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The new collaborative work with Yoo-ii is in my shop now – and will be in hers in the next hour or so, too. This is the second collaboration with Yoo-ii in what we hope will be a set of four pieces, one for each season. I'd love to write more about the process of printing these – and I will – except it'll have to be another time.
Remember how I wrote last time that we were in the calm before the storm? Well, now we're in the storm itself. We move from Portland to Corvallis on Tuesday – as in the day after tomorrow! It's a strange, wonderful thing. I've lived in Portland for 15 years now, longer than I've lived anywhere else – but I am so excited about what Corvallis has to offer us as a family. Our very small house here in North Portland has been lovely – but right now it is filled with boxes and we are almost ready to go!
Liam came down with a cold four nights ago and it turned into a nasty cough that had us scared. We made a quick visit to his pulmonologist on Friday afternoon and have been monitoring him pretty closely. His spunk and sass returned today (and his oxygen levels went up) so I'd safely say he's on the mend.
Tomorrow is filled with all the last minute things, plus a Farewell Portland gathering with our friends – and with food from Pambiche. I've been doing my very best to get in all my favorite Portland food these past two weeks: Pok Pok, Toro Bravo, Queen of Sheba, Little Red Bike.
More to come once we get settled in our new house and studio ...
We are moving in two and a half weeks now. I feel that I am coming out of the calm before the storm and right into a frenzy of activity. I'm trying to print all the stationery for Renegade in the next week, only I miscalculated the amount of paper I'd need for this and am impatiently waiting for it to arrive on Monday. The timing of Renegade SF is not the best for me, since it's just about two weeks after we move in to our new house, but I am going anyway. It's a chance to see old friends, meet new ones, sell some cards. I figured: why not just go?
I couldn't decide how much stationery to take – and it's hard because I never know what is going to sell. So finally I just picked a number – 20 sets of 14 of my designs, plus some singles. I'm trying not to cut into my current inventory that I like to keep on hand for Etsy sales, so it means blind-stamping 1400 pieces with my logo on the back – and then printing the colors. After that, there is an awful lot of folding and packaging, but the great thing is that I can do this in the evenings – or even once we move to Corvallis. You know, in my so-called spare time.
In the meantime, as I wait for my paper to arrive, I am packing. I like the idea of packing – a chance to sort through the piles, to get rid of the un-necessary, to pare down – but the truth is that it's really time consuming. Yesterday, though, I made some good progress. I think the hardest part of packing is all the little stuff, the knicknacks. I'm being pretty ruthless this time, keeping only what I really love. At least that's my intention; we'll see how that pans out.
We move on or around June 23rd. The first thing to do, before we actually move all the stuff, is paint the bedrooms and home office. You might want to know that I am very indecisive and fickle about paint colors, but this probably isn't all that surprising. It is true that in our old house, the one before the one we are in now, we actually painted the entire house in what I though was this pale cream – only for me to discover the next day, in the light, that it looked like lemon ice. I hated it. I repainted the entire house by myself. So, this time around, we are sticking to the tried and true. I say tried and true because it took me about 4 or 5 tries to find this perfect color. It's the 'cup of tea' swatch above. It's not too yellow, it's not too brown, it's not too orange. It's not too bright, it's not too dark. It's lovely in all sorts of light. All the bedrooms in the new house get this color. Done. The home office is going to be a more orange color – already tested and proven in our current kitchen. No swatch for it, but there is a can of paint in the basement for reference. I will not deviate from the above plan.
In other Satsuma Press news ... There is a new collaboration with Yu-I coming soon! This will be the second in our series – another 6 x 16 print titled Waterlilies. The photopolymer plates are being made right now, to be delivered next week. If I can get all the packing and stationery printing done, I am going to do my very best to print these beauties before the press gets a holiday. My printing press, a Vandercook SP-15, is going to have a vacation from June 23 (when we move) until July 15 (when I return from Renegade). You see, it has to be carefully moved from this studio to its new one – and it turns out the best time for this to happen is while I'm in San Francisco. The new studio – a double garage! – has to be painted and wired, etc, etc (thanks, Ben!) before the press can come there to live and work. So please look for the Waterlilies print either at the end of this month OR the end of next month.
Next post – I am going to try to do it soon rather than being a slacker like I've been – some photos of a piece I printed for artist, Sarajo Frieden.
