Christmas on Craigslist

For all of you out there who have procrastinated so long and are feeling the pressure of coming up with something special for your loved ones this Christmas, Craigslist has a few ideas.  Just search Christmas and see a few things you may not have thought of on your own.

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Emily Sutton
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via Cafe Cartolina

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Shelby Lee Adams
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Phiona Richards 

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via Cafe Cartolina

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Shane Waltener

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via (a new favorite).... of paper and things

Here we go......while one thing I love about my press, and my studio in general, is the trip I take from the here and now of today to the here and now of another time.....I can't ignore the need to marry that process to the here and now of the internet.....Monkey Puzzle Press now has it's own facebook page.

Harvest by Alunda Kyrkokör (2009) from Olle Corneer on Vimeo.
via design milk
Oh, this fits into my little neo-luddite kick just perfectly!

Find the rainbow

I found this over at The Ladies of Letterpress. Appeals to the Luddite in me. My clamshell press is not a lot more complex than this, really, which is exactly what I love about it. There are no motors running while I'm working, maybe just some Leonard Cohen crooning in the background and the levers and hinges of the press gliding. It's a quiet, meditative process (not as fast as these two at work).
Lately, as I'm gearing up for holiday faires my studio is feeling like an old-school Santa's Workshop and I find that's actually influencing the designs I'm coming up with which are heading more towards toys and decorations of a more hands-on era.  I'm enjoying the process very much.

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Juliana Peloso
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This is at the top of my wish list for Christmas.
I saw this sweet little painting at the Gallery Espresso when I was in Savannah and have not forgotten it.  I could gush on and on about the sweetness of this little peafowl forever but I will refrain.

When we visited the Getty a few weeks ago, we had the pleasure of wondering through the many rooms of Irving Penn's work.  They were the images of people of all walks of life dressed in their work clothes from London, New York and Paris.  It was an amazing show; hundreds of images stacked salon style and each one of them commanding your attention for its details, or its humor or its mystery and all shot in a purely unadorned, naturally lit studio with a large format camera. 
Classic.
I was saddened to see that Irving Penn died today at 92.

Oh, I think that it will take me a few posts to share my enthusiasm for GA, Savannah especially!  I'm starting here with a few of the gorgeous interiors of some of my favorites.   I could definitely have spent more time in this town, I can tell there is much richness under the lovely surface which I barely had begun to scratch.
The first three images are from the Back In The Day Bakery.  Mmm...red velvet cupcakes!
The next two are diner cars that Savannah College of Art and Design have restored and opened for business.
The next three are from Gallery Espresso, I made it a point to be there every day, it was just that nice!
(I will show some work that was showing there in a post soon.)
And finally, I have to get the link for this soon and will include it, but this is a bistro we returned to not only for the great atmosphere but for the shrimp and grits!

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The Grit
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I'm in GA for the weekend having  a little getaway with Pipo.  Today he is speaking at the Lamar Dodds Scool of Art here in Athens.  I'm spending the days wandering through this inspiring and quirky town.  I like it.
We've had great culinary fortune here in GA, beginning with a beautiful Southern fare at The Flying Biscuit in Atlanta and again last night and this morning at The Grit, here in Athens.  What these places share are an seemingly effortless ability to serve you the tastiest home cooking with a friendly pride with personality and  beauty in every object and surface that surrounds you!  This is SO my style!
I lived in GA for only my first 6 months...is it possible I absorbed a bit of the DNA in that time?

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Lena Wolff

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Lately I seem to have birds on the brain.

It was definitely fueled, partly, by the freakish number of ravens I saw perching on fence posts  lining I-5 last week.

The finches at the Grange Co-op seem to be telepathically manipulating me to take them home.

If you know me well you know I'm Quail-giddy already.

I'm scoping out chickens on Craigslist, visualizing a coop in my backyard.

I've been trying, in vain, to coax birds into my backyard all summer with an array of feeders.

So far, no birds.

I'm determined not to be too impulsive about this... but I think I will start building a chicken coop soon.

It's inevitable.

I know I'm not alone in this.

Gypsy Faire

Spent part of the weekend at our cabin in the woods, then a hike down to Crater Lake. We were going to see if we could jump into the lake but it was a little chilly and windy, so we made friends with the chipmunks, one of whom helped himself to Q's snickers. I think we broke some rules, but they were just so darn cute.
The lake is amazing, such an intense blue! The hike down was easy but it's a workout on the way back up. I've been there several times but have never hiked down to the lake, so this time I made a point of getting to the actual water. Very glad I did.

It was a great week in the studio playing with this "new" vintage wallpaper that I've found.


I've developed a nice groove with assembling these sketchbooks and am having fun with the process (I know it looks like serious chaos, but there's method to the madness) as well as major satisfaction with the results.
If there is anything more satisfying than sitting back and looking at a full stack of perfectly printed, folded and packaged letterpress cards it would have to be relishing a stack of freshly assembled, perfectly square, finished books.




It was a Maxwell House moment!

It feels like summer is winding down and I always have mixed feelings about this. Mostly cozy with a touch of melancholy. Many good weeks still left in the garden, though.
Above are a few avocado pits that I've started.
Below is Q in the garden with the nasturtiums that I've been enjoying all summer.
This is the first year I've grown these amazing little flowers and after a full summer of their gorgeous little faces gracing my vegetable bed, keeping pests away and decorating my salads, I can't imagine I'll ever have a garden without them.

The images of Nadav Kandar are too plentiful to represent with three pieces. He has a good dozen series on his site, which definitely deserves a good long browse. He's traveled all over the globe and made beautiful images and not without a little sly humor.