ten years ago, when I paid my first visit to the Whitney Museum in NYC, I latched on to this "sculpture" immediately because a) it filled me with horror, and b) I had already been traumatized by a photo of the same severed thumb in the CD Booklet from the Beck album, MUTATIONS. (Images of several sculptural works by Hawkinson filled the pages of the foldout booklet from MUTATIONS, all of which were in the Whitney collection.) The actual size of the severed fingertip can be imagined once you recognize the assortment of red pens and pencils meant to resemble "finger guts."

New York City has been a three times a year destination for the trade shows for a while now, but my trips have always been a rat race centered around the shows, leaving me little time to explore more than the nightlife. The last few times I've been to the city I've had an itch to revisit the Whitney, and this time around a small window of time opened up for me to pay a visit.

Enter Omer Fast

CNN Concentrated (2002) by Omer Fast. Aside from a discussion & some excerpts from what looks to be a very piece of fascinating work called "The Casting," there is virtually nothing else you will find video-wise from Omer Fast online or even on DVD.

Currently the Whitney is exhibiting Omer Fast's latest work, "Nostalgia," which is a seemingly harmless piece when you first approach it, the first screen you see is nothing more than a British gentleman in the woods, building a snare trap from two branches and some twine, voiced over by an African refugee interviewed by Fast, who describes how the trap is made.

A simple hunting trap made of two branches and some twine is a recurring them throughout "Nostalgia." This interviewed African refugee, who is seeking asylum in Britain, uses his fingers to demonstrate how the two bent twigs of the trap interlock as he describes how the trap is constructed.

You move into a dark room in which two screens play simultaneously, where two actors, each occupying a screen, recreate the interview between the refugee and Omer Fast. We learn that Fast is interviewing various African refugees about their experiences in order to make a film. The scripted interview takes some unexpected and uncomfortable turns, in which it is clear that the refugee may not be exactly who he says he is, and says some things that makes the portrayed Omer Fast both impatient and uncomfortable. Likewise the actor playing Fast is made to admit things that makes him squirm in his own seat, when the refugee starts interviewing him.

A production still from "Nostalgia." Imagine the image as I saw it: Fast moves the camera in tight focus from the top of this image down, slowly panning downward from the senselessly clubbed refugee to her vomit in the dirt, which continues to spill out towards us until the screen is filled by a bouquet of grapes and tropical flowers.

To be truthful, the first two segments I've described did not hold my complete attention, until I understood their purpose and their relation to the whole. However, the third segment of this installation, a large screen in a dark room, had me bolted to the floor. Fast takes the essence of the first two segments and flips it on his head with a 30 minute 70's sci-fi flick in which refugees flee a dystopian Europe, seeking asylum in a rich African nation with closed borders. The film is gripping, unraveling harsh realities in a new and weird light, with surreal and mind bending twists and movements that only a video artist has license to pull off.

A week has passed since I've seen "Nostalgia," and it is still flapping around in my head like a trapped bird. I've poured over the internet, wanting to find more from Omer Fast, but despite a decade of film making and international attention in the art world there is surprisingly little on the guy. This is coming at a time when I have been thinking about how valuable and powerful the internet can be as a marketing tool for anyone who is trying to push their work into the limelight. So here I shall put up about Omer Fast as I have been able to find.

Omer Fast, born in 1972, is an Israeli filmmaker who currently resides in Berlin. Much of his work focuses on resplicing and reordering stories and histories in order to create dissonant and altered realities, often using multiple screens in order to create both discord and harmony between images and sound.

Filmography

Breaking in a New Partner 2000. In this comic piece that served as Fast's Graduate Project, two screens play simultaneously, one is a series of scenes from the movie Lethal Weapon that play silently, the other screen shows Fast himself, perfectly mimicking the scenes as both Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, complete with sound effects of fist fights, police sirens, etc that he creates while being filmed.

Glendive Foley 2000. In this installation two televisions face each other, on one screen are images of Suburbia from Glendive, Montana, on the other screen Omar Fast is in recording studio voicing sound effects that go with the images of suburbia (wind, birds, lawnmower; he cracks a watermelon to make the sound effects of a fist fight. etc.)

CNN Concentrated 2002. (Featured above.)

Spielberg's List 2003. Fast interviews citizens of Cracow, Poland, who played as extras in Schindler's List about the holocaust as it was played out in Speilberg's film. Fast recuts the dialogue in order to blur lines between historical facts and their portrayal on the screen in Hollywood.

Godless 2005. Portrayed on two screens, Fast interchange the lives historical reenactors must portray in Colonial Williamsburg with their personal lives outside their jobs in such a way that the characters become detached from both the past and present.

The Casting 2007. American Soldier who fought in Iraq recounts in an interview two differents stories, one of a date he had with a woman in Germany, the other of an fatal roadside shooting in Iraq. Fast splices bits of both stories into one single story. Two screens show a re-enactment of the story, on the other sides of these screens you see the actual interview take place.

De Grote Boodschap 2007. Not 100% sure what this one is about other than: "the stories of paired Flemish characters who appear to be caught in a time-warp"

Take a Deep Breath 2008. About a suicide bombing in Jerusalem in which a medic tries to resuscitate a young man who has lost his limbs, after the young man dies, it is revealed that he is the bomber. However mid-resuscitation we see the film makers start yelling at the actor playing the bomber because he is not convincing enough. An extra from the film is made to take the actor's place, as more complications arise that keep the film from being made, before the final dramatic scene of the bomber's death is finally allowed to unfold.

Nostalgia 2009. As described above.

For me video installation art really sets my mind on fire when it's done correctly, but what's so frustrating about it is rarely can the viewer get to take it into the privacy of their own home, and the video's life in the museum (which I now rarely have access to) is often short lived. Omar Fast's Nostalgia is at the Whitney until Feb 14th, De Grote Boodschap and Take a Deep Breath are at Postmasters (Chelsea) until Feb 13th.

Hello 2010

2010-01-19T18:44:00.023-05:00

I think I've been doing this blog for more than a year now, and so far I've averaged about 6 posts a month, and believe me, that's not bad for somebody who has a hard time committing to anything for more than five minutes. However, it's been more than a month since I've written anything here, December and alot of January has been rife with significant but unbloggable events, on both the good and bad extremes, and that's about all I've had time to ponder. Two days ago I did a few grand worth of damage with my truck, which is pretty on par for the course I've been playing into the New Year. 2010 for yours truly seems to be on the explosive track.

Here's some good stuff that's been happening:

Harold Kyle of Boxcar Press does practically all the work readying a Miehle Vertical V50 for transport from Syracuse to Asheville, including a gracious loan of a complete trailer setup, simply because I really don't know what the hell I'm doing and I don't have any money to do it anyway.

1) I was given a free Miehle Vertical V50 which I have been obsessively restoring for weeks now (along with the sometimes reluctant, but mostly diligent help of the BBH crew) using all kinds of elbow grease, scrubbing tools, and harsh chemicals, the NARSTIEST of them being carburetor cleaner, which I can only use when everyone has left for the day. On some days, despite protective gloves and a respirator, five or six cans of spraying the stuff has me coming home with my body totally juiced with what feels like an early onset of Alzhiemer's. And by free press I mean I think I spent two grand so far on moving, rigging, and restoration, despite its total zero dollar price tag.

I had started in on the center metal roller before thinking about before & after pics. Shortly after that with about an hour of scrubbing and carburetor cleaner, I got the results below.

But my god the results from a caustic cloud of carburetor cleaner are astounding. As my friend Casey, who commandeered the six hour press move into the shop said, "We only use 3% of our brains. Which leaves 97% to burn." What is 97% of one brain cell worth is what I want to know.

Casey Gullage attempts to lift the V50 with a forklift as Emily stands by, hoping she can somehow prevent four thousand pounds of disaster as I pull the trailer out from under the press.

I made sure absolutely everyone at BBH could effectively complain about the detail cleaning of the V50.

The once rusty beast now shines at night.

2) NYIGF Ahoy! As always we're gearing up last minute to churn out new designs and refurbish some old ones. Printing Xmas cards in January seems pretty odd but it's got to happen sometime. The New York Gift Show in January is our biggest show and generally what funds what is in store for the rest of the year, so of course we are all excited to get this over with and get paid!

3) I've had 2 years of experience in High School Theater. Four years ago I had 6 minutes of televised fame as a letterpress practitioner on HGTV's "That's Clever." But I have never officially acted in front of a camera for anything until last week when I was filmed as Thomas Paine rocking out with his cockring out as he prints Common Sense in a "Founding Father's" "Music Video Spoof" of a pop song who's title and artist I will refrain from mentioning just yet. It was for part a promotional video for Soomo Publishing, which specializes in online Poly-Sci educational supplements. It premiers on YouTube in February, it promises to be hilarious, and it captures your humble narrator in his dorkiest glory to date. The film shoot happened at Bookworks and was separate from most of the footage shot for the video.

Thomas Jefferson has a sunset violin solo.

TJ and the Founding Fathers unfurl their flag of Awesome.

This photo of my costume fitting at the Asheville Community Theater does not do what I had to do in front of the camera any kind of justice.

4) A Beautiful Snow Storm. West Asheville got 17" in 24 hours and all sorts of chaos ensued, both locals and travelers were stranded, as of day three 37,000 were still without power, rescue missions and snowball fights were as frequent as liquor drinks, but I gotta say, all of my experiences in Asheville when it's shut down by snow have been nothing but good times. The city of Asheville reportedly spent $500K on cleanup and emergency services over the course of the week.

A snow covered Haywood Road brings out the alcohol starved snow zombies.

A snowball fight between patrons of the Rocket Club and the Admiral raged for hours.

More than ample snowfall has more than ample possibilities.

5) Scoring Stalls Emptied. We keep all of our fresh prints waiting to be scored on display in wooden stalls in the front window of our studio, and often some piles have gotten up to 4 feet high, totaling up to 15,000+ prints in the window at any given time. Despite the dozens of interns who have hacked away at the ever growing "to-be-scored" piles, in three years since we've employed them they have never been completely depleted. No longer, thanks to the combined efforts of our new daily interns "Team Awesome," who decimated the scoring stalls in a mere 18 days.

It hasn't looked this way since they were first built in 2007.

4) I got a Pop-Eye shirt and a really cool wallet (not pictured) for Christmas.

Jesus, I guess that's not all the good stuff but that's all that you are going to get out of me. Up next, best 10 movies of the 00's.

Drool...

2009-12-02T01:37:00.008-05:00

9spotmonk is baiting me on twitter to scoop this totally unaffordable cylinder press on the way back from picking up a free Miehle Vertical V50 from Boxcar Press next week, who was supposed to give it away via this contest, which I entered, but claims I won it because of this and this. I think I won because my twats are awesome.

The Miehle V5o in action.

Text Message transcript betwixt the younger brother Mateo and myself.

2009-11-29T22:36:00.012-05:00

ME: Have you seen Wes Anderson's latest? MATEO: The Mr. Fox One? No not yet is it good? ME: It's very good. As good as his others. You really should check it out. MATEO: Will do thanks.

O ye of the doomed relationship past or present...

2009-11-29T17:38:00.004-05:00

Found this anonymous blog about a writer who is making motions towards a separation with his wife that may lead to a divorce-- the fact that its written so well and that it's documented in real time makes it very compelling. It's like reality TV that doesn't suck. Not only are you getting all the juicy developments, but you are actually made to thoughtfully reflect on the joys/sucks of romantic life. If you've ever been through anything remotely close to this experience, this blog is for you.

Excerpt:
I know that one of the reasons relationships fail is purely chemical. The routine of the everyday becomes boring and we go into dopamine withdrawal. We take each other for granted, we stop flirting, courting, trying new things together. The addict in our skull cries out for a hit and finds none forthcoming. We go into deep funks and start looking around for a cause. And what are we likely to see? The person we spend the most time with. Oh, must be their fault. Surely, it couldn’t be me. I hang out with other people and I feel great (i.e. I get plenty of dopamine.) Even the scientific method absolves me and convicts you.

The blog is called Chapter After.

James Clarke´s Gran is dead.

2009-11-21T20:14:00.002-05:00

My friend from Northern Ireland reports the details of the funeral via email:

The Funeral & all that was a nightmare. The hearse crashed into the church, creating a fireball. Gran never wanted to be cremated, but sure, easy come, easy go. Then, the ashes & smoke were blown across the street, causing a 10 car pile up... lets just say there'll be a couple more funerals next week. I drank too much & ambushed the priest before the ceremony... tying him up & stealing his robes, I then took control of the funeral & recalled stories of how such a wicked woman my gran was, & how she used to beat me & lock me in a cage in the basement with nothing but a bucket of fish heads to eat. It didn't go down too well, as you can imagine. This was followed by my hijacking of the choir, & then forcing them to play as I sung a swing version of the Sex Pistols "God Save The Queen" & Nine Inch Nails "Closer"... the line: "I wanna fuck you like an animal" went down exceedingly well.

Oh ye who knows not what cans of worms ye've opened. Process: Going from hand drawn art to Negative + Color mockup

2009-11-08T17:32:00.025-05:00

The original drawing was done on a piece of scrap paper. Krystan hadn't intended on letterpressing this when she started.

So I walked into the shop today and our apprentice Krystan was scanning an image she wanted to letterpress. I asked her a few questions to make sure she was doing it right, and chuckled internally what I learned what she wanted to do with it, because I didn't think she really knew how much work it would take to pull it off. Below are various stages of pulling off her vision. One, she wanted the line work on the feet to be white, two, she wanted to have a lighter white fill inside the line work on the feet. Here's how the process went.

This 3-color separation for the negative took a couple of hours and some technically creative techniques not worth going into. Krystan got a head full of Photoshop and Illustrator functions she will more than likely not remember next week.

This is a low res color mockup we made to be sure what the final product would look like. Pretty f'n sweet.

Krystan Bruce's work will be featured in my book Adventures in Letterpress, and is one of many writers that have been compelled to join the ranks of BBH. She has a blog called Company for Dinner.

Card I started printing at 4 am sometime last week.

2009-11-04T21:02:00.002-05:00

I mean, c'mon already. Seriously. Buy it here.

Adventures in Letterpress: Prelim sketch for Commemorative Poster

2009-11-03T14:25:00.004-05:00

Preliminary poster sketch by Asheville print maker Andy Farkas. The poster will be inset into Adventures in Letterpress and printed by Boxcar Press. There are many details of this concept we have yet to fill in, but I love the roller gauge staff and the turned over type the figures are standing on. This will eventually be carved into a wood block.

This is great news.

2009-10-28T11:46:00.005-04:00

I can't wait to be back in NYC in January, this is a definite must see. I visited The Hermitage when I was in Beacon, NY and fell in love with all that it stood for and had to offer, and felt lucky to have seen it just weeks before it suddenly and unexpectedly closed down. A letter from the Hermitage regarding its reopening in Brooklyn follows.

Hermitage Returns

I am happy to announce that Hermitage has found a new residence. Since closing its door in Beacon at the end of June, I have been down in the city trying to put together what would be the next step for Hermitage. The search is over, and the new space is set up. Dan Morris at The Arm in Brooklyn has been beyond helpful in making this happen. Many thanks to Dan for giving me a place to lay my head for a while during this transition.

Everything about the new location is even more focused and efficient than 12 Tioronda Avenue. I clean slated nearly all of the books upon closing, and have rebuilt a new collection which I am proud of. One that builds upon what people knew Hermitage for, and which goes into new directions that I am excited about. The letterpress studio here has the addition of a new map press I am eager to get working on, alongside the Vandercook. New publications will be a priority along with ephemera and art works.

Hours are by appointment. I do not mean this as someone who says this on Madison Avenue and 64th Street. I am here. If you want to come let me know. The door is open and all are welcome. The storefront experience proved too time consuming and not cost efficient. This space is a studio where I work and have all the books. It is warm and welcoming.

A beautiful new website has been made by JiaJia Fei to show where Hermitage is currently. Please take a moment to check it out.

Thank you all, and its good to be back.

-Jon Beacham

35 Meadow Street Suite 307
Brooklyn NY 11206
347-422-0395

www.hermitagebeacon.com

Adventures in Letterpress: Submissions are really really closed this time!!! No more!!! I mean it!! I mean, okay, maybe just one more!!

2009-10-23T12:58:00.008-04:00

I closed submissions yesterday for the book, as it is due in 3 days, and then shipped a DVD with 95% of the artwork to my publisher, with plans to upload remaining images on Monday. Well I guess I'm still taking new submissions, as Colin Frazer of the Press at Colorado College just submitted this RAD poster he did for Mount Eerie that uses glow in the dark ink. The two images below are the same poster, the first in the light, the second in the night.

Colin Frazer: "That ink was f-ing expensive, but I didn't pay for it, so it was OK."

Adventures in Letterpress: How many late nights do I have left in me?!?!

2009-10-17T21:56:00.005-04:00

9 days to deliver the book. Actually seems feasible. 74 studios and artists have been chosen and catalogued, 25o images have been selected which must be narrowed down to 200, and I think save for the odd stragglers, we've got all we need for the book. Here are a few more unprocessed pics from the book that are fresh on my mind. These images truly depict adventures of various ilks.

Detail from a calendar from Oddball Press

Letterpressed napkin from my friend Rori at Paper Monkey Press, who taught me how to operate a platen press.

Macro Detail from a print from Press NY.

Spread from"Operator's Manual," a letterpressed book by Crooked Letterpress

Adventures in Letterpress: Sneaky Peeky

2009-10-09T13:16:00.010-04:00

It is October 9th. On October 26th, I have to deliver the contents of my book, "Adventures in Letterpress," to my publisher. I originally pitched a letterpress how-to book, which I hadn't realized wasn't really MBP's type of book, so we altered the idea to be a collection of contemporary letterpress from around the world. Writing a how-to book would have been difficult, alot of work. When we shifted the idea to a mere collection of imagery, I bragged to MBP editor, Buzz Poole, that I could write this book with my eyes closed. Maybe that's why I pushed working on the book to a less busier time for Blue Barnhouse, which happens about mid-September. But here, now, with 15 days left, I realize how wrong I was. It is a hell of alot of work, seeking out the very best that the letterpress world has to offer. Submissions were in the hundreds, images I've looked at were in the thousands, and narrowing it down to 200 images is no small feat at all. My brain melts everytime I sit down and spend an entire day trying to compile the list of images, presses, trying to remember who did what so styles don't overlap, directing our in-house photographer, Lydia See, as to what to shoot, how to shoot it. Etc.

Lydia See shoots a piece by Asheville Artist, Andy Farkas in Version 2.0 of our homemade light studio (we are now on Version 3.2)

Well now we are in the home stretch, and I say we because I'm not the only one working on it. I trust the people I work with, and they have convinced me to include some things, they have shot down things I wasn't sure about. Lydia is shooting the photography, and is a huge part of the editorial process. Antonio Del Toro, who no longer works with us but is still a friend and had apprenticed with us, is my editorial assistant, he's doing the hardest work on this book, organizing, indexing, editing the text, hunting down presses that I might have missed, contacting people for various reasons, collecting his favorite images when I don't have the time to scout out a press myself. I've watched reactions of our crew as we look at new stuff that comes in, and made mental notes to myself.

Yesterday I finished making a list of presses I am interested in using that submitted via email. That was a huge step, the one that was really making me bite my nails. But still, only 30% of that group has been contacted, because I'm still not sure what is the best of the best of the best. There are mountains of mailed submissions in the back of the shop that I have accepted, and I still have to catalogue those, and then count how many images I have, how many presses, look at photos of everything I've selected. Then there are bios to collect, contracts to send out, designers and photographers to credit, photos to color correct, oh yeah and I have written one sentence of my 2000-3000 word introduction. And I believe I'm about to make a whole lot of presses go apeshit to rush their images to us.

Currently I've counted about 60 presses to be included that have been catalogued, but there are easily 20-30 more that I haven't listed just yet, and in the last three days I've found and contacted 5 more presses I wanted to use by mere accident. It seems we have about 100 hours of work still ahead of us, but the strongest work is in the bag. Here is a sneak preview of some images we will be using in Adventures in Letterpress. I'm in a bit of a rush so I'm not going to provide links to these studios. Look'em up your damn self!

A beautifully executed print by Slow Print

An awesome idea by Canadian Kurmudgeon, Phil Ambrosi, who printed some business cards on Currency from an Eastern European Country. Notice the presses on the money? Hands down, Phil is the funniest printer lurking on the letterpress listserv. He doesn't even know we've selected his work but I guess he will here in a minute.

Quirky stuff, as always, from Oddball.

We have to reshoot this one as this was one of our testers for lighting and how we wanted the photos to look. This is from a long time friend and fellow ECU almnus, Andy Farkas, who is currently illustrating the commemorative poster that will come with the book.

From Bowne & Co, the oldest existing company in New York City that has not changed its name.

Trying hard not to scratch our own back in the book, but I can't resist putting this one on the permanent record.

A macro shot of one from Boxcar Press, who is rumored to be the folks who will print the above mentioned commemorative print at their $#@!$ China rates.

From another Asheville studio, Hand-cranked.

We decided to shoot all the posters in their natural setting. This is from Yee-Haw, our friends across the Tennessee border.

This one was just destined for me, I can't think of a more fitting poster to live by. From my old undergrad professor at ECU, Craig Malmrose, who owns Trade Union Press. I failed out of Art School, and had to switch to English. And now I am publishing my professor's work. Revenge!!!

Shutting up now. Work to do. Is it too late to send me stuff? Probably. But you'll never know unless you try.

R.I.P. Mayor McCheese.

2009-10-03T00:17:00.004-04:00

Yes, I am continuing to sell out this month with the blog and am apparently only able to post videos. Give me a break. I have a book due in 23 days. This video is so frigging wrong.

Something to hold you over until something actually interesting happens.

2009-09-27T18:38:00.007-04:00

I saw this years ago, during the annual Spike & Mike's Sick & Twisted Cartoon Festival. I had attended regularly when a resident of San Francisco. Lydia See reminded me that this movie existed. Hoorah for YouTube.

This second one was brought to my attention via John Murphy of the Stupid Creatures fame, which made me revisit and actually foster a newfound love for the latest Gnarls Barkley joint.

Las Mananitas Redesign.

2009-09-27T18:03:00.004-04:00

Las Mananitas.

This card is not a best seller. But the people who get it get it so hard that it deserves another run. It's one of those cards that a retailer will buy a few for personal use in addition to whatever larger order may happen. I've added an English translation to the back of the card so it might appeal to a wider audience. I really love this birthday card. Reprints happening in a week or so.

Oh Shit! It's a fire sale.

2009-09-26T14:06:00.005-04:00

Well we announced it everywhere two days ago everywhere except here on the blog, and so far our fire sale has been a massive success. We are clearing out styles that have been sitting idle in our stockroom for three years or more to make room for 2010 product. All single cards cost $1 each, selected boxed notecards (6 to a pack) $4. Check out the stuff we're practically giving away here. The sale will continue until the cards are gone.

Oh, when me friends come down.... to Asheville!

2009-09-13T16:15:00.012-04:00

Dustin Hamman of Run on Sentence

MP3 of Run on Sentence song, The Afterlife Pt 1.

One of the many benefits of having Kyle Durrie under our wing for a year was getting to know her boyfriend Dustin, who came to Asheville a couple of years ago for an extended visit while on tour for his band Run on Sentence.

PBR in hand, Dustin, in a rare beardless moment, prints the covers for Run on Sentence's debut album on the BBH Vandercook.

Run On Sentence involves a rotating cast of musicians and could easily be a one man show or a 12 piece extravaganza. I've seen him play as both, and the songs have this rich, complex, and charming quality to them no matter how he dishes it out. Dustin gives a powerful and engaging performance to say the least, and really, I think, alot of us here at the shop were taken aback by how freaking good his music is.

Run on Sentence's debut album Oh When the Wind Comes Down.

MP3 of Run on Sentence song, Stonewall.

This isn't an album we keep in rotation in the shop because he's a friend of ours. It is simply great music. I am all about sonically and lyrically cohesive albums and this one nails that feeling like few can. We've all been itching for a new one to come out, and his next album is nearing completion and should be released in early 2010.

Impromptu coaster designed by Power & Light and printed by BBH for Thursday's upcoming show.

Dustin & Kyle are headed to Asheville as we speak, and somehow miraculously at the last minute we finagled a hosting a performance at the Rocket Club this Thursday (9/17) at 10pm which is absolutely FREE. Seth Kaufman's band Floating Action, a local favorite, will be opening the show.

GO KYLE!!!

2009-09-12T10:48:00.009-04:00

Did I put this image on the blog already? I don't care. It makes me have insane fits of jealousy. STOP THAT SHIT KYLE!!!

So I'll make this super quick, cuz I also have to blog about Kyle's boyfriend today, but Kyle, former BBH apprentice/employee who went on to start Power and Light Press, recently landed an interview w/ a cool craft oriented site called Meet Your Maker.

She is also sharing a table with us at Renegade Craft Fair Chicago this weekend, for the second time in a row, and I totally would be bummed about not being there myself were she not headed to Asheville next.

Oh, James.

2009-09-11T13:40:00.015-04:00

Cigarette box style vinyl packaging we concocted for 5MA

James Clarke is an enterprising young chap from Northern Ireland who has worked with Blue Barnhouse for more than 2 years making limited edition package for his record label, 5 Minute Association (5MA.) The 5MA philosophy is pretty well matched with our own as described on their website:

5MA an independent record label based in Ireland, releasing lathe cut records in editions of 100. With a strong focus on the design & packaging we strive to fulfill an aesthetic of creating an item that is as equally visually enthralling & appealing as it is sonically.

James Clarke of 5MA

While that's pretty interesting, what is way more entertaining are the emails we get from him, and after a particularly amusing one from him yesterday, I decided that's what I shall dedicate this blog to today. Below are some of my favorite excerpts from two years of emails. Cheers to you, James, you cheeky bastard.

...so sorry boss, just pre-occupied with my new job as mayor, & satisfying my supermodel wives (yes, my first act as mayor was to abolish bigamy)...

Oh yeh, did I tell you about the time I drove into a lake & left my female passenger to die?! No? Well, that's one for the grandkids!!

Finally got the sleeves the other week, & was so excited that I accidentally jizzed over several of them, so could you make a couple more up?

You'll never guess what happened to me today. I was mugged & brutally attacked & left for dead by a group of 5 year olds. They're getting worse these days.

Canadians scare me, they're like Americans, but a little off kilter. They're wrong I tells ya! Like non-alcoholic beer, or electric cars... just not natural!!

"I was working in the lab late one night. When my eyes beheld an eerie sight. For my monster from his slab began to rise. And suddenly to my surprise..." He got up & said "F**k you, I've had enough of this shit".

Who you callin' a nutjob? You just wait till I get stateside, I'll cut you! I'll cut you good!

I'm [half Irish/] half Belgian, by blood, so when someone confronts me, half of me wants to beat the shit out of them, the other wants to run & hide, but both like to drink!

Oh yeh, forgot to mention about me being a Dark Lord Of The Sith, sorry about that. I wasn't joking when I said I had pasty white skin, it's these black hooded cloaks, & hiding in the darkness all the time, it does nothing for my health.

Lies make baby jesus cry.

Did you find Juan? The little portugese boy who was stowed away in the box with the records? I treated that boy good, so don't let him tell you otherwise!

I already have plans for a project, you can rope in the rest of yr good time employees if you'd like... I'm working on the blueprints for a scale model of the Death Star, made out of cardboard. If you guys can have the reactor core made up by the time I get there, I'll work on the rest.

Be well, & as Jesus once said, "look at me like that once more, & I'll knife ya!!!" Jesus, the Spanish kid down the street... not the religious dude...

I need that cardboard deathstar made up for next week if possible, just keep yr fedex guy away from it.

I think I caught Farrell's strip show when I was in Tijiuana, he was playing support for a donkey sex show. Ah, good times.

Jesus died for our sins so as we could all have easter eggs.

I'm back home from the U-S-of-A! Crazy shit man. Got married to a half woman/half beast in Vegas, then turned gay in San Francisco, & got divorced. Nice!

So here's to future madness, & many a wasted hour on things we should know better not to do.

Be bad,

James

The Summer NYIGF 09 Report: A circle of hell even Dante couldn't dream

2009-09-10T11:39:00.016-04:00

by Emily Wismer, BBH Snarkmaster Supreme

Ah, the NY gift show. After many of these shows, Brandon writes about the great things to be seen, and there are great things - creative and skilled folks selling the fruits of their intense labors. Our journey, however, will be a bit different. Join me, your intrepid guest blogger, as I lead you into the bowels of a hell so wondrous, so tacky; an altar to the possibilities of plastics; a tour through a crystal castle the Snow Queen would envy; a search to find the tackiest gift of all. And be certain, the competition is fierce.

To be honest, the first 2 days of the gift show are a bit of a blur. There is set-up, and sweating, splinters in the fingers. I meet BBH's favorite bartender in NYC, Barry, and have the first 2 martinis I ever like. The blur is more literal for Brandon, who somewhere in the first night's drunken stumble back to the hotel loses one lens from his glasses and has to spend the following day in a perma-squint.

Barry Foley of the Hudson Yards Cafe

By day 3, I am ready to venture from our comparatively tasteful booth full of dirty cards into the wilderness of geegaws, knick-knacks, and tchockes. I aim first for the other lovely letterpress booths, seeing fine work by Oblation, 9Spot Monk, and Snow and Graham, and then, toes acclimated to these rapid waters, take the plunge. The water is cold, and loud, and a lot more colorful than I remember water being. The gift show is, above all things, an assault on the senses.

As I begin, I try to think of what it might be like to be a blind person led around the aisles, listening to the bings and hoots and whirs of various toys, the mood music and constant salesperson chatter. And after seeing a few more booths of flower-topped pens, rhinestone-studded hats, and enough tiny crystal animals to sink the Ark, I wish I were that blind person. I ask to take pictures of various booths for this blog, and am surprised that absolutely no one asks for my credentials or thinks I might be writing anything other than a boffo review. Is any press truly better than none?

And here are some of the highlights:

Flair Hair?

I'm not sure of the purpose of these furry visors. A joke when you take your client to the golf course? But I like that the sign specifies that they are "the original." Lord knows, no one would want to be caught dead wearing an imitation visor with fake hair, that would just be embarrassing.

The guy at this booth was so nice I almost felt bad that I was only taking pictures to make fun of 2 foot high Star Wars carvings that retailed for about $1500. But really, if you're willing to stand by and try to sell this stuff, I can't take responsibility for that. My personal fave was one I call, "ass with hands." It was life-size and I had a hard time picturing the classy individual who would hang it proudly on a wall to show off to friends, or their mom.

The totally tubular fuzzy phallic lamps. This is the name I've given them, and I think it works.

There were about 6 different booths full of these headless ladies who can hold necklaces, bracelets and such. For some reason, they really creep me out. There's something very, um, serial killer about them, and if I had one on a nightstand I think I would wake up in a cold sweat too often.

Ok, so when I first saw this booth, I thought I'd found the holy grail of tacky. This one had everything, a bizarre wall poster, sparkly porcelain animal heads the size of a moose trophy in a hunting lodge, doll heads that begged a psychiatric evaluation for the makers. And yet...By the time I'd toured the floor a few times, bored by the run-of-the-mill hideous, this became, by far, my favorite booth. Even now, I have a little dream of receiving that black, glittery chihuahua head and putting it above my letterpress, feeling its cheery stare on me as I slog away with my metal type and cantankerous old machine.

And so our trip ends, until next time Brandon is foolish enough to let someone else take over the blog. I'd love to tell you more about the slap-happy nature of the final gift show days, and to make make you feel the Tim Burton undercurrents that flow beneath the gift show, I'd even love to buy you a drink with Barry at the Hudson Yards, but you can't have all that nice stuff unless you chose to suffer as we did: don your badge, sit in a booth, and be part of the grand carnival, the search for the creme de la crap.

Emily Wismer is one of those apprentices at BBH that wouldn't go away when their apprenticeship was up, and now she gets paid to be a smartass. She has a letterpress studio as well, called Lady Pilot, which she runs out of her basement. You can check out her blog, Lady Pilot Takes Off, here.

Living la Vida Letterpress

2009-09-10T11:28:00.004-04:00

This week I switched teams and posted a rant on our Pacific Northwest Rep's blog, Crow and Canary. Enjoy!

Goodnight, Teddy Boy

2009-08-26T12:00:00.004-04:00

RIP Edward Moore Kennedy, February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009

Radiohead hints that they are recording new album.

2009-08-17T13:20:00.009-04:00

Artwork for the new Radiohead song "These Are My Twisted Words"

BBH resident librarian Matthew Farrell reportedly checks the Radiohead website every 10 minutes--and so you our humble blog readers can get all the hot Radiohead news practically as it happens. Jonny Greenwood just posted a finished track called "These Are My Twisted Words" along with some obscure news on their recording efforts on their website. Check it out here.

The BBH "Booty Ad Campaign": More designs pre-NYIGF

2009-08-11T16:20:00.004-04:00

This last one features the triumphant return of our resident naked dude, Edmund Foley, AKA Mr. Inappropriate.

For your consideration... more designs!

2009-08-10T13:02:00.007-04:00

As per usual, I belted out a slew of designs a few days before leaving before a trade show (this time NYIGF.) We'll see how many we actually get to print. Captions courtesy our extensive Tyler Dockery archive of fucked uppedness. Also as per usual, blogger makes the cards designs blurry amd illegible so click on em iffin yr hungry for quality.

SO... FUCKING... EXCITED.

2009-08-05T14:26:00.017-04:00

August 21st I will be in NYC and more than likely be standing in line for hours at a Manhattan theater, to watch what promises to be the best movie this year. I'm SO glad Tarantino scooped up Brad Pitt for this on. It's like Tarantino's trying to be the Coen Brothers or something when he cast Pitt as a hysterically over the top character (Burn After Reading?) Brad Pitt's not my favorite actor or anything, but he's on fire in the hands of a wacky director. And no I do not have sex dreams about Brad Pitt. And no there is not a shrine to Brad Pitt on the BBH bathroom vanity.

New Radiohead song for really old dude.

2009-08-05T13:52:00.012-04:00

Thom Yorke at a live recording of "Harry Patch (in memory of)" in an abbey.

I'm just gonna steal directly from the words of Thom, so enjoy. It's a haunting and beautiful song (You can by the song for one pound or just hit the play button and listen for free.)

Recently the last remaining UK veteran of the 1st world war Harry Patch died at the age of 111. I had heard a very emotional interview with him a few years ago on the Today program on Radio4. The way he talked about war had a profound effect on me. It became the inspiration for a song that we happened to record a few weeks before his death. It was done live in an abbey. The strings were arranged by Jonny. I very much hope the song does justice to his memory as the last survivor.

It would be very easy for our generation to forget the true horror of war, without the likes of Harry to remind us. I hope we do not forget.

As Harry himself said "Irrespective of the uniforms we wore, we were all victims".

This morning the Today program played the song for the first time and now it is available to download from our website.

Please click here to download.

The proceeds of this song will go to the British Legion.

To peace and understanding.

Thom

Call for Letterpress Submissions

2009-07-24T12:27:00.003-04:00

I have recently signed a contract to write a 178 page book tentatively called Adventures in Letterpress and will be gathering over 200 images of letterpress for the book. The publisher is Mark Batty Publisher, a well respected design oriented book publisher in both the US and the UK who makes high quality books.

This book will be a large collection of images of letterpress in all its varieties from studios nationwide and perhaps even around the world. I am now collecting images for the book. We are looking for a wide variety of styles so if you know someone who might be interested, please pass this information along, I am especially interested in finding underground studios/artists that have so far been under the radar.

Stage 1 Guidelines for Submission
1. Please send no more than 6 images of your most innovative letterpress projects to submissions@bluebarnhouse.org. Low res images are okay and actually preferred for now. More images will be requested if we like what we see.
2. Send along a bio about you or your studio & contact information.
3. Eventually we will need high quality photos of your work. Please do not send work that is no longer available to be photographed using our file guidelines (see below). If you are unable to take a professional photo of your work, we will be able to take photos of a limited number of artist's work provided you can send it to us.
4. Letterpress can include but is not limited to posters, packaging, books, art prints, business cards, greeting cards, etc.
5. Seriously, don't send us pics of letterpressed wedding related items. We're not interested and it lessens your chances of being accepted.
6. Mailed submissions of letterpress will also be acceptable, please provide return postage if you would like your work returned to you. Submissions can be mailed to:

Adventures in Letterpress
c/o Blue Barnhouse
428-B Haywood Rd
Asheville, NC 28806

8. Cutoff date for submissions is September 1st.

Publisher Guidelines
• You maintain the copyright to your Art and that it is your intellectual property.
• You will not receive any monetary compensation from the Publisher for your Art in connection with the Book.
• Your name and a brief bio will be included in the Book in order to provide proper credit for your Art.
• Your Art can only be included in the Book if the related electronic files can meet the technical
specifications defined by the Publisher. All files should be uncompressed, at least 10x12 inches in
size and at a resolution of 300DPI.
• Upon publication of the Book you will receive one (1) copy for your contribution.

This is a great opportunity for exposure. We look forward to seeing what comes our way. Further questions can be directed to submissions@bluebarnhouse.org

Adventures in Letterpress: My Pilgrimage to N.A. Graphics

2009-07-24T11:45:00.010-04:00

Pt. 1 The Road To Silverton

I live in a mountain town, and have even once have coasted off the edge of an icy road to near death off a steep drop into a tree filled oblivion (really, I did). But as I approached Silverton, Colorado in my rented vehicle, I soon realized that Highway 550 was deadlier than any mountain road I had known before.

I pulled over on the shoulder to document how fucked up Highway 550 truly was. Imagine my surprise when I was able to capture this poor tourist meet his end. It wasn't the only car I saw plummeting thousands of feet to its destruction that week, but the only one I nabbed on film.

As I neared the town of Silverton, the skies parted and revealed unto me the mythical NA Graphics. I drooled. But my journey was far from over. My hands were ripped and bloodied from the jagged rocks as I climbed, and crows black as death cawed and pecked at my wounds. I was dizzy from starvation, and as I approached the summit, I slipped and fell several stories. I came to, broken and bleeding on the concrete floor of NA Graphics, surrounded by the onsite EMTs. Fritz Klinke stood towering above me. "Get your ass off the floor. Dinner is in ten minutes."

Pt 2. The BBH/Fritz Connection

When you walk into NA Graphics, the most famous Elrod will either come up to greet you or leap on to your face and tear it to shreds. I must have smelled of letterpress.

The first time I talked to Fritz on the phone was five years ago, when Blue Barnhouse was in the basement of my home. He talked me through tweaking my Universal I, which I had received in near perfect working condition, but had a few quirks that needed working out.

After having spent some time at NA Graphics this month, I realized that I had been one of dozens of daily phone calls made by young printers with no clue, asking for Fritz by name, with the hopes that they have found the dude with all the answers. Fritz fields these sorts of calls all day, and if he has the answer, he will take the time to give it to you.

In those five years I have called on Fritz on occasion seeking answers, and most of the time he could name the problem's solution by my verbal description. Fritz is one of the more frequent (and more trusted) contributors to the letpress listserv, and I get the impression that one of my more randy contributions to the listserv raised his eyebrows high enough to check out BBH's line of greeting cards and soon thereafter this blog. This wasn't too long ago, but the foulmouthed/over-the-top aspect of BBH has been a frequent subject of our phone conversations, at Fritz's direction, and I guess I'm honored that one of the venerated figures of letterpress has a sick sense of humor.

Worst case scenario: Brandon burns NA Graphics to the ground.

Fritz admitted to me that having read the blog and such, he didn't know what to expect from my visit, and there was worry whether I would raise an unholy ruckus in Silverton. He specifically referred to my rants about my twin brother, who's wicked exploits have been documented in a very small portion on this blog. (Fritz also expressed concern about my brother reading these blogs, but 1) Tony already knows what we think of him, and 2) there's no internet in the village of Ispaya, Bolivia, only collect calls.)

Personally, I thought I knew what to expect when I got to Silverton, but infact got handed something a different than what I'd constructed in my mind.

Pt 3. Fritz Klinke, Man of Action

F is for Fritz, Finger, and other things that start with F.

Fritz curses like a sailor, and will drop many an F bomb as the day runs its course, which did and did not surprise me. As he wrestled with a difficult padlock on the door of one of most current restoration projects, he grumbled aloud, "this is when I would use one of my more choice words, like 'cocksucker!'" I hadn't heard a senior citizen use a word of that caliber since days of old, when my grandmother was behind the wheel of her Chevy Nova.

What truly did surprise me was what a small part NA Graphics is in terms of the Fritz package. More accurately, Fritz Klinke is Silverton, Colorado, with a healthy passion for letterpress. Builder, restaurant owner, council member of Silverton, you name it, if its in Silverton, he's got his hands in it, and in a town with a mere population of 450 people, Fritz easily stands out as an integral and long standing member of the Silverton community. I think this concept of the many faces of Fritz Klinke is best expressed through song, which I can't do here, so photographs will have to suffice for now.

I would say Fritz's primary reason for moving to Silverton more than 30 years ago was his love for the steam engine train. The line from Silverton to Durango has been in operation since its inception in 1881.

This is Fritz's business partner of 30+ years, Lorne Lew. I asked him to take off his sunglasses, but forgot to tell him to open his eyes. Fritz reported that Lorne is 50% partner in NA Graphics, "though he'll never admit it." Lorne has done some of the most beautiful and intricate wood work I've seen, and wears almost as many hats as Fritz does, including being an actor, a welder, and a musician.

Lorne's house, built by Fritz and Lorne behind Fritz's Home.

The Silverton Courthouse. Fritz and Lorne performed a historical restoration to this building inside and out, the most notable feature of this restoration is the clock tower. A more intense restoration by Fritz and Lorne was performed on Silverton's city hall, which had mostly burned down to the ground and had to be restored using historic photographs.

Hinge of a door on Silverton's ice cream parlor. Fritz restored this building, and was meticulous with the restoration right down to the hardware. Fritz talked about how his restoration business did not make as much money as commercial builders, because he cares about the craftsmanship of his work and will spend the extra time required to achieve perfection. Sounds like another medium we're all pretty familiar with.

These file drawers contain the blue prints for every Vandercook part ever made.

Blueprint for a lockup bar.

Master blue prints for a myriad of Vandercook presses.

One of my favorite file drawers that Fritz had shown me was a collection of more than a hundred historical photographs from the era when Vandercook was a viable press manufacturer. This photo is of the Vandercook Mobile Technical Center in front of Vandercook headquarters. Rather than photograph the pictures I saw, I used ones scanned by (and courtesy of) Paul Moxon, who had come to Silverton a couple of times before my arrival, to document historical Vandercook information in Fritz's possesion. The photographs are in a number of locations on Moxon's very thorough website dedicated to the Vandercook press.

Inside of the Vandercook Mobile Technical Center, a mobile sales/demonstration vehicle, and a dream vehicle for a traveling Vandercook enthusiast such as myself.

Vandercook showroom floor.

It's been a while since I've left Colorado, but I'm pretty sure we are looking at what's left of the ATF type that Fritz cleaned out from an auction. More of the same the other side of these shelves, of course. Thirteen years ago, Fritz was just a letterpress enthusiast who dabbled in restoration work, the restaraunt business, and real estate. Not long after having purchasing more than $6000 worth of type from NA for his personal collection, Fritz was offered the entirety of the business for purchase. NA is was what is left of a few defunct letterpress companies including Vandercook. Fritz loved letterpress, and purchased the business to further diversify his Silverton empire.

Fritz not only restored and owned these two buildings, he also ran the Pickle Barrel restaurant for more than thirty years. He sold it not too long ago. He mentioned how he was called up from NA Graphics on a regular occasion to wash dishes, and spoke many times of how many meals per day he had cooked for locals and tourists. NA Graphics was originally located behind these buildings.

The Pickle Barrel menu was letterpressed. An expensive way to get your menus, that is unless you are the Godfather of letterpress.

This is an outdoor cooler located behind the Pickle Barrel. Fritz told me a story about how he had found Elrod beneath this cooler during the winter five years ago. Elrod was nearing starvation and Fritz fed him for several days until Elrod ventured into NA Graphics and became the shop cat.

Fritz looks upon the previous location of NA Graphics. He relocated it to a more forboding and mythic location last year.

#1 reason to go back to Silverton, to see Fritz's letterpress shop in completion. Currently all his presses and related equipment are bagged while he finishes building his dream studio, which is an addition to his home. Some presses include a Meihle Vertical, a Heidelberg Windmill, and his first C&P, acquired in his early teens. (This is hundreds of years ago, people.) Fritz got his first press when he was 12 years old. He lived on an Army base at the time and sold subscriptions to a weekly newspaper he printed up.

A record book of Vandercook sales: Page one, in which the first Vandercook is sold almost 100 years ago on Sep 30, 1909.

I used photoshop to highlight the index cards of every SP15 sold by Vandercook.

Before I left, Fritz took me for a romp at the local brothel. He recalled fondly the days when it was only "25 cents a lay."

Elrod was a whore for some lovin. I definitely reeked o' letterpress.

Fritz's SP15. A certificate about to be awarded to an outstanding citizen of Silverton is locked into the press. Anyone notice what's wrong with this picture and is likely to get a lecture from Fritz Klinke? And can anyone tell me how many days the ink has been sitting on this press? I guess its awesome when you can make your own rollers.

The view from Fritz's office window.

Fritz saved scads of original drawings of various ATF fonts from dumpster heaven. This one here is a font called Adlib, which he had recently seen used as a typeface for the Silverton 4th of July festivities brochure.

Fritz has an amazing collection of type, and we spent a good amount of time rifling through his collection. Here we see a 120 pt Dutch initial. It's enough to make a photopolymer junkie think twice about the value of type.

After a short tour, I was given free reign to snoop through every nook and cranny NA Graphics. I opened drawer after drawer stuffed with press parts and supplies, many of which looked foreign to me. I opened shelving cabinets, leafed through file drawers, stepped around this pile and that pile of metal, paper, or boxes of either or both. Fritz's phone rang regularly, and after he'd hang up he'd report to me who it was and what they needed, a story about that person if he had one. Besides Fritz's own personal collection of presses at his home, there really was not the armada of Vandercook presses I suspected would be there, I think maybe three, one of which he was considering putting up for sale. Just hoards of parts, some that may never get asked for, drawers and drawers of information and documents preserved from the Vandercook era. It was endless, daunting really, there was no real way of seeing it all. We spoke of the woes of owning a business, and it was both unnerving and relieving to learn that some of the problems I have been struggling with are problems Fritz still struggles with today--I think the most terrifying having all these things you set out to achieve, and how freaking long it takes to get there. Fritz has set a lot high goals for himself, he has the ambition to do it, but has a long way to go before he'll see their completion. I thought that for myself this sort of madness would end at some point, but now I see it can become a way of life. Fritz seemed to take it all in stride and not let himself get wrapped up in it. He has alot of lessons to offer, lots of knowledge to share, a willingness and a dedication to keep letterpress alive, by schooling all of us young pups who think they've got it all figured out. Dude is my hero.

Rare Photo.

2009-06-28T01:40:00.009-04:00

Just came across this photo. I can't remember what event this was but it was 2005, the year I participated in the 3rd annual Holiday Neckbeard. I am chatting to musicians Seth Kauffman of Floating Action, Tyler Ramsey who has done some amazing solo work but is also a guitarist for Band of Horses, & Bill Reynolds, former bassist from Donna the Buffal0 and currently working with practically every band that is worth a spit in Asheville. The three were playing at the 2005 event as Seth Kauffman's band.

A beautiful album with a beautiful cover.

It is rumored that Bill Reynolds coined the term West Mustacheville. This image relates to an earlier blog about my home.

In two days I will be in Colorado having lunch with the 2006 King Holiday Neckbeard, Colin Frazer. (victory pictured below)

Goodbye Michael Jackson. Hello Zombie Michael Jackson.

2009-06-28T01:21:00.006-04:00

We at BBH believe that God's only begotten king of pop will soon rise from the dead, and shall thenceforth be known as Zombie Michael Jackson. Zombie Michael Jackson will still be able to dance like a motherfucker. Zombie Michael Jackson will no longer feel the urge to play with children, but he will still probably eat their brains. Zombie Michael Jackson will still have his pet monkey, but it is only a matter of time before we're talking Zombie Monkey. We leave you with this interpretation of Michael Jackson's Thriller, straight to you from the CPDRC inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, Cebu, Philippines.

Adventures in Letterpress: The New York/New Jersey Edition

2009-06-10T17:20:00.042-04:00

Whilst killing time between the NSS and Renegade I made my rounds at various letterpress studios in New Jersey and New York. This has been a hobby of mine since I started Blue Barnhouse. The most awesome thing about touring letterpress studios is that you'll never see the same setup twice, and you learn a little something about your own studio in the process.

9spotmonk
I feel like an idiot. I knew their Heidelbergs were run on windpower, what I did not know is that there was not a big fucking windmill on their property. A destroyed fantasy did not necessarily equal disappointment as much as it illuminates my propensity to make things very large in my mind. As it turns out, windpower is an alternative energy option from their energy provider. No such thing in the south, you have to do that sort of thing on your own dime. Which I may. In like a decade.

9spotmonk runs 2 Heidelberg Windmills and a Vandercook. Vivian moved her press home so she could take care of her two children, but is eager to move it out of the house as soon as they're both old enough to go to school. A home studio is a blessing and a curse. No overhead, no commute, free childcare, but also, never an hour you aren't sucked into being there when you really shouldn't be. The studio takes up a garage, a basement room, and a sundeck. Vivian's sister Tiffany was being a computer geek in the basement office, and declined a picture. If I had taken one that wasn't all blurred I totally would have ignored her request.

The Hermitage
By far the most unique letterpress studio I've paid a visit to. A very sparse and beautiful studio/bookstore, in Beacon, NY, which is about an hour from the city, and an odd but intriguing city.

Hermitage is located in Beacon NY alongside the Hudson River 60 miles north of Manhattan. The actual structure is a house nearly 100 years old. It resides between a Spanish church and two coal silos no longer in use. In the near background lies a defunct railroad track and a creek which empties out into the Hudson. Mt. Beacon stands in the background of all this-- Jon Beacham Prorietor.

The room at the entrance is long and narrow. On one wall various manuscripts and rare literary collections/chapbooks are thumbtacked to the wall in protective sleeves. The right the wall is lined with bookshelves. You know the authors, but there are many titles that seem unfamiliar. There was a heavy concentration of Beat writers, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Buroughs, but also a focus on American classics. I recall a first edition copy of a Melville book, in great condition, with Edward Gorey as the artist, which Kyle bought for $12. I drooled over a chapbook of Kerouac's with a shimmering silver cover, a first edition underground title that is not listed in his official bibliography, $10.

John Beacham files away "new" books. Hermitage feels like a very nice collection more than a bookstore.

Here is Beacham's description of his collection:
The bookshop focuses primarily on 20th Century, Poetry, Fiction, and Art. The context of the shop revolves around publishing, with important & influential Presses highly represented. The stock is carefully hand selected with each book being intentional as part of a larger collection. Small Press American Poetry of the 1950s and 1960s is given a special focus.

The store is a circle of three rooms, turn to your right, a small letterpress studio and gallery space. Beacham keeps vinyl playing on the turntable all day long. A Smog album played as we perused the Hermitage.

The Hermitage Vandercook (SP-15 if I remember correctly.)

Type and a pilot press.

One of dozens of ephemeral wonders hanging on the wall.

The stereo. Beacham would like to start a nice collection of Vinyl as sale items as well.

Next room, the gallery. Pictured here in the gallery is Thomas, a french filmmaker and friend of the proprietor.

On top of all the literary eye-candy, Hermitage has monthly outdoor events by the railroad tracks behind the house in which Jon shows rare 16mm films that he rents from various film libraries. (Jon is a filmmaker as well, and has a cutting room/film setup upstairs)

We had a thorough look-see at the Hermitage and then explored the main street of Beacon and had lunch at a wonderful restaraunt on Jon's recommendation called Homespun. As we returned to our car, Jon, who was hanging out of the upstairs window of the Hermitage house, invited us up to have a beer with he and his guest.

His guest, Thomas, turned out to be an interesting fellow, he had finished 2 years of teaching French in an Ohio university, and had just arrived for a night's stay in Beacon before he was to head back across the pond. He made a film while here in the U.S. and gave Kyle and I a DVD copy. Kyle's got first dibs on watching the DVD but I look foward to getting my paws on it soon.

The Hermitage seems to be a magnet for all the right kind of people.

Press NYC

Tim Chapman of Press NYC does a quality check. He's as picky as I am, lucky for me, we're the same kind of picky.

I've known the Press NYC kids for a little while now. What are they known for? High-end (read: HIGH-END) Manhattan wedding clients. They always have a cocktail party on the first weekday night of the Stationery Show- we attended one way back when and promised each other some sort of work exchange. My employees and I got a little training time on their Heidelberg Windmill while at the January Gift Show. This most recent Stationery Show, while at the annual cocktail party, I asked if I could work for them for a couple full days. I wanted to take a windmill novice's crack at the Press's "Wall of Fame."

15 Heidelberg runs or more in a 9 hour day at Press will get you on the wall, and maybe even laid. Seems like it would be a piece of cake.

My first day as their press monkey wasn't so bad--I knew I would not make the 15 run quota. By now I'm comfortable using a Heidelberg, but I've never actually have been responsible for a real workload with real client work. I fared pretty well as I reacquainted myself the machine's functions--and I definitely had my hand held, as well as given a few complicated tasks over the course of the day that required some new tricks that took a while to get used to. My total on my first day was 9 runs, which is apparently not a bad day. They work on metal plates. A half day of setup on something that takes me less than 5 minutes per run at BBH. I am trying to convince them the beauty of adhesive backed plates. Its fun to play by somebody else's rules, but I can't wait for Tim to play by mine.

Jerry French, Blockhead, Goo, and Gumby make up one of many peanut galleries at Press.

A week later I miraculously found Tim's apartment in the Village after having been a patron of 4 different NYC bars with my bud Buzz Poole. The following morning, which should have been a promising day to get on the wall, was met with bad weather in my head as I nursed a brain totally destroyed by alcohol. The machine requires a sharp mind, I was making mistakes most of the day before lunchtime, ran out of steam on a few occasions afterward, I also had to step away from the press to diffuse a situation back at the ranch for more than 45 minutes.I accepted defeat at 11 runs with 5 minutes to go, which considering my handicap, wasn't that bad.

It's getting better all the time.

I'm up for making another attempt next time I'm in Manhattan in August, though the bastard in charge is upping the minimum number of runs it takes on the wall. He thinks 15 is too easy. No problem. I'll make sure he gets the treatment at BBH.

The Arm

Once upon a time, Daniel Morris had a brilliant idea.

It's been a few years since I've been at the Arm in Brooklyn. During my first visit Dan had all of his presses crowded in the side room as he renovated the rest of the space. He had some ideas about what he wanted to do, but I never suspected it would become the thing it is now. The Arm has become Brooklyn's hotspot for learning the letterpress craft and a place for letterpress printers without a studio to get some press time at a reasonable price.

When I visited in 2005 these gorgeous doors had been recently purchased and leaned against the wall waiting to be installed. The portal had just been cut that week.

The press area at the Arm.

Dan was literaly a few blocks from the Renegade festival, so we were intent on paying an evening visit to have a few beers. I walked around the studio in shock of what the Arm had become. Dan showed us some great prints from the the flat file of various visiting artists. Then he encouraged us to go through his woodtype collection. When I found one that I really liked I asked him I could lock something up in one of the Vandercooks.

Dan served us a few beers. When I learned I was missing an E, I decided my broadside was better without it.

The highlight of the Arm tour was watching a Universal III in action. I'd seen pictures of frisket setups, I'd seen automatic carriages in action. The whole thing seemed too frilly. But seeing the automatic carriage work in conjunction with the friskets, I was blown away. The feeder stands at the table as the carriage rolls forward, the friskets keep the paper in place, the carriage rolls back to you and delivers a finished print to the feed table. WANT ONE!

Universal III in action at Hatch Show Print

Up next in Adventures in Letterpress: Colorado!

Lady Pilot Takes Off!

2009-06-10T16:35:00.005-04:00

OMG. Our snarkiest BBH apprentice, Emily Wismer, actually admitted to the world that she loves working with us. This Chicagoan smart-ass has a sweet side? I don't believe it.

Anyhow, you can follow her blog about her hapless foray into the world of letterpress here.

Renegade Craft Fair/Brooklyn Love

2009-06-08T11:40:00.028-04:00

Renegade! (and also: "A bird is about to shit on my face!)

After 5 dreary and rainy weekdays, the sun finally came out over New York City, and we got a much needed taste of perfect early summer weather. An estimated 75,000+ people crawled out of their hovels in throngs and descended on McCarren Park this weekend for the Brooklyn edition of the Renegade Craft Fair, in order to peruse the handmade wares of more than 300 artists (and also maybe play some handball, do some beatbox dancing, run laps, have bbqs, and take their parrots for bike rides.)

A quick and dirty way to display: rubber bands keep the piles from mixing and blowing away- and makes for a quick and painless setup/takedown

BBH has done a handful of streetfairs, and after dabbling in a few cities outside of the Asheville area, we've found that keeping it local is the only way to make it profitable. However when Kyle of Power & Light Press asked if I'd be interested in prolonging my NYC business trip by two weeks to share a tent with her at Renegade, I decided it would be worth the trip. I was interested how well we would fair in the hippest sector of New York City.

As it turns out, Brooklyn is hot for BBH. Our tent was never empty, people would read a few of our funniest greetings posted at the front of the tent and decided they wanted to read every last one of what we had in stock. The table stayed crowded around all sides pretty much the entire show.

The ugliest business sign in all of Renegade land. Proof positive that presentation don't mean shit.

Renegade is the equivalent to an outdoor Etsy, showcasing a diversity of handmade arts, and being a juried event, there was an abundance of exciting and unique artistry to blow your cash on. I found alot of artists worth mentioning, so let's get to it. I'll list their company name, their own description of their work (when possible), and the products that got my attention.

Fuzzy-Ink
Fuzzy Ink is dedicated to the loving production of mustache clad apparel. Armed with a unique sense of style and an under-appreciated sense of humor, we work frantically to bring the freshest designs to the unkempt mustache kingdom. Each shirt, from the custom stamped tag to the artwork, is designed and hand printed in our underground lair. Additionally, we are committed to making and selling only clothing that we would proudly sport ourselves.

I had to get this shirt for myself.

Hee hee. Identity Crisis.

Folded Pigs
I like the idea of surprising your dinner guest as they chow down on their delicious meal with a plate full cockroaches. You can check out Folded Pigs etsy site here.

For the dinner guests you love to hate. Bon Appetit!

Seattle Show Posters
Their name says everything you need to know except that their posters are screenprinted. I love their work.

Ryan Berkley Illustration
I spent more money in this booth than any other. Here's Ryan Berkley's etsy profile:

I'm a comics inspired gentleman surrounded by toys and Chewbacca masks. I like drawing sharks and animals and creatures and mustaches and superheroes. Sometimes I combine all of them - sometimes they are on their own - it really depends on my mood.

And here are the prints I bought for my home.

Final Approach
we are a young couple from east tennessee with a passion for design and an eye for the unconventional. we stand by our products and insure the highest quality of work. we specialize in custom painted vintage suitcases and are tinkering in found item home decor.

It appears they've taken their etsy shop down while they deal with renegade, but check back. They have alot of nice product:

Seibei
At first, SEIBEI was just an expensive hobby. I’d always enjoyed drawing stupid cartoons to make my friends laugh and making presents for people, and t-shirts seemed like the best medium to do both of those things on a larger scale. I want people to lighten up, and take it easy. I want to make the world a safer and more enjoyable place for everything I’ve ever been called growing up – weirdos, spazzes, dumbasses, and everyone else.

Word?

Basho
Basho Apparel is a small design studio in based in Yellow Springs, OH. Paul Baker, artist and owner, hand prints each and every shirt.

These are friends of my friend John Davis who has been calling Yellow Springs home base for the last few years. Basho's etsy shop is also down this week (dag everyone! Renegade was only a weekend long!) but if you like the shirts featured in the above link, be sure to visit sometime soon.

Tugboat Print Shop
Tugboat is a collective of printers from Pittsburgh who make amazing woodblock prints.

A woodblock on display in the Tugboat tent. This particular artist has an impressive menagerie of animal prints.

THANK YOU BROOKLYN!
Brooklyn gave BBH some mad love, and we are flattered. It was by far the funnest event I've attended to promote the business, and something we hope will become a part of our regular curiculum. We've already signed up for the Chicago event coming this September. See you there!

We ended the day sitting on the banks of the East River and watched Manhattan descend into twilight.

NSS 2009 Part the 5th: An Outsider's View from the Inside

2009-06-02T22:57:00.025-04:00

by Buzz Poole

If you're reading this, that means, presumably, you've read what came before. Brandon's been saying lots of nice stuff about my day job. But he's biased, as am I when it comes to the world of letterpress.

I've known Brandon for a long time. I’ve changed his kid’s diaper, helped start his business, caused mayhem with him, been his press monkey, played peacemaker between he and his belligerent doppleganger, stayed in close contact after we both moved across the country, ballyhooed him and his endeavors whenever the opportunity arises. Such thoughts preoccupied me as I rode a cross-town bus to the Jacob Javits Center to visit Brandon at the National Stationery Show. We've met up in Manhattan this way several times now in the last few years: I arrive to the show a little early, walk the floor with him, drink some beers, watch him close up the booth and then we have a night on the town. But this time new factors were in play. I had work to do. Brandon asked me to guest write for the BBH blog, my job was to report on the show as an outsider. Also, I had a feeling there might be trouble, given some information that Brandon had neglected to mention until the day before we planned to meet.

Though I was curious to see what beautifully mad-capped printed ditties the BBH crew had created for this year’s show, I was unsettled by the news that his brother Tony was back on the scene, and would be meeting us for drinks after the show. Neither Brandon nor I had parted on good terms with Tony when the two of us pulled up anchors and left the Bay Area. You'd think the mythical evil twin is the stuff of terrible television writing, the brothers Mise have a way of making bad fiction an inconceivable reality. It was when Brandon called me up from the show on Sunday to make arrangements for the following day that he broke the news of Tony's return to the States. When I learned that he would be hanging out with us, I had second thoughts about showing up.

"You're kidding me, right?"

"He's gotten better. He's only a dick if you set him off."

"I don't know. You should hang with Tony tomorrow. You and I can meet up on Tuesday."

"He's here all week. He's asked to see you." At that point a customer entered Brandon's booth and he excused himself. "C'ya at 4:30. He'll be good. I promise."

Then the line went dead. I'd been promised this before.

Brandon and I met in the gridded atrium of the Javits Center, Brandon sporting a “MILF Academy” hoodie, griping about Manhattan’s dearth of PBR (a fallacy). Brandon ushered me past security and into the fray, shouting out at sales reps and checking in with letterpress cohorts and other spirits kindred by edgy bawdiness.

Take Olga Krigman of Offensive + Delightful. The company may be out of Los Angeles but the cards read like eavesdropping in some long-gone Hudson River sailor bar. The designs pit vintage images with Oh no you don’t sentiments, saying the things that most of us never say out loud. Have you ever seen a “Congratulations on Your New Pooping Machine!” card? Me neither.

The front of the catalog insists: “I’ve broken lots of bones and even sank a car in a lake once... but deep down inside I’m really very shy.” I don’t believe it.

I was drawn to the Bob’s Your Uncle stand by virtue of the company’s name. I travel to London often and this is one of the most mystifying idioms I’ve encountered. It’s kind of an all purpose “There you go” but to my American ears it always sounds a tad dodgy. Unsurprisingly, the company’s owners are British, though they live in Boston. When we spoke with designer Martin Yeeles he didn’t really elaborate on the company’s name but the website provides the best theory on the origin of the term, which I will forever assume is a historical fact: “Possibly inspired by Victorian Prime Minister, Robert Cecil, who appointed his nephew to a ministerial post, therefore to have Bob as your uncle was a guarantee of success.”

The cards, coasters, luggage tags and abecedaries comprise clean, sans-serif typography, emboldened by bold colors. They also produce placemats and melamine that feature photographic images of Americana and its signage, the loopy large-scale lettering of the word “motel” serves as a great counterbalance to the other printed matter. Not boring, not offensive, well designed – I’d be hard pressed to think of people that wouldn’t enjoy this stuff.

The most arresting image I encountered while walking the floor with Brandon was this heart by L2 Design Collective. Wow. What awesome screen printing these folks do. From nostalgia chic to wonderful original illustrations and lettering – they even have a “Mad Props” graffiti card – this collective exemplifies contemporary design, with that all important handmade touch.

Lots of other cool purveyors of stationery of course, as well as toys and doodads, like my friends Noted. But the day was winding down and we were out of beer.

Walking off the show floor with Brandon and Kyle to meet Tony in the atrium, the voice inside my head made me wonder why I was being made to engage with the jackass who had once impersonated his brother to frame me for stealing art from a collector's home.

Like a waft of smelling salts the stench of cleaning disinfectant knocked me out of my thoughts. And then I saw Tony, puddled up in the chair by the Jacob Javits statue. He was emanating the smell, incredibly cheap whiskey. Brandon kicked him awake.

"I need more money," were Tony's first words. He looked at me through one eye and slurred. "I remember you." Then his eyes closed again.

Brandon smacked him in the face a few times to wake him up. "Couldn't hold it together for a day . . . a single fucking day?" Passersby turned their heads as Tony woah-woah-woahed and assured us he was cool.

Brandon sighed. "Let's get this picture over with."

We managed to fake an air of normalcy. Tony lost his lunch in front of the statue as Brandon retrieved his camera from the stranger who took our picture. As Tony slumped over to examine what he'd done, Brandon, flushed with embarrasment, snuck Kyle and I through a crowd of folk exiting the lobby and hurried us out to the street. We caught a cab just as Tony appeared and ran after the cab, beating on the window as Brandon and I urged the driver to keep driving. We made our way in awkward silence to Press New York, where the four of us were supposed to have cocktails.

If I only knew how to read...

2009-06-02T12:44:00.028-04:00

In my five years of residence in Asheville, I can count the number of books I've read on my fingers without having to resort to toes (that's not counting Graphic Novels, which I read obsessively when I find something worth reading.) The last year has been especially bad-- the only thing I've read since January 2008 is an anthology of short stories by Paul Bowles. I've bought up every last McSweeney's issue and continue to do so, but haven't so much as cracked open a single issue in years. Mostly, its a matter of time and distraction. I used to love to read, and always dreamed of having one of those jobs where you can sit behind a counter with a book waiting for somebody to need you to do something, but these days the world crashes around me on a day to day basis and it is impossible for me to engage a book for longer than a week before I abandon it.

That didn't stop me from attending the 2009 Book Expo America, at the invitation of being snuck in to the Javits by my buddy Buzz, who was running the Mark Batty Publisher booth.

I walked the whole floor, 50 some ailses spread over two city blocks, and I gotta say, there wasn't much to look at. Mostly what I saw were books that make money, i.e. children's books, books by celebrities, mass market books I have no interest in reading. There were a few little surprises on hand, so I'll make this quick and dirty.

What the hell? Didn't I just see these guys at the NSS?

Because the world is getting smaller everyday, I immediately bumped into Carrie from Red Cap cards. I'm not sure what card manafacturers were doing at the Book Expo, and they didn't seem too sure either. Hal asked me if I had any beer on hand. Do I look like I'm made of alcohol? Red Cap is the best selling line that we carry in the BBH retail store.

During my walk on the North end of the building I overheard Neil Gaiman's name being mentioned. On my walk back from the South end I saw a line 14 aisles long and had a sneaking suspicion that dude would be at the end of it. Sure enough I ended up standing 3 feet from the table where he was signing autographs.

Neil Gaiman puts up with his depraved followers.

For those of you not in the know, Neil Gaiman is the madman behind DC Vertigo's cult hit, Sandman, in which the history of the world is cleverly rewritten and the gods of the human experience run amok with mortals. Beautifully drawn and so satisfyingly complicated, without a doubt it is my favorite comic series.

Gaiman also co-wrote an apocalyptic novel called Good Omens with Terry Pratchet, and is probably best known for the recent animated children's movie, Coraline.

Comic artist Chris Giarusso signed a free copy of G-Man for my 7 year old son.

The comic section left little to be desired. Some reputable indies were present but there were only eight of them in a single section. I did get offered a free copy of G-Man by Chris Giarusso, creator of Mini Marvels, a series that depicts Marvel super heroes as children. Being for children, G-Man wasn't able to hold my attention for more than two pages. Toby, however, ate that shit up in a single sitting and asked for seconds.

I don't know everyone's names here, but Mark Batty is the gent to my left, editor Buzz Poole and designer Christopher Salyers to my right.

In general, the expo was a snore. Buzz said he'd seen members of McSweeney's tooling about, which would have made the show more exciting, but after a seemingly endless search for their booth we determined that they were in attendence but not exhibiting. So go figure, the crown jewel of the endless aisles ended up being the same folks who snuck me in, MBP. I've tried to explain their aesthetic in countless ways, but first I'll just mention Mark Batty's resume: former president of ITC fonts and former editor of every graphic designer's wet dream, a typography publication called U&lc. Rather than talk more about what they do, I'll end this post with some nods to a few of my MBP favorites:

Designer Ji Lee has devised a way to reclaim our public spaces. It’s called Bubbling. Blank Bubble Stickers are put up on ads, in wait of passersby to fill them in with their own messages, some as funny as they are profound, instantly transforming the corporate monologue into a true public dialogue.

A book for type aficionados and their children, the serif fairy cleverly uses typography to create a world made of letters.

This brilliant novella by colleague Garth Hallberg was originally slated to be part of Em 5, back when BBH was doing books. When we canned Em Literary, Buzz immediately scooped it up for MBP. Field Guide classifies the aspects of the American Family experience as one might classify birds in a field guide, while simultaneously unravelling a heart wrenching tale of two families in a typical American suburb. You can get a taste for the book here.

This book by MBP designer Christopher Salyers documents contemporary versions of the bento box, inspired by the rampant popularity of movies, television shows and manga. These charaben, made by parents (mostly mothers) eager to bring attention to their children’s lunch boxes, comprise food crafted into visually creative, appealing and recognizable forms, and are as much about planning and preparation as nutrition.

Culled from the collection of movie-poster aficionado Sam Sarowitz’s Posteritati Gallery, Translating Hollywood examines how the posters used to sell the same film in different countries speak volumes for how cultural tendencies are reflected in graphic design and how the differences are about much more than language.

Lick my Twitter

2009-06-01T20:42:00.023-04:00

uh... Twitter done made a jackass of me. I blame it on the media, who was quick to report, not so quick to check their facts. as a result I deleted the previous version of this post-- but the gist is it seemed like twitter was an annoying concept but now that I've signed up, its not as bad as I imagined. don't be offended if I don't follow any of you-- what turned me off about twitter was all the chatter. this is purely a business move.

NSS 2009 pt the 4th: My show, it runneth over.

2009-05-23T14:25:00.026-04:00

"For me New York will always have the luster and magic of a
Brand New Adventure around every corner..." Jacob Javits,
New York Senator from 1957-1981.

I predicted on this blog not too long ago that this year's NSS was "going to suck hard," and I believed it, but there were some factors in the fucked economy equation I hadn't considered.

When I arrived at the Javits the day before the show to setup, I was shocked at what I'd seen, and was washed over with the feeling that something incredible was about to happen at the Javits Center. What was it that I saw? The number of manufacturers/exhibitors had severely dropped off, what I estimate to be at about 35% less than the usual attendance.

The empty view depicted here was full of exhibitors at NSS 2008. This year, a whole block of real estate was shaved off the entire length of the back end of the Javits Center.

Surtex, an image/licensing show that happens simultaneously with the NSS, used to be on the second floor of the Javits Center. This year, it took up an estimated 20% of the main floor where NSS exhibitors used to reside. Additionally, two full rows on the south end of the show were vacant and hidden by curtains.

This is the smallest the show has been in the four years I've been in attendence. And what does that mean for the exhibitors? I have theories.

1) Crap successfully flushed: I often refer to the Javits floor as a sea of crap--as every dumb ugly and poorly manufactured product imaginable have made certain ailses an unappealing walk to buyers, thus causing harm to those who are doing quality work and hidden in the rubbish. This is the first show I can say that the sea of crap has dried up considerably and it was a very attractive show. My theory is that the economy has made buyers more careful about the products they carry and that those who make inferior product simply couldn't drum up the dough to attend. Good riddance.

2) Less exhibitors = More exposure. One of our best trade shows in BBH history was the Toronto Gift Show, which was about 75% smaller than the Javits shows I've been accustomed to, and its because it was easy to stand out. With a small show, buyers can walk the entire floor in a short amount of time. I have NEVER seen the Javits floor so full of traffic as I did at NSS 2009- and I don't think it had anything to do with how many buyers were in attendance.

3) Less competition. Alot of my favorite vendors failed to show this year. Buyers come with a spending budget and they have shelves to fill. They had plenty of time to snoop around and figure out what it was they wanted, and then spent their dollars. I think alot of us benefitted from the lack of choices.

Erika Firm of Delphine Press sets up her booth the day before the show.

The exhibitors I talked with about the show came here with low expectations, as did I. We were ready for dissapointments. But the general consensus when it was over was that everyone did alright, considering the circumstances. For me, an okay show is when you've almost broken even, a good show is when you do break even, a great show is when you come away with more than you had hoped for, an excellent show would be if you wrote twice as many orders than you spent on being there. I haven't an excellent show just yet, but we had a great show. In fact, we wrote more orders at that show than in any show to date, and a third of that revenue happened in one crazy flurry on Monday afternoon. Those who do so-so at the shows need to remember that customers that like your work become repeat customers. And some people who snoop out your work wait as long as a year to place their first order. And if you are picking up sales reps, well then that opens a big old barrell of potential cash for years to come. It's not about what you come away with, its what is bound to follow that really counts.

The BBH booth unpacked and ready to be assembled.

I think the primary reason for coming away with some healthy figures was an across the board price hike on our product. We've been tired of breaking even at shows, and have seen colleagues wholesale their single cards at 2.50 for some time now. Our cards were mostly 2.00, some at 2.50, very few at 3. We simplified the formula to a flat 2.50 for everything and it has really made a difference in the last month since the change has happened, we tested an order that totalled $1000 using our new pricing structure and found it made us close to an extra $200. We also had shifted our minimums to dozens last August, and it immediately had positive effects on our sales.

An important part of these shows is meeting and chatting with the folks you've known for years but never really get to see. David Kidwell of Crane's Paper, who has a strong presence on the letterpress listserv, arrived in our booth at almost the exact same moment as Kathryn Hunter of Blackbird Letterpress and Alison Bozeman of Birddog Press came to say hello.

Three pairs of wings.

Aside from a very nice string of orders, we have regained representation in the Oregon territory, have an interested lead for an OH + PA rep, and most importantly, and most exciting, is that we've finally cracked the UK market with a very distinguished UK distributor--who we've been flirting with since our first NSS in 2006. On the last day of NSS 2009 we finally shook hands-- international distribution is a whole different ball game, the distributor has to eat big duty and shipping costs, and so goes half price on wholesale, which wouldn't have been feasible given our old prices, but now seems like a worthwhile endeavor. I said I'd do it with the right quantities, and took the bait when he said he'd do a minimum of 50 dozens per style, and if I treat this gig as custom work, making stuff to order, it's very worth our while. BBH will be represented in a show in London called Pulse, which happens in two weeks. I'm very curious to see how that plays out.

Barry, my favorite Bartender in NYC, hails a crowd of adoring drinkers.
We were introduced to him via Spitfire Girl last January and my liver hasn't been angrier at me since. He tends bar at our new Javits dive of choice, The Hudson Yards Cafe, which is a mere block from the show.

I've very little else to say about the show in general. We set up our booth late in the day, and were having drinks at the Hudson Yards by 9 pm. Barry, who will drink right along with you at the bar, kept us entertained until 2 am, after which point the bar emptied of everyone but Kyle and I, and at which point free liquor drinks were passed across the bar and shots were poured for BBHers and staff alike. Next thing I know, I'm awake in my bed 2.5 hours after the show was supposed to start, with no recollection as to how I made it to my hotel. We beat our record for late arrival to a show, waltzing in 3.5 hours after it had started. A hell of a way to start the week.

I had come to the show swearing up and down to myself that I would not spend money at the show for the retail section of our studio this time around, as we have alot of heavy investments being made in beefing up our equipment this year, and we've run out of room to display product. But of course I caved. Only for a select few.

Up next in the NSS report, a feature on who I bought from this year, plus a guest blog on the NSS from my long time pal and one of the original conspirators of BBH, Buzz Poole.

A small collection of manufacturers gather post NSS at the Javits Statue.
L to R: Sabrina Moyle (Hello Lucky,) John Arquette (Delphine,) Mike Foley (Random Cookie,) Brandon (BBH,) Kyle Durrie (Power & Light) Martin & Michelle Yeeles (Bob's Your Uncle,) Ken & Shino (Fugu Fugu)

I'll never tell.

2009-05-22T19:01:00.015-04:00

I generally avoid talking about how cool Asheville is to anyone I don't know... having been born and somewhat raised in what used to be a peaceful and spacious beach town that in less than two decades became an endless parade of stripmalls and standstill traffic, as folks north of the Mason-Dixon line realized how dirt cheap real estate was in our oceanside paradise and cockroached it all to hell.

Now I have probably contributed to the eventual buggering of West Asheville, as Men's Journal, who interviewed me about my neighborhood, has named it one of the 30 best places to live in the U.S., and the coolest neighborhood in the Southeast. So far, for the most part, it has attracted like-minded and considerate citizens-- we'll see how long we can keep it up.

Asheville has long been supportive of the Mom & Pop business model, its downtown area has stonewalled any efforts by corporate chains from entering its domain, and in 2004 when Wal-Mart came creeping at the fringes of the city, the citizens went into an uproar. The vandalism quoted from the article in Farrell's voicemail (at the top of this post) is best described here by Green Anarchy:

Anonymous saboteurs used on-site construction equipment in the dark of night to ram into the shell of the Wal-Mart Supercenter on Swannanoa River Road, causing an estimated $900,000 damage. The vandals entered the site and hot-wired a dump truck and drove it into different areas of the building.

The demolished Wal-Mart eventually went up again, as planned. Months after BBH had moved from my basement into its current retail location, Wal-Mart tried to hit us from the West Side, a mere mile from a string of blossoming small time shops. The concerned citizens of West Asheville managed a more peaceable way of forcing them out, as described here in our local rag, the Mountain Xpress:

In a less-extreme example, West Asheville residents rallied to stop Wal-Mart from setting up shop on Patton Avenue. After months of meeting on weeknights, parading through the streets flying banners and turning out en masse at local-government meetings, an ad hoc citizens' group triumphed when the retailer withdrew its proposal.

Tourism is what makes this town thrive, and many who visit eventually come back to stay. I did. Because besides the whole community thing there is enough edenic wilderness in the immediate area that you could hike every weekend and never see it all in a lifetime. However there are those who visit and trash the place, and those who come to live here, and trash the place. The highway south of us is being widened and eventually six lanes will pass through Haywood Rd, a block away from where BBH currently resides. Stripmalls are currently being built in the same area where "progress" is taking place.

If you've ever been to Graveyard Fields, a hot hiking spot on the Blue Ridge Parkway, you will have no problem seeing what I mean by inconsiderate visitors: trash everywhere, piles of poo and toilet paper on the side of the trail, throngs of people talking at the top of their lungs and cars all jammed into one tiny parking lot-- an absolute zoo.

Where I go you got to get dirty, wet, and sometimes hurt, but you will never see a budweiser can and nary a beer belly but my own, because most tourists never want to work that hard to see something this beautiful.

Time for a dive into a top secret swimming hole.

The asheville area is also an east coast mecca for kayakers, as creeks and rivers are bountiful--and when I moved to Asheville I landed into a hornets nest full of kayakers. My first hike was a creek hike, and I haven't been able to do any other kind of hike since.

The creeks here flow through beds of granite, making the waters crystal clear. Boulders abound. You climb, you slide, you leap, you land, you wade, you swim, you problem solve to get to your goal. But there is no finish line. It keeps going. Miles and miles of waterfalls.

The keen sandal--invented by a sailor, protects the toes, grips wet rock, hugs your foot tightly, and is perfect for amphibious travel.

When I take someone to these secret locations, I warn them: prepare to get your feet wet. Prepare yourself for a treacherous journey.

I generally end a creek hike with a cairn.

I think I've said enough here. I won't divulge where I get my hikely rocks off--but if you ask nicely I might take you there myself. Now then, comes the answer to why I'm even sharing an ounce of info on my best kept secret, sweet Asheville: if you are crazy enough to read this blog I guess yr alright enough to join the party.

NSS2009 Part the the 3rd: All the shite that happened between the last time I blogged and this morning.

2009-05-16T23:20:00.013-04:00

5 sleepless nights, 10 new cards, 14 new T-Shirts, 1 new electric paper cutter, 1 honest to goodness near death of an employee/apprentice, 1 flight to NYC, 54 hours spent recouperating in a bed in the basement of my mother's home, a 2nd reunion w/ my twin bro Tony replete w/ the expected family drama, and 30 straight hrs of my latest obsession, Battlestar Galactica (6 more hours to go before I'm done, people.)

Reinking the little guy.

I've NEVER seen someone clean the big guy like this. Thankfully, Emily signed a waiver.

The printing of Rinaldo's Doo-Hickey.

A 30o run of 4 designs printed from 9pm to 1:30 AM. Rinaldo's Doo-Hickey and Say "Moo" topside.

The beast that replaced our crappy manual Challenge paper cutter, an electric 30" Challenge paper cutter w/ digital readout- a huge investment made on the mere fact that the provider took a shitty deposit and no interest financing.

At 1:45 AM, the night before I left for NYC, an intoxicated woman drove a Subaru thru the patio of the Admiral and into the building, missing our friend/employee/apprentice Emily by mere inches. Emily survived, her drink, and the glass it was in, did not. 25 people were on the patio, all jumped away from the oncoming vehicle, none were hurt, damage was approximated to be about $50K. She was issued a DUI after trying to fake a breathalizer test, and she had no collision insurance, nor will her insurance cover the damage she's done. She hit a phone pole at the back of the parking lot in reverse before putting the car in drive, revving up the engine, and plowing through the patio at an estimated 45mph. I assume that she will be paying for this damage etc for the next decade. It was the second time the Admiral had been hit by a car, the creepy part is that the car landed in the exact same spot they had repaired less than a year ago.

The West Asheville Police Force brought out 8 cars for the incident. The girl was arrested for blowing with less force "than an elderly person w/ emphesema." It should also be mentioned that she jumped out of the car after putting it through the building screaming "I'm not drunk!" followed by her downing several glasses of water and forced puking in the unisex bathroom.

I heard the crash from inside the bar, which was filled w/ dust and smoke w/in seconds. Also, iphones should come w/ a flash.

T-Shirts AHOY Pt 2.
I'm really amazed what a great model our apprentice Nicole is for our new T-Shirt line. Farrell, of course, is a whore for the camera, as I learned watching his brief UNCA acting career. These are all prototypes and we're actually going to be altering 75% of these designs based on our newfound knowledge of the Tshirt biz. Most of these shirts designs came out smaller than we'd hoped for. Forgive the photo clarity folks, we're working as fast as we can to make some kick ass product.

St. Mommy.

Definitely the crown jewel of our apparel, the MILF ACADEMY hoodie.

One of the few BBH classic's that made TSHIRT fame, Mark Doin' Himself.

Nicole has now been crowned as the penultimate disco bitch.

I designed this as a kids T. Nicole makes it work for the ladies.

Go Play Outside! A fave among BBH patriots.

A message of love shared btwn myslf and college buddy Dan Land.

My oldest sister's ex-husband and my little bro Matt, chilling before the day of BBH reckoning. We discuss the possibility of a surfing trip during my 3 week NJ stay.

I want to frak the ever-living crap out of Kara Thrace.

Kyle prepares for NSS on the NJ Transit Train for her part in the show the BBH way: Hours before setup!

This is it.

2009-05-12T21:59:00.003-04:00

They probably won't make it to the show... we just now started printing from the negs we got today.

Couple more.

2009-05-12T19:00:00.003-04:00

Damn Tyler, these are just plain mean spirited. Congratulations!

Tshirts Ahoy!

2009-05-12T18:14:00.003-04:00

Who cares if they're crappy photos. 5 shirts in today. 9 more coming in tomorrow. We're pretty happy.

Drunkmail finally pays off.

2009-05-12T16:52:00.003-04:00

How many mornings have I woken up and regretted all the emails I've sent the night before? More than I care to admit. We got a little tipsy at the shop last night & I decided to email Blue Barnhouse's favorite band to tell them I'd be interested in helping them out with some sort of special edition packaging. Imagine my surprise when the frontman emailed me back the following morning and asked if I was capable of putting together 100,000 insanely intricate packages for their next album. A few hours later the co-president of their record company emailed me and we've been shooting emails back and forth all day. I'm not saying any names until some handshaking happens but believe me, if it happens, it will be the highlight of my career, and likely the largest project I've ever taken on to date.

Here we go.

2009-05-12T09:59:00.006-04:00

I leave for NYC for the NSS tomorrow afternoon, and as is BBH tradition, I am suddenly out of my gourd making last minute designs after having goofed off/procrastinated for the last month and a half. Here's what we churned out today, negative arrives in an hour and we get printing. All of these captions are by Tyler Dockery but the last one. Someone had written the caption on the image and I have yet to figure out who it was.