July!

:: summer in the studio ::

Hello! I hope your summer is going well!

:: handmade bookbinding tools, handmade by me ::

I just got back from a two week workshop at Penland School of Crafts in toolmaking for book artists. The workshop was taught by Shanna Leino, who makes beautiful unique handmade books and tools. It was amazing, challenging, fun, and incredibly satisfying to make a set of tools that I will use every day. I made a paring knife for thinning leather, with a blind tooled leather handle and case. Working with leather is incredibly fun, I would love to do more.

Let's see what else, this post is a bit of a catchup post to share projects that may have been overlooked.
I mentioned a few weeks ago about an unusual opportunity, me and my studio were filmed for a commercial. That commercial finally came out and you can see a peak of the Huldra Press shop and desk in the footage. Here's a link to the video on Youtube.

:: I was in a commercial! ::

That was a crazy day. I've also been keeping busy in the studio, making books, cards, working on a collaborative and custom projects, making new little things...

:: books all in a row ::

:: a new design, leather business card holder ::

:: a custom portfolio for a talented photographer, Katrina d'Autremont ::

I got to visit artist Gerard Brown, the Borowsky Center for Publication Arts run by Amanda D'Amico and look at the giant presses and chat with Gerard about his amazing signal flag inspired print in progress.

:: Gerard working on the registration for his offset edition print ::

:: me, photo courtesy Gerard Brown ::

I had a piece in a group show titled Facts and Fictions in New York at Recession Art Gallery. This same print, Red Fire, will be included in the Penland School of Crafts Annual Benefit Auction.

:: a piece in a show in New York! ::

The biggest thing on my mind though has been my upcoming residency in Iceland at Herhusid in Siglufjörður and the Due North exhibit in January. Due North will be an exhibit in conjunction with Philagrafika projects. I've been reading and collecting images, thoughts, ideas, theories, in preparation. One book I read was Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez. There was a passage in Arctic Dreams that particularly struck me. where the author observes that the Arctic ecosystem is the youngest ecosystem, the last to develop post Ice Age, and that is why it's unvaried and simple relative to other ecosystems like the jungle. What he posits and what I keep thinking about is his observation that the Arctic ecosystem and landscape as we know it today is the same age as us, modern man. So we are in a way evolving, figuring it out together...

:: Siglufjörður, photo by Andres Thorarinsson::