My family will tell you that I have many middle names. I often say to them; " Fancy is my middle name" or Special, Dangerous, or Fluid, but these days it is Change.
This journey I am on as an artist has been rewarding. For me, part of it has to do with my desire to learn new things and to make art with my hands, but also my willingness to make changes. I began making an edition of hand bound books of my photogravure prints last month, the idea includes the prints, hand made covers, a Japanese stab binding along with a few pages of text. I wanted the text pages to be done in letterpress, I love the look, feel, and history of the process and it made sense for my book projects. I have done letterpress printing in High school but it has been a minute so the plan was to have the pages printed for me by a local artist.
Turns out that is not really how I tend to work. I like doing everything myself.
So 2 weeks ago and friend and I drove a large truck to Seattle and I came home with 2 tons of new gear. I am excited to say I now own a Chandler & Price printing press from 1904, a huge guillotine paper cutter from 1889, and a Hamilton type cabinet with 35 drawers of type....
My backyard studio is now expanded to include the Cascabel Press letterpress annex. I look forward to making the pages for my book projects as well as broadsides with my work.
I hope y'all will tag along as I share the process of adding some letterpress into the mix of my work here at Cascabel Press. If you feel like sharing with us what you are up to that would be cool, community helps us all navigate the changes in our art making practice.