broad sides & hyphens

O hai

I've not been around, I've been off socialising with my non-social-network network. How quaint, to sit face to face with people and catch up on news that is older than five minutes.

In the meantime, I've been accruing dotpoints:

-- firstly, go here and have a damn good chortle.

-- back? Wasn't that funny?

-- When I mentioned the other day that I was selecting future Duckettes, what I meant was: I've established a little residency for a couple of graduating students (from my art skool) to come to Studio Duck and print an edition of letterpress broadsides each. Broadsides are essentially posters, usually incorporating text and imagery, most often poetry, but not always.

So I got the chance to walk around the school and get a preview of the grad show to find potential people. I had one pretty much chosen beforehand, but I have had so many good students come through the Book Studio and play with the letterpress facilities, that choosing the second was tricky.

Eventually I made my choice, and then on Friday I went along to the prize-giving ceremony and gave out my residencies, doing the whole shake-and-kiss thingy for good measure. So stay tuned for the adventures of Peter and Natalie and their broadsides, which will hopefully be produced in a couple of months or so! I've bought all the paper, so now I just have to get them into the studio and get planning with them.


Bumblebee's photo -- from afar and above -- of me presenting my award to one of the two. The poles are tricksy things :)

Peter graduated from Printmedia & Drawing, and he does the most beautiful wood engravings from found wood that he prints in really interesting ways and also produces books from them that are like slow motion animations. Natalie is a Photography student, but her bookwork is very separate from her photography: very text-based and quirky. I think the two of them will make very different broadsides, which is what I want -- I'm planning to keep a small part of the edition aside to form a limited edition folio in five or ten years time, and it should be a really diverse bunch of broadsides.

-- After the award ceremony I took Bumblebee out to see a local outfit called Mr Fibby. The frontman used to be/is B's drama teacher, and they are very good. Have a listen for yourself. B was alternately in stitches and enthralled, and now he thinks he knows what he wants to do when he grows up.

-- This morning I had breakfast with an old friend who has been busy producing her own music for many years in the background of a busy money-poor love-rich creative-community life and is now hovering on the brink of her first album release. I'd love you to also have a listen to her music (especially Jack and Angel, the latter being a song I first fell in love with yonks ago sitting on a beach under the stars when we were in a very small band together) because if you like it, please support her by buying one of the albums in a few weeks and telling all your friends about it. I'll remind you again when it's released.

-- This afternoon I'm going to a get-together of members of my old art school workshop, the now-extinct-in-all-but-our-hearts Graphic Investigation Workshop. If you're an ex-student of GIW, and didn't know that there was a GIW Facebook group, come and join it now.

-- I got Bumblebee into the studio yesterday to help me print a Xmas card for this year. To my relief, he liked using the printing press, although he needed to use both arms to work it, and he had to take regular breaks. I haven't mentioned that B is not feeling the best at the moment -- he has permanently swollen glands in his neck and low energy, and we're undergoing various tests to identify the problem. He hasn't got Glandular Fever -- although he's HAD it, the tests reveal -- but it could be post-viral, or something else altogether. He's not terribly ill or anything, just not firing on all cylinders. And he's proved himself to be a very good Printer's Devil, which bodes well for the future!


(More photos of his printing at flickr)

We also had a bit of a visitor in the studio the day before:



Discovered (thankfully) just before I actually put my hand on the water bottle, as I was reaching for it. Byrd was passing by, and he's very good at moving spiders, to Bumblebee's relief.

Have to go! Running late for re-onion.