i'm still here

Yes, I'm still here – well, to be honest, not specifically HERE on the blog ... but a more general here. The house is so perfect that I still wake up and am amazed by our good fortune. We are loving our new home town – how friendly people are (not that Portland isn't a friendly city, it is!!), how accessible it is for Liam, how even when it's super hot during the day, there is a cool breeze off the Willamette River in the evenings ...

But down to business now: above is a photo, albeit not a very good one, of the new studio!! I wish I had thought to take 'before' photos, but I was busy unpacking the house then. {Many many thanks should go out to my husband, Ben, who first put in the two windows, then primed the entire space, then painted it and then wired and hung the lights. And who will also hang the gas heater before it gets cold around here.} As you can see, on my end, I still have an awful lot of unpacking to do. The new space is so big that one of my first thoughts was that I could easily fit another press in there! But more importantly, I need to get my current press up and running. I'm very hopeful that'll be by the end of next week. I'm practically paralyzed by the sheer amount of space I have here – what I mean is that I want so much to be super-organized this time around, but I don't really know where to begin with that. What should go here and what should go there; how should I organize this and label that?! Oh dear.


I'll be working in the studio the next week getting things ship-shape. More photos to come of the studio then. I will, however, be in Portland on Sunday, August 3rd for the first annual Letterpress Yard Sale! I'd post the flyer here but, well, I don't know how – and, as you know, I have a lot of other things to tend to besides the frustrations of the computer!! But here are the details:

• The first annual Letterpress Yard Sale Sunday, August 3rd, from 11am to 4pm, at Liberty Hall in N Portland (311 N Ivy). The sale is free and open to the public.
• Come browse letterpress-printed broadsides, cards and artist books as well as type and cabinets, bindery equipment, and tools. See demos on a small table-top letterpress throughout the day.
• Vendors include the Oregon College of Art and Craft, Crack Press, Textura Letterpress, Triangular Press, Satsuma Press, Red Bat Press, Letterary Press, Sarah Contrary, Twin Ravens Press, the Independent Publishing Resource Center, Stumptown Printers, Arcana 27, Tiger Food Press, and the American Amateur Press Association (AAPA).

You can click on this link to see the poster, too. Please come by if you're in the Portland area.