Little Verdie in her New Home

Posted on February 3rd, 2009

In the past couple of weeks there has been LOTS of change at Tiny Pine Press because I moved my studio across town, from a becoming over-crowded space to a shared studio with lots more privacy, without shutting down production and even squeezing in jury duty throwing a baby shower for one of my best friends (who had her baby today!! and I got to be in the room for the birth shooting video and photos).

In that time, I moved Verdie, my Chandler & Price Pilot Press. I was so nervous about shifting her weight that I had my friend drive her separately, very very slowly in his ultra large SUV and daring him make any dramatic stops…. begging him to drive with ease and quiet through Friday afternoon traffic in Los Angeles, changing freeways 4 times…

She faired just fine, and I placed Verdie into her new home. I tested her out sans ink to make sure nothing shifted somehow – she IS held together by bolts. OLD bolts – and then I left her.

She has a room with a view out the window in this new place. She has her own room. It’s sort of small but she is small (only 200 lbs.) She sits on her tiny table made of pine and just waits for me.

Tomorrow I am making the final move…. Putting all the computery things in the big office space section of the studio, and I am going to print 3 runs on Verdie and see how she likes her new space. I think she does… there is a little window that lets in a good amount of light and it is quite cozy in there with everything in reachable distance.

Here’s a picture of my little press, in her new space… Doesn’t she look so happy??

A Crow and a Swan

Posted on January 27th, 2009

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soy crow

These days I feel inclined to write a lot about ways to reuse or recycle things we sometimes think of as waste. Let’s talk trash!

I have always used soy-based inks for letterpress printing, except for the metallics which don’t come in soy. When I mix an ink color for a job, I try to only mix the right amount… you only use a teensy bit really to print. But sometimes it just happens that the ink blob gets bigger and bigger as you try to get the right shade of whatever. It just happens….

When I was working at soolip in west hollywood as the designer, the printer at the time, Joel Larson, would make crazy paintings with his leftover ink. They were beautiful abstract works that he would layer on to whatever scraps of paper he had lying around.

I took that as inspiration when I had extra ink to get rid of. So even though I tried only to mix as much as I need, there is always some leftovers and so I started making paintings of my own.

soy swan

These two birds are my favorites so far. Soy has a much faster drying time than most oil or rubber based inks for some reason. And what is cool and sort of unique is the way it dries when layered on the paper thick. It takes a sort of brainy texture giving the ink pile depth, almost sculptural.

Just a side note, the cardboard pieces are the packaging from the letterpress plate shipment. Making art from trash….my favorite thing!

Raised to Reuse

Posted on January 23rd, 2009

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I am a real conservative when it comes to printing. Not conservative in a political or religious way… but in an environmental way. In my family we reused as much as possible. This is a photo of my cousin JC’s drying rack. He washes and reuses the ziplock bags multiple times (I love how he hangs them to dry) (the photos a little blurry). I try to reuse as much as possible. At work and at home.

This week I got to reuse in the best way.

A client had sent out 150 save the dates. They were 100% tree free or recylced based on what we could get paper-wise because she has a big commitment to conservation as well. Of those sent, she had the wrong addresses for 6 people, so the save the dates came back to her. Instead of resending out new save the dates, requiring me to make up some more from scratch, she brought the returned ones back to me and I printed new envelopes and reused those perfectly good save the dates.

Now, I know that this form of reusing seems fairly simple and obvious. But I have been working at this career for 5 years now, and I can only remember a couple of other times when I did this. Sometimes reusing returns is necessary because we run out of whatever it is that is being sent (same as this case). But running out is actually directly related to being a conservative printer. I can’t stand wasting paper so I don’t usually print many over what is ordered.

And this client’s decision to bring the save the dates back so I could reuse them, well, that’s a testament to her commitment.

For the record, when I do have extras, I try to reuse those as make-ready for letterpress or for the big scrap bin for making valentines, birthday cards or other crafty things. Here’s a photo from a mess in my apartment floor from the “sometimes annual pre-valentine’s day ice cream social” that I have so my friends can make art with the year’s printing leftovers.

Can you tell I was the president of the energy club in high school?? I also represented the energy club in the beauty pageant when I was 14. I am not posting that picture, though. No Way!

I will tell you that it was a really big pink puffy dress…. Someone should reuse that thing for a big tablecloth and matching napkins.

The Parsons Family gets more press….

Posted on January 19th, 2009

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If you saw where I was raised in the tiny community of Sugar Grove, Virginia, where our nearest neighbor is about 1/2 of a mile away, then you would be really surprised at all the attention us Parsons’ seem to get in the media these days…

http://radioproject.org/archive/2009/0209.html

This story isn’t really about my family completely, but it does include an interview with my Mom, Virginia Parsons. The story is about Wayne C. Henderson, a pretty important guitar builder who is just over the mountain from where I was raised. He’s a friend of the family and so when a friend of mine, Ben Hubbard, wanted to journey back to the old home place to do a story for his graduate school project, well, Momma put him up and pretty much vouched for him – which you really need when you are an outsider coming around with your semi-imposing recording equipment…

Ben actually had visited Sugar Grove before. When we were freshman in college at Northwestern University, Ben decided, at the drop of a hat mind you, to ride along with my family and me during the holiday break for 13 hours from Chicago to Virginia to see what it was like. I suppose he was checking to see if I was telling the truth about being a hillbilly! He got along just fine and so when he wanted to come back to do this story, my Momma welcomed him. Now Ben is roaming around somewhere near the Gaza Strip for the Associated Press…. a far cry from southwestern Virginia!

What I love about this radio documentary is that Ben managed to compose it in a way to give justice to all the people participating. I cry every single time I hear my mom talk. And when my dad’s recording fades in towards the end, I can’t take it. I am mentioned and so is my younger brother, Oscar. And it is just nice to have this little snippet of family history available for everyone!

jennifer parsons and wayne c henderson

It is also an extraordinary story about Wayne’s way of life… his passion and simplicity. He has really a good model of business. He’s old fashioned and does things in a way that makes him happy… the most important thing?

Take a listen and you will see what I mean…

And here’s a picture of me with Wayne when I received my Henderson for Christmas a couple of years ago..

More homemade envelopes, please

Posted on January 17th, 2009

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One day, a month or so ago, I got this little prize in the mail. It was so sweet and thoughtful to for once receive a piece of paper art from friend Adam Myers, working as a business called Black Feather out of Maine or where ever he happens to be vagabonding around.

He can make just about anything. He seems to be focused on making useful things like this envelope…. he probably created it because he needed an envelope to send me a check for his business cards. He didn’t mess around. Naturally I took a closer look because I felt a little outdone for a moment and discovered that he had a couple of layers of a wood catalogue of some sort that he pasted together. The frame around my address is pure genius, I think. It is quite petite in size… always right up my alley (TINY pine?).

I have to admit that of all people, I am experienced with testing the postal service by placing stamps and addresses in rule breaking places. But I have never done a complete reversal of sides. Adam is adventurous and clearly thinks he is above the law, but it got here! I mean, I probably wouldn’t stamp my credit card bill on the wrong side, but here’s proof that it WILL get there…. eventually, anyway.

Now, I know everyone is going to want to start sending me cute pieces of mail to write about… feel free, but go to my website and send it to my office address, will ya?

Oh, here is the business card / logo I designed for him.

Stop motion paper cut animation does exist!

Posted on January 14th, 2009

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I am no expert on the possibilities of the computer. Let’s get that straight first…

But I do know paper and I have animated paper before as a music video, so when I got a little message from my friend Dan (Into the Green blog) about this fusion of the computer and stop motion as a music video for Blitzen Trapper, I was intrigued. They used traditional animation combined with flash and got this. Take a look.

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1964391&w=425&h=350&fv=file%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fpitchfork.tv%2Fnode%2F2710%2Fembed.xml]

The song is called ‘Furr’ and it has all the wildlife you could have ever wanted or expected. It’s truly inspirational to me because it is paper+film, which is my exact background. I especially love how they treat photographs of people…. and there is this one shot of leaves going on to the deer antlers that just made me smile. and there are waves made out of cut up maps.

Gimme a break! I can’t handle it… Too much sweetness.

[It really brings up memories of the stop-motion cut-out animation I shot on 16mm a few years ago. I don’t have it on the dvd or dv or anything so I can’t post it yet…. It is called ‘Transformational’ and set to a song by Sarah Newberry. More on that later when I can post it but so much of this video took me down ye ole memory lane.]

Have mercy what a good piece of entertainment, especially during a time when music videos are becoming internet only situations. Not to mention the song is quite nice to listen to. I guess this one seems more like a film set to music more than a music video… which is just blissful to me. Thank you Jade Harris and Blitzen Trapper!

more about “I’m a rattlesnake, babe.“, posted with vodpod

Tiny Pine Scones

Posted on January 12th, 2009

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Today is Sunday. Often on Sunday, I like to not work… to reflect and such. Particularly I like to bake. And lately I have been baking scones for the weekday breakfast treat…. just a little something for the belly in the morning that is already prepped and only needs to be heated a dash… you know. It’s hard to get out of bed these winter mornings. It’s easier to get out of bed when your breakfast is nearly ready already.

Well, today as I was starting to bake, I thought “there must be some pretty close similarities between printing and baking since I love the processes s much.” I set out to find out how they are the same.

scones

The first thing is that these days, I start baking and printing projects on the computer. For baking, I like to look up a recipe on epicurious.com because I am not limited to what books or magazines I have here. The information super highway works really well for recipes! Today was the first time I have used my iphone in the kitchen. That was pretty funny…. flour on my fingers scrolling down to see what was next…. good thing I bought that screen protector!

For letterpress the typesetting and artwork phase is all done in Illustrator and Photoshop. Don’t get me wrong, I like to be old school and all, but typesetting machines are big and require so much space and they melt down lead and there for some reason I don’t want lead all over my hands and everywhere. The true old old school method is handset type – but here again is a space situation. Fonts take up a LOT less space in the hard drive than little letters in all the different sizes and styles would take up in my studio!

Another similarity is the idea of substituting but knowing when and where. Baking is a chemical process – you can’t substitute self rising flour for cake flour. It WON”T work. But you can substitute yogurt for buttermilk and butter for margarine. Much the same in printing when mixing inks… Once I didn’t have a can of rhodamine red ink. – it’s like a bright pinky purple – and a ink recipe called for it. I examined the color, took a chance and substituted florescent pink and rubine red instead. The color was perfect. (the question is why did I have a can of florescent pink and not rhodamine red?!!)

Is this boring? I could go on all day. I can draw some more comparisons another day but let’s do one contrast for now….

You can’t eat the printed paper scone.

Though I do have a source for vegetable paper and probably soy ink is even vegan??!? I’ll have to look into that… but there is hope!

Vintage Stamps have Vintage Glue

Posted on January 9th, 2009

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stamps and envelopes and hands Today I had a project which called for vintage postage for the envelopes. It’s my favorite time of the design process.

I get all stamp happy and pick out bunches to choose from and agonize over which ones are best suited in color, shape, value and theme. It’s a puzzle and I get to solve it.

I design these stamp configurations with love, not logic, and then when it comes time to actually assemble them… Well, that’s when it gets interesting. Or when I get anxious.

Everyone thinks that the final assembly of an invitation, the “stuff stamp and seal” is really fast and just the final bit of getting out the mail. But I am here to tell you today, friends, that one needs to allow a good amount of time for this process. Even if there is one stamp…. and especially if there are 10

bunches of stamps 10 NON self-adhesive vintage stamps with vintage glue. That’s what today’s assignment was. Fortunately I have a crazy friend, Joanna, who LOVES sticking stamps. We had our mock-up and set out to stamp 130 envelopes – that’s 1300 individual stamps, if you want me to do the math for you. Together, it took us about 3 1/2 hours (so it would have been an entire day if it were just me and that doesn’t even include the sealing phase). She is typically employed as an illustrator/conceptual artist on feature films and I can’t afford that kind of help… but fortunately, she works for me in exchange for food… and then bought her own lunch! That’s how much she LOVES applying postage!

joanna with the finished product

It is actually quite zen when you get into it. And only once in awhile did we go crazy and stick the same stamp on twice. and sometimes your fingers get coated in vintage glue. And then you are smiling cause you were smart enough to not lick the stamps. Do you know when they made 3 cent stamps? Well, they made them for a bunch of years, but it was awhile ago… and they don’t taste good.

Anyways… here are some photos. And no, I am not telling you where I get them. That’s my little secret……