Drool...

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.

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

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.

Adventures in Letterpress: The New York/New Jersey Edition

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!

NYIGF Winter Show Part 2: Letterpress at the International Gift Fair

Here I stand before the Jacob Javits statue, about to invoke BBH tradition.


And go... the humping of Javits' leg. Oh! Jacob!

We're currently recovering from a week of trade show madness at my mother's home in Warren, NJ. As always, the shows are hard work. Lots of walking and talking, lots of networking and explaining, making sales, keeping people happy, nursing a weeklong hangover, and maintaining the illusion of an even keel. It's exhausting. We're not used to working these hours-- the normal BBH shift is from 11ish-6 with some late nights here and there (mostly by Mike and myself, and mostly because we want to, not because we have to)-- but for the gift show its 9-6 for five days straight. We are notoriously late to our booth (usually by 45-75 min) and notoriously hungover when we do get in.

I have many things to report. The show went well for us. We were on the main floor of the Javits Center, which is unusual for a second timer at the gift show, and though our prime location should have made us more likely to rake in the dough, it wasn't our greatest show. The overall consensus I received from the oodles of exhibitors I spoke with was that it was an incredibly slow show, which I would agree with. The turn out was low, and the buyers who showed up were extremely careful and prudent about buying.

What might turn what I would consider a fair show into a fantastic show is that Urban Outfitters seemed very interested in carrying a boxset of our Obama cards. If they end up buying then we'll have definitely come away from the gift show feeling like it was all worthwhile. The Obama cards were the hit of the show and I'm extra proud because I haven't been serious about drawing in about a decade and rarely have I used my own drawings for the business.






On the last day we did an online video interview with Guideposts for some Earth Day broadcast that they will be doing. They were interested in us because we were featured in the show's Sustainability Display. The interview went incredibly well. However, I don't think that Guideposts, which is a christian magazine, is actually going to feature us once they go to our webstore and find cards like this, this, this, this, and this.

That's the skinny on what went down in the BBH booth-- but the real excitement lies in what gems I found elsewhere as I wandered the entirety of the gift show. This particular post will report on the presence of letterpress at the NY Gift Show-- though we of the press were lost in a sea of crap, I was amazed by how much letterpress there was to see at the show.

HELLO!LUCKY


If you read this blog regularly then you already know how much I love Hello!Lucky. Whenever I go to the booth I ask "Where's the new stuff?" and pretty much buy all of it for my store. I'm really excited about getting my monkey on.


RED CAP

I found Red Cap in the New York's Newest category during the summer NYIGF. All of their cards are illustrated by owner Carrie Gifford- I have often likened her illustrations unto Edward Gorey. Though they mostly carry full color cards (offset or digital, I'm not sure) they also have a smaller line of letterpress cards, which when simplified to two color design, are stunning. I placed a small order with them this summer and their line sells better than any line I have carried in the store, and this winter is the first time as a buyer that I've had to reorder a gagload of styles on top of the new stuff they carried.

I also scooped up some awesome journals. Check it.


SNOW & GRAHAM
To be honest, I've heard Snow & Graham's name a billion times but never thought twice to visit them at the countless shows we've been at together-- but I was determined to say hello to every last letterpress exhibitor at the show and of course I ended up dropping dough before I said goodbye.




9 Spot Monk


9 Spot Monk, like Hello!Lucky, is a letterpress outfit run by two sisters-- Vivian and Tiffany. They have a studio right here in New Jersey. I am destined to visit their studio one of these days as I'm in NJ at least four times a year. I'm very interested in seeing their operation as they run Heidleberg Windmills using wind power (ironic, don't you think?)


What sets their stuff apart from other card slingers is their uber-urban style-- much of what they print can pass for grafiti. We carry their cards in the store-- they were the last stop on my tour of the show and I was tapped out of cash by the time I could say hello--but I'm looking forward to see what they'll have at the Stationery Show.

Motel Deluxe


Run by partners Michael and Douglas (Michael Douglas! I'm positive they've never heard that joke before) Motel Deluxe imports some really cool and smartly packaged french goodies, mostly kids toys like building blocks, puzzles and games--- but they also carry a line of letterpressed cards done up by Sesame Letterpress.



I met Motel Deluxe in Atlanta when a friend recommended they stop by our booth-- they came by and bought most of our Alice cards for their famous Manhattan store in ABC, called Cursive. I became extra friendly with them when they told me the Martha Stewart Show visited their store and the producer on site bought up every last Kmart Trash card they had and special ordered a dozen more. I thought for sure we'd eventually be issued a cease and desist if she found out about this card, luckily she has a sense of humor.

YEE-HAW!


The Yee-Haw folk are our favorite neighbors over yonder Tennessee mountains, and a definite MUST VISIT if you ever get within a stone's throw of Knoxville Tennessee. I was absolutely drooling over this 30x42 woodtype specimen, which retails for $500.


Yee-Haw is right up there with Hello!Lucky in terms of huge commercial success, and when it comes to making business and marketing decisions I watch them very closely.

Saturn Press


Saturn Press hails from Swan's Island, Maine. Started in '86 in their garage, Jane Goodrich & James van Pernis print super colorful cards inspired by images from the 1870's-1930's. I interrogated them at the last Stationery Show when a distributor who buys their cards in bulk to sell in New Zealand and the UK stopped by our booth and tried to lowball us on our own goods. I wish I had a link to these folks website but none could be found.

THAT'S ALL THE NEWS FOR NOW.
Thank god its over. Stay tuned for parts 3 & 4 of the NYIGF Winter 2009 report.