Inquisitive Printers: Another Round Of Things That Caught Our Eye

Posted on May 8, 2019 by Rebecca Miller

Our focus has been drawn lately to a Goudy typeface, re-invigorating studio visits, and being up-close with dinosaurs. We hope you delight in what has captured our attention in this installment of the Inquisitive Printers!

From Cathy:

Recently I was running amok on a good search about typefaces. Naturally, Frederic Goudy had his share of references to explore. One, in particular, caught my eye because it was a video that was linking our Syracuse University here with Goudy. As Syracuse based printers, we have some hometown pride and to have a tie-in to this very prolific font designer was a neat surprise. Enjoy this video called Goudy & Syracuse: The Tale of A Typeface found.

From Maddie:

Hello Print Friends! I would like to share with ya’ll my favorite aspect to my artistic practice. Do you have find yourself in your workspace not knowing what to do with your projects? You do? Okay. Great! I suggest you have a studio visit.

This has been extremely valuable to growing as an artist and developing my work since leaving my fine art studies back in 2016. Similarly, I like to receive feedback and miss having a community to work within now that I am done with school.

Have a friend stop by your space. Show them what you are currently working on. Share your artistic process with them. Invite them over while you are working on a print run—more hands make less work. Let your visitor ask questions and get to know what you do as a maker.

Don’t forget the SNACKS! I have some things to eat or drink and enjoy simply hanging out. For instance, I like to invite people over during lunchtime for a 45-minute visit and I also encourage my guest to hang out & draw with me. Sketching and sharing ideas is great!

Think about what you want to get out of a studio visit. Or alternatively, this doesn’t need to have an objective. See where the conversation leads. Discuss everything and nothing. This dialogue may influence your work in return.

Afterward, reflect on what was talked about. do you see your work with a new perspective? I typically feel energized after a studio visit. The feedback allows me to return to working on my projects with fresh ideas. I am delighted that I get to share what I love to do and really appreciate how receptive my visitors are to my work and creative space. I see this as vital to my artistic practice and will continue doing this. FOREVER. Hope you give it a whirl.

My dear friends, Shelby and Brian are looking through a box of my small drawings (July 2018).

Here is a great link that offers very honest and helpful suggestions about studio visits and making the most out of them!

From Rebecca:

Want to get up-close to dinosaur bones without leaving your computer chair? Photographer Christian Voigt does just that as he captured the delicate beauty of the London Natural History Museum’s dinosaur skeleton collection. Come take a look!

(photography credit: Christian Voigt and WIRED.com)

We hope you explore some of our links and perhaps learn a little bit more about what intrigues us here at Boxcar Press. Email us at info@boxcarpress.com the things that delight you also!

The Inquisitive Printer: Extra Things That Caught Our Eye

Posted on June 11, 2018 by Cathy

From cool printing events happening in central New York and across the border into Canada (as well as a nifty pitstop for an unusual store in Alabama), we focus in on amazing things happening that captured our attention this week. We hope you enjoy this latest edition of things that caught our eye (and maybe jump-start some new project or travel destination plans!)

Madeline Bartley: Outside of working in the Boxcar printshop, I play with other forms of printmaking. Such as carving a woodblock. Like a really big 4 foot by 4 foot block. I really enjoy working with large scale imagery. The making of this woodblock is leading up to an outdoor event called the Big Ol’ Steamrollin’ Print Invitational.

Instead of a large printing press, you rent a steamroller to apply the pressure to transfer ink onto fabric. This will be my third year participating in the Big Ol’ Steamrollin’ Print Invitational and overall my sixth time I have been involved with steamrolled prints.

The Big Ol’ Steamrollin’ Print Invitational will be taking place on Friday, June 29th during the 2018 MWPAI Arts Fest. It is free and open to the public.

PrattMWP Gallery is located in the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Museum of Art
at 310 Genesee Street, Utica, New York.

Cathy Smith: I have been emailing with a gentleman from Canada who bought a press last year – a Heidelberg Wiindmill 10×15 – and he says it’s part of his retirement program! He also enjoys a little public speaking and wood engraving. Why buy the press? He started a Butterfly Conservatory in Cambridge, Ontario 18 years ago and it’s time to embrace a new challenge. Check out the Butterfly Conservatory as it is beyond impressive in terms of programs, exhibits, and gardens. I love when customers share cool things with me!

Rebecca Miller: For your next trip to the library or bookstore, we heartily recommend checking out “Daily Rituals: How Artists Work” by Mason Currey. A delightful book that logs the daily routines and anecdotes of famous creatives from Charles Dickens to Benjamin Franklin (a fellow printer, we might add). This delightful book is a page-turner for the trivia-enthusiast as well as the creative artist or printer seeking inspiration for organizing their day-to-day workflow.

Ever wonder where some of unclaimed luggage goes to? Although we can’t say whether the Unclaimed Baggage Store in Scottsboro, Alabama has a container of pied type or a case of vintage lead type, we love the notion that there is a “catch all” brick-and-mortar store for those bags that are never claimed.

Never fear, the items & luggage that are in this store go through a rigorous 3-month tracing period by the airlines. Once the all-clear is given, the Unclaimed Baggage Store buys the items before putting anything on the shelves for sale. If something cannot be sold but is still in good condition, the store then donates them to those in need.

Do you have a cool thing you’d like to share with us, an awesome printing event coming up that you’d like to give a shout-out to, or see something cool that catches your eye? Email us at info@boxcarpress.com as we’d love to hear from you! We’re always on the look-out for wonderful + fun things!

Inquisitive Printers Want to Know – Even More Things that Caught Our Eye

Posted on April 12, 2018 by Cathy

Always on the lookout for intriguing & eye-catching things, ephemera, and cool “must-bookmark-this!” items, this week’s installment features delicious, edible type (you heard us correctly), letterpress printers in Chicago, and vintage tunes from around the globe (great for those long hours while and you itch for Brazilian music from the 1920s.) We hope you are delighted in this week’s finds as much as we are!

From Cathy: Don’t lick the lead type but you can eat all you want of this chocolate type from this site in Germany.

(photo courtesy of typolade.de)

You can eat your chocolate while you read about The History of Print from before 1399 up to 2017. The photos are magic and the info is entertainingly diverse. You will want to read it again and again as you flip between every 50 years.

Lastly, not print related but if you are not a fan of stink bugs then you can build this stink bug trap. This seems to be the time of year they get in the house in the Northeast.

From Anthony: I enjoyed reading this article about how letterpress and specialty printing can grow and flourish. Especially in Chicago, in a place that was a know for large industrial printing and now the small guys are keeping the presses going. Makes you proud about others in letterpress getting recognition.

From Rebecca: Keep this gem-of-a-website bookmarked for those late-night printing sessions, radiooooo.com is all about sampling and tasting music from around the globe in different decades.

(photo courtesy of radiooooo.com)

Want to hear the vintage tunes from Brazil in the 1920s or maybe sway to the latest songs from Finland in the 2000s? Radiooooo.com is the ship to catch for a musical cruise throughout time.

We hope you explore some of our links and perhaps learn a little bit more about what interests us here at Boxcar Press. See something that catches your eye? Email us at info@boxcarpress.com as we’d love to hear from you!

The Inquisitive Printer: More Things That Caught Our Eye

Posted on March 12, 2018 by Rebecca Miller

Our focus lately has gone from New York to New Mexico and over the water. We hope you enjoy what has captured our attention this week.

From Carrie : A windmill printer at Boxcar Press.
On the Letterpress Digest podcast: As a giant letterpress and book nerd, I was so thrilled to hear about a new product devoted to my beloved particular form of the Black Arts. The host, Jordan, interviews printers, suppliers, and others active in the field. It has been a treat to hear my letterpress heroes talk about their adventures and get to know others I may have missed out on otherwise. The interviews have been engaging and educational and had me laughing at things only other print nerds would find funny. Even though only a dozen episodes have aired, I can’t wait to hear who will be next. This is exactly what my printer’s heart was longing for – hearing letterpress things while making letterpress things.

From Cathy: On Facebook, there is a great resource of printing brains and experience over at The Heidelberg Letterpress Page so I have been encouraging all to join this group.

Next, I am a big fan of knowing how things are made, so this story in the New York Times combines some pretty nifty photography with a good story on one of America’s last pencil factories. It raises my respect for this basic tool.

(photography courtesy of savingplaces.org)

So excited to see an article about the Print Shop and Bindery at New Mexico’s Palace of the Governors, with an interview with printer, Tom Leech. Tom and I have corresponded over the years so am loving this peek into the working shop / museum.

From Rebecca: Coming in May 2018, the inspiring folks over at the Corning Museum of Glass (just a day-trip drive from our location here in Syracuse) will be launching the GlassBarge ship.

(photography courtesy of Corning Museum of Glass)

This barge ship will sail through the New York Waterways (visiting & stopping from ports in Brooklyn to Buffalo) this spring while giving free glassblowing demonstrations to the public in each port city on its itinerary. A rare and wonderful event that we’ll be checking out when it comes to town!

We hope you explore some of our links and perhaps learn a little bit more about the things that caught our eye here at Boxcar Press. Email us at info@boxcarpress.com the things that delight you also!

Inquisitive Printers Want to Know – Things that Caught Our Eye

Posted on February 27, 2018 by Cathy

Those of us here at Boxcar Press are a searching, probing, questioning bunch of folks. We are drawn to many things creative, fascinating and colorful. Letterpress definitely fits those criteria, so we have to believe all of you out there are like-minded as us. It should be no surprise we discover through reading and listening and yes, emails from you, a goodly number of interesting stories that are parts imaginative, informative, and just plain neat. We are sharing folks too. Every other week, we endeavor to pass on to you a few bits of knowledge that have caught our eye and think you might ooh and ahh over as well. So, here goes…

From Cathy: A video on a German papermaker that is hypnotic and soothing as you watch him at his craft.

From Norway, the Future Library – An incredible story of a forest that was planted in 2014 and in one hundred years will be harvested to make paper to print 100 books written in that time period. The part I particularly like is that they are also preserving a printing press and instructions to operate it, in the event that books may not even be printed on paper in 100 years. I think a letterpress machine is perfect for this and have pondered which press might be fitting. The whole undertaking of the Future Library fascinates on many levels.

(photo courtesy of www.printcan.com)

And for fun, an amusing story about an alleged haunted Washington Model printing press in Toronto Canada. in the home of a newspaper editor. Perhaps he has a deadline to meet.

From Rebecca: Graphene is a technological marvel to watch out for as it is on the fast-track to revolutionize the medical, construction & safety, and art realms. This material has been documented as being 200 times stronger than steel, yet lighter than paper. Here’s a fascinating “how it’s made” video to pique the mind and jump-start new ways of utilizing this material. Maybe one day the mighty graphene will affect the way printers of all disciplines use their machines in new creative ways?

Next, we’ve been following letterpress printer Tristan Rodman for quite a while on his experiments with letterpress printing and creating playable paper records. Tristan has been keeping a log of his experiments and perhaps with a few more tweaks, letterpress can pave a way for a new way of sharing and collecting musical masterpieces.

Bonus: Although a few years old, listening to the first 3-d printed record album still gives us goosebumps as the needle hits the plastic. We find it a fine choice to honor Nirvana with this intriguing new way to braid new 3-d printing technologies with old school craftsmanship.

We hope you explore some of our links and perhaps learn a little bit more about what interests us here at Boxcar Press. Email us at info@boxcarpress.com the things that delight you also!

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