We Can Burn That Bridge @Cannonball Press
18” x 24” woodocut and letterpress on paper by Martin Mazorra. There’s lots of good stuff coming off presses at Cannonball here in Brooklyn and they’ve got quite a few awesome prints for sale on their site.
Selling the Vandercook 14 Proof Press
I’d like to make a little room here in the studio (in Brooklyn, NY) so I am selling the 14 Proof Press. It’s a beautiful hand-inked cylinder press with an enormous press bed (17 5/8” x 25 1/2”) for the footprint (2’7” x 3’9”) and weight (750lbs.). It can print on sheets of paper up to 17 3/8” x 25”.
It’s on skids and in great shape. I can get it to street level for you, but you’ll have to take it from there. $1200 OBO.
The Arm NYC
The Arm NYC is an artist run space at 281 North 7th Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The space consists of a gallery/performance space, a public access letterpress studio and a smaller separate print studio for artists in residence.
The Arm has hosted events for The Max Levine Ensemble, Ingrid, Sharon Cheslow, Totally Michael, Prizzy Prizzy Please, Greg Henderson, Conrad Carlson, Sadu, JPL 907, Ghost Mice, Evan Greer, Brook Pridemore, Griffin & The True Believers, Dark Dark Dark, Tiny Masters Of Today, Ben Frost, Penny Rimbaud (Crass), Necking, Matthias Wermke, Love Is All, Dead Combo, Free Blood, Wowch, Japanther, Puppet Kabob, Texta Queen, XXXChange, Velasco, High Places, Benji Cossa and Joshua Ploeg.
The Arm’s public access letterpress studio hosts printing workshops and rents press time to artists and designers interested in printing in letterpress. This space has five Vandercook proof presses and two Chandler and Price Pilot presses. The artist in residence studio at The Arm has two Vandercook Universal III presses, a Chandler & Price Old Series 8×12 platen press, and an antique Challenge paper guillotine. This space also houses The Arm’s collection of twentieth century metal and wood type.
The Arm NYC exists to support a DIY community and provide a venue for creation, inspiration and positive socialization.
- Address: 281 North 7th Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11211
- Cross Streets: Havermeyer and Meeker
- Website: The Arm NYC
- Email:
- Hours: Friday to Monday 12-6 PM (during show runs)
- Transportation: L to Bedford or G to Metropolitan
- Directions: via Google Maps
I Am Still Alive
I Am Still Alive is a design practice located in Brooklyn, NY.
- Address: 310 Atlantic Ave, Floor 2, Brooklyn, New York, 11201
- Cross Streets: Hoyt & Smith
- Website: I Am Still Alive
- Email:
- Directions: via Google Maps
Three days worth of weather
We’ve got another print in the store. It’s a 4-color letterpress poster.
I am also looking for local Brooklyn/New York folks who want to collaborate on posters this summer. If you’re interested, holler @me.
Simple Precision 15
Get the Flash Player to see this video.
Here’s an overwhelmingly boring video overview of the steps involved printing on the new SP15. In the video, I am making the first test print on the press; it’s a kind of bastardized synesthesia I overheard not too long ago (more accurately described as a cross-sensory metaphor, I reckon).
Observant viewers will notice I accidentally printed onto the tympan paper (d’oh).
Noticeably absent from the video are any shots of cleanup or typesetting (both as necessary for printing as the printing itself, I’d say). Maybe if we are all lucky, I will make another equally engaging video focusing solely on cleanup (and somehow try to communicate in that video the peculiar joys of California Wash – the extraordinarily noxious solvent used to remove the ink).
The music here comes courtesy Van Dyke Parks – if you haven’t, it’d behoove you to listen to Song Cycle.
Printing on the C&P
Get the Flash Player to see this video.
Here is a video of me operating the C&P in the mess that was the studio about a year ago. I am printing one color of one side of a postcard. And as you can tell from certain possibly NSFW segments, treadle-operated platen presses are potentially the most erotic of printmaking apparatuses.
Edit: It’s not the size of the press, but the motion of the pressman.
Hand Made Book Binding Workshop Re-Cap
Here are some photos from yesterday’s book binding workshop at the Arm with Alex Brooks. I learned a bunch of new tricks, met some good folks and got to spend a day sitting in the sun and hanging out with Henry.
Artlog postcards
Here are a pair of snapshots of the Artlog postcards I just ran off on the SP15. If you’re looking at the photographs of the cards when you are not reading these words, you are looking at the front and back and they aren’t yet trimmed down.
Friday night on press
Jesse, Erica, Chris and Kendra stopped in last night for some pizza and some beer. We ran some prints on the new whip.
Artlog business cards
I just printed a couple hundred Artlog cards for Manish and myself on the C&P (and boy is my right leg tired).
[ED. I have gone ahead and redacted my phone number since somebody just called me to ask me about the logotype. Hey, Leigh, It is set in Fakir Black by Underware and the contact info is set in Galaxie Polaris Medium by Chester. Both are available from Vllg. No problem.]
Bend from the knees
Dan and I spent a long day yesterday running around Union City, NJ and the Upper West Side of Manahatta.
We scavenged for & salvaged letterpress parts, a pair of type cabinets, an Intertype operator’s chair, and an emormous composing stone in NJ at a print shop closing after 40 or so years. I picked up a new/old and really banged up cabinet for all the wood type I have accumulated recently (the beaten to hell open case cabinet is still better than pizza boxes stacked on the floor).
On the way back to Brooklyn, we stopped in Manhattan and picked up an SP15 for the Arm to replace the one Dan sold me. Loading the press was a bit hairy. We basically had to lift it up 5 or six stairs to get it to street level. Dan took the cylinder and the feed board off which made things easier.
The Arm Vandercook Workshop
Just got an email from Dan@the Arm NYC
Beginning Letterpress on the Vandercook Proof Press – Sunday Jan. 27th
In this workshop you will learn the basic principles of printing on the Vandercook cylinder proof press. You will learn the parts of the press, how it operates, how to lock up a form from wood and metal type or photopolymer plates and how to make a print. Oh, and to clean up the press after you’re done!
The work produced in this class will be a collaborative effort, but this one day class should prepare you to return to use the studio as a self-sufficient printer needing only occasional (and free) guidance from the studio hand. This one day workshop will be held on Sunday January 27th from 11AM-5PM. This workshop will be limited to six people each so please make your booking as early as possible to ensure your place.
If you want to sign up, holler at Dan.
He adds:
The public studio at The Arm is now open by appointment days, evenings and on the weekends. Press rental for any of our Vandercooks or C&P Pilot presses is $15 per hour and one-on-one teaching on any of the presses is available for $35 per hour. We are located at 281 North 7th St. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn just a couple of blocks from the Bedford L train stop. Let us know if you’d like to come by to see the studio or talk about printing.
The Arm is also hosting an opening tomorrow night for Judge and G Kelly with music by Son Wyatt in support of American Handscape.
Couldn't Be More Jazzed
Long time friends, Elizabeth and Ian, just got married. It’s awesome. Printed a poster to offer my congratulations. Wood type. 12×22 inches.
Less out of sorts
I bought boxes and boxes of wood type from a printer that was going out of business (after decades in business) in South Slope this past fall. The boxes just sat stacked in a corner here until I spent several hours late last night sorting it all.
The type remains massively dusty, but it’s been cool to find that there are at least four full fonts, a complete run of calendar date blocks, some tint blocks, and quite a few interesting randoms.
Simple Precision 15
Here’s an overwhelmingly boring video overview of the steps involved printing on the new SP15. In the video, I am making the first test print on the press; it’s a kind of bastardized synesthesia I overheard not too long ago (more accurately described as a cross-sensory metaphor, I reckon).
Observant viewers will notice I accidentally printed onto the tympan paper (d’oh).
Noticeably absent from the video are any shots of cleanup or typesetting (both as necessary for printing as the printing itself, I’d say). Maybe if we are all lucky, I will make another equally engaging video focusing solely on cleanup (and somehow try to communicate in that video the peculiar joys of California Wash – the extraordinarily noxious solvent used to remove the ink).
The music here comes courtesy Van Dyke Parks – if you haven’t, it’d behoove you to listen to Song Cycle.
Vandercook SP15 #21593
With Dan Morris’ invaluable help, I moved a new press (the last for a while I imagine) into the studio yesterday. It’s a Vandercook SP15. It’s serial number, #21593, puts it near the beginning of the production run for SP15s (starting at 21500 in 1961).
It came from the Arm where Dan nursed it into shape and put it to good use in workshops and printing editions.
New Years Drink Menu
This is just a little handset poster for the New Years party we threw here at the building. It was printed on the Vandercook 16907 at around 2 in the morning on Sunday. Looking at it now, the poster should probably read “red or white wine” (we weren’t serving blended Rosé).
That last line isn’t exactly NLP, but it was close enough.
Chandler & Price #B57804
14 months back, I acquired a Chandler & Price Newstyle 8×12 letterpress machine for the studio. With the Dan Morris’ help, I have fixed it up and brought it back to printing form.
Not exactly hulking, but the press weighs about 1,250 lbs and its serial number (B57804) dates it to 1923.
