Putting it out there

Dear Jemal Sharah,

I would like to use your poem 'Revelation' for a letterpress broadside.

I have looked for you everywhere. I have written to your publishers, who say the rights have reverted back to you. I have googled you, found where you worked a year ago (Dili, Timor), tried to email you (it bounced back), emailed a colleague who might work near you (again, bounced back), so wrote to you via your employer (a very large government agency), but the letter came back with 'whereabouts unknown' on it. I have asked around, since you are very connected to Canberra, even found someone who has rented your house, but they do not know how to contact you directly.

I do not want to give up. All I can do is make the broadside, fully acknowledge you and the volume from which the poem comes, and hope that you surface and contact me to get your rightful dues: a fee, or a copy of the broadside, or a mix of both.

I will try to make it beautiful, and if it's any consolation, I won't be making any money from it, as it's being printed to raise money for a good cause.

Cheers,

&Duck

Postscript:

I love blogging. Jemal found me, we got in touch, I'm printing the broadside with a clear conscience. Results! Thank you, interwebs.

terribubbly sad but happy too

To be honest, I didn't know that Ruth Park was still alive until yesterday when she died. She's three years older than the Aged Poet (who is 90), so she had a lovely long life (although I hope she enjoyed her Extreme Old Age more than the AP is).

We are huge fans of The Muddle-headed Wombat. I packed the books away yesterday so I can't give you an example of the wonderful writing. Best Beloved was reading them aloud to me when I was sick recently and he does all the voices so well. In our minds Padge is Wombat and Puss is Pooter. Secretly in my mind, I am Mouse, Bumblebee is Wombat and BB is Puss.

Her novels and autobiographical work are wonderful as well, of course, but if she'd only ever written TMHW, it would have been legacy enough. Thank you, RP, and RIP.





The most excellent news is that after some high-tension negotiation argy bargy, we got to a price we could pay on the house we like. We haven't exchanged contracts yet, so cross fingers for me that all goes well until then. The best bit of the agreement is that we will get access to the new house's garage between Exchange and Settlement to store all our boxes etc so that the old house can be clear and uncluttered for the Open House time! *big sigh of relief*

I was out last night, and I'd left a tense and gloomy household, because of the argy-bargy. They were supposed to be cooking dinner, but nothing much had happened by the time I left. Then I got a text saying BRING PIZZA AND CHAMPAGNE. Shazam! I happily did so, knowing that the world had just turned on its axis.


So I'm suspending my studio activities for a month (unless something really urgent comes up) and devoting my energy to packing, painting, patching, and what ever else comes up. Apart from Christmas, of course. It's going to be extra relaxing, because we know how much work is ahead of us. W00T!

kickstarting

For a few years now I've been buying a fabulous zine called Ker-bloom!, printed using handset letterpress. It's the only one in the world, and once I discovered it, I resolved to stay true to it forever. I bought up back issues, and I'm only missing about ten copies out of about 85 (my copies are at the studio, I can't check right now) and I hope to plug those gaps one day to have a complete set.

Ker-bloom! is produced by an amazing young woman called Artnoose (she has a real name, of course, but that's her business) who lives an amazing anarco-communal life, originally in California but now in Pittsburgh.

Her zine provides tantalising glimpses into her outer and inner life; the second-last copy was emotionally heart-wrenching, and I wept as I read it, and I have to admit that my hands were shaking slightly as I opened the most recent one, eager to know how she was coping. This latest one was awesome and inspiring, as she recounted the recent move of her heavy letterpress equipment from a nearby building into the basement of her house with the help of a lot of her community. I read about the moment when her press rolled down the stairs towards her and didn't squish her like a bug, and realised that I'd been holding my breath for slightly too long.

Pittsburgh is one of the American cities hit hard by the GFC (global financial crisis). There are houses throughout the city that have been abandoned. Some have been reclaimed by the city, others are just abandoned, and are ripe for squatters and can be bought extremely cheaply.

I'm telling you this because Artnoose and her friends bought one of these houses and spent a lot of time and energy fixing it up. They have strong beliefs about community and ways to revitalise the community and make it equitable and sustainable.

Artnoose now wants to buy another house just down the road and fix it up to be a studio that can be used not only for production but to teach others the site-specific skills of letterpress. She has set up a website to try and raise the money. I'll share her words with you:

As you probably know, I moved to Pittsburgh in 2007 with the express purpose of buying a house for building a dream printshop. My life meandered a bit, and I ended up living at a writers' collective in the verdant neighborhood of Upper Lawrenceville. This was one of the most fortuitous things that could have happened, and I'm now ready to buy a house near this one so that I can set up the printing wing to this writing house.

In addition to being home to a lot of great people, Pittsburgh also has many abandoned houses, several of which are in my immediate neighborhood. Some are owned by the city, and some are owned by unknown persons. I'm in the process of trying to acquire an abandoned house, and I'm utilizing a diversity of fundraising tactics: bake sales, benefit shows, tattoo parties, letterpress lessons, you name it.

One thing that I'm trying is this website called kickstarter.com in which you put forth a project and try to get people to pledge money. If you reach your fundraising goal (mine is $4000, the cost of a house three blocks away from me) then you get the money and can start your project. If you don't, then no one gets charged, and you don't get the money. I created a kickstarter page with the help of a filmmaker friend and an illustrator friend (both of whom are named Dan). Check it out. It's an admittedly adorable video. Please consider donating something in exchange for fabulous prizes, and please forward this information to friends and relatives, especially those who might have even a passing interest in letterpress.

If you're still wondering why I deserve a house in which to build a dream printshop, think about all the not-for-profit things that I help create for the people around me even without a dream shop: hat bands, house bands, benefit brunches, reading groups, prisoner support events, all-ages zine readings, countless free tattoos and business cards, cupcakes and root beer floats at the drop of a hat, huge breakfasts for touring bands that happen to stay at my house, and dinner for anyone who happens to drop by while I'm cooking.

I don't do these things because I expect something in return; I do them because I sincerely believe that the world could use some more awesome things. With this printshop, I'll be able to do all the things I mentioned above plus more: workshops, letterpress classes, printing residencies, and small-operation publishing. Combined with the literary power of the writers' collective, this is going to be no small thing.

Thanks everyone. Let's do some really great things this year. If you're in Pittsburgh, come by and say hello.

I'm in. Are you?

Just in case you missed that link: here it is again. Do watch the video. It's cute, and there are big drifts of exotic snow!

Pressings: the opening

Hello from my wonderful opening. This photo was taken by Antonia, who is one of the Megalo team. I'm holding up the wrong arm to echo the work, but you get the idea. Sorry for the insane grin, I was a bit nervous. I'm wearing a shift thing that I think of as my 'tuckshop uniform'; it's cut like those uniforms nurses and tea ladies used to wear, but it is black with some funky black & white detailing. I found it at a Melbourne op shop, and thought it fitted my general theme of vintage + recycling.


Another Antonia image, of two lovely Canberra artists: papermaker Katharine Nix on the left, printmaker & illustrator Franki Sparke on the right.



This is the opening according to Bumblebee.

Well, not really. I gave him the camera and asked him not to use the flash, so he struggled a bit with holding the camera still enough to get clear shots. He seemed to perservere, because I have a lot of blurries followed by a few good shots:



Not sure that Sarina (Sarina fair, on the left of the group) would think it was a good shot, but by Bumblebee's standard, it's excellent!



This is Steeev, one of my oldest friends (you might have seen him lurking around Progressive Dinner Party), and Genevieve Swifte, who does gorgeous art and books, with her daughter Disa. At the back of the photo is Lady Duck, looking suave.


A Bumblebee photo; he loved all the little kids who came, I have lots of photos of them all making faces and running around. This is the back of Mummy Crit, with her delicious baby Erik. her other son, D'arcy, REALLY wanted to touch one of my more active-looking books, so I promised him that he could come to my studio after the show and look through it (it's one of the Not For Sale pieces, because it's a personal souvenir of a collaboration).

It was a really lovely evening, and I'm really glad I didn't have any speechifying, because it allowed people to just relax and talk and look at the work, which tried its best to look nice and, I think, succeeded. I'm going to go in during the week and take some 'proper' shots of the work and put them up on my website for a bit of a virtual showing, but I'll let you know when that happens.

One thing I really loved was seeing people looking hard at everything.



I hope they got as much out of the work as I got making it...


Bernice has also done a bit of a post on it, and there's more photos in a flickrset, if you're interested.

Ooh, I almost forgot to acknowledge how bloody amazing Best Beloved was. He didn't get a chance to stop and talk to many people because he was pouring drinks, food-wrangling, washing up empty glasses and plates, and being generally wonderful. He really earns his title sometimes.

Thanks to everyone who came! It was great!

People watching: the hat

Sitting in my studio, looking through old sketchbooks, and came across this on the back page of one:

I was walking behind a man who was walking along a path across a stretch of lawn. The path was a groove worn by countless students short-cutting across the rectangle of grass. About halfway along, the path became muddy and slightly slippery. The man was neatly dressed with a hat. As he felt the ground become less stable, he raised his hand to his hat, and he slowed down. He lifted his hat a couple of inches up over his head and trod very carefully until the ground was less slippery.

1 June 1999


-- Post From My iPhone