(part 2): Hannah's tea party

My good friend Hannah hosted a ladies tea party at her house this past weekend and I was completely impressed with her spread. Actually Hannah hosts the best parties and I make sure to not miss any of them. Look at all this goodness!

Max even dressed up for the occasion :)

First 2 weeks (part 1): Colophon Club meeting

To say the least it's been a busy January so far and we've only hit the half-way mark. I wonder if this is a preview of how 2012 will be? If so, I'm ready for more fun things so bring it on :)

In no particular order, here's my first post from our first Colophon Club meeting of the year. This club is a collection of printers, book collectors, artisans, people of the trade and friends of. We meet once a month at The Berkeley City Club to talk shop, have a few drinks and enjoy each other's company over dinner and a guest lecture. Fun times...

Anthology Winter Gift Guide

Check out a recent article on Alison Hotchkiss (of Alison Events) on this month's digital issue of Anthology Magazine. Great interview of her and tips on entertaining. I love working with Alison and her team, they produce such amazing events. Lots of great pics included in the article, a couple of them I've worked on too :)

If you haven't heard of Anthology, it's a beautiful quarterly shelter magazine that's worth collecting. And I love that it's born and bred locally too. More info here.

Top photo Leigh and Andrew's Dawn Ranch wedding
Bottom photo escort cards from Jodi & Jon's Sundance wedding

This photo was from Dana & Adam's Lake Michigan wedding, calligraphy by Nancy Hopkins

Prints + Jewelry

Join me and Hillary Huffard next Friday Oct 7th as we show off our latest collaboration being held at Marisa Haskell's Oakland boutique. Deets here:

To Japan with Love

I donated a few special edition prints that I published here at Olive-Route to bluemoon letterpress in Japan. They are putting together an exhibit called Letterpress of Pray to help raise awareness and funds to aid tsunami and earthquake relief efforts.

The exhibit site is up, I know it's mostly in Japanese! But please take a moment to check out my artists as well as the other exhibitors in the show. Thank you Nat, Jane & Hillary for the inspiration!

On Press: Animal art prints

Hot off the presses...These are some process pics of some art collaborations I have coming up!

This 3-piece set of animal prints were illustrated by good friend Hillary Huffard who has been part of the Olive-Route team for the past couple of years. I'm producing these prints to help promote her as the amazing artist that she is :) Hillary will be watercoloring each print by hand and we're hoping to show and sell them locally soon. Details to come!

Chez Panisse 40th

Recently I had the pleasure of being a part of the preparations for Chez Panisse's 40th anniversary by helping assemble these beautiful menus printed by none other than my friend & shop neighbor Richard Seibert.

It was great for me to offer my help even though I've never assembled accordion fans before! With a little patience, humor and lots of prototypes, we finally figured it out. All my production experience assembling for weddings came in handy :)

There was so much buzz and excitement in the air during that week, I loved being a spectator to such a milestone event and listening to alums reminisce about their days at the restaurant. Congrats Chez Panisse, here's to 40 more years! The proceeds of the event were given to Alice Water's Edible Schoolyard Project. Check out the site for more info on the foundation and how to make a donation.

French Country Cottage

Thanks to Courtney for posting some beautiful photos of the business cards we made for her on her  blog! She posts about interior decorating and styling and anything that has to do with Shabby Chic-ness :) Lots of great eye-candy on her site!

I've known Courtney for many years and she's always had a knack for thrifting one-of-a-kind pieces and re-purposing them into something fresh and new. She always has some great finds and ideas to share on her blog so make sure to check it out if you're looking to get inspired by some French Country...

Thanks Court! xo

Off the Press: Jenny Pennywood notebooks

I'm super excited about this collaboration with Jenny Pennywood!! Just looking at these notebooks makes me happy...Will keep you posted on where these can be purchased soon.

Pray for Japan

These letterpressed prints I made a couple of years ago in collaboration with artist Jane Kim will be exhibited in Japan at the at Books Kubrik Gallery and Paper Inn Gallery in Fukuoka this fall, hosed by Bluemoon Press. 100% of the proceeds from this exhibition will go directly to earthquake child support group in Iwate prefecture. 

They will host another exhibition of letterpress work in the winter at the Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum and I will be submitting new artist print collaborations for it which are currently in the works. Will keep you updated. 

More info regarding these exhibitions can be found on Bluemoon Press's FB page here.

These prints entitled The Elements are currently featured on my Etsy shop.

OllyDog

Our friends at 35 Summers took this photo of the OllyDog booth a couple of weeks ago when they attended the Outdoor Retailer's trade show in Utah. They designed packaging for a new running leash where Max and I made a little cameo :) Here we are in life-size form! You'll see us soon at your local pet retailer and REI stores. Coolio.

Move over, Britney ;)

I was having a typical afternoon one day, headed over to Richard & David's shop to ask some random printing question like I always do. I walked through the door and Richard was on the phone and asked me a question "Would you like to be interviewed by someone from the Chronicle?" Again, very random. But I said "Sure." He handed me his phone and I spoke with Edward, the journalist who ended up interviewing me for an article for his weekly column called "What I Do"....

Richard declined to speak with him, so I ended up talking shop with Edward. This worked out great because asking me about how I started printing and why I'm still here means that he would get an ear-full about Richard & David. So even though Richard decided to not tell his story, they were still being exploited because my story wouldn't be possible without them.

To my pleasant surprise, when I bought the paper this past monday, I saw that my article shared the same page as Britney Spears! My picture, underneath her's in all her popstar glory was really pretty epic. I couldn't have picked a better day for this. The reason why it's so funny is that we always joke at how I'm the pop-culture know-it-all around the shop. Now how fitting is that!

The printed version is always better (of course!) but for those of you who weren't able to get a copy of the paper, here's the online version by clicking here.

Who wants cake?

Doing our best to battle the gloomy weather recently so we're arming ourselves with some of our favorite goodies to bring your way! Olive-Route and The Whole Cake will be joining forces on April 7th (2 weeks from today) to host a Cake Tasting Party! Take that rain.

Kelsey will be designing 5 cakes inspired by some of my wedding invites to showcase for the evening. I'll be throwing down some letterpress giveaways. We'll have cake bites and some bubbly to get us all hype. What else can I say?

Hope you can make it! Please rsvp here so we know you're down: kelsey@thewholecake.com

Richard at the Zoo!

Have I mentioned lately how lucky I am? Well, I'm quite blessed being nextdoor to St. Hieronymus Press and some of my favorite people who have helped build my career as a designer and letterpress printer. The apron strings haven't been cut off (and probably never will). So any opportunity I get to talk about them and boast about how wonderful they are, I will gladly take!

One of my great friends and mentors from nextdoor, Richard Seibert, will be having an art opening for his beautifully letterpressed series of art prints based on our other favorite topic besides printing: FOOD! You can check out the prints on his website letterspressed.com and can purchase directly from his site if you can't wait to get your hands on them.

Roger A. Plumb

Thought I'd introduce you to one of my printing mentors, Mr. Plumb--sorry for the blurry pic! He's quite elusive and camera-shy. He's now retired but worked as a pressman pretty much all his life and is the definition of "old-school" printer. He taught me how to run the C&P, the invaluable qualities of tape (yes, the adhesive), the importance of putting things back to where they belong (this is key esp. when dealing with lead type)...just to name a few things :) Every printer has tricks up their sleeve when running a job and I was lucky enough to learn a thing or two from Mr. Plumb who has loads and loads of information and stories to tell.

And his stories...almost always tangential but if you keep following, I swear there's a valuable lesson or punchline at the end. They can sometimes be summed up into one-liners which often make you smile (sometimes in wonder, other times because it's just plain brilliant). I've decided, as a personal project and as a thank you to him that I would immortalize his sayings or "Plumb-isms" by letterpress. So I asked him to write down on a piece of paper as many one-liners he can come up with and so he did!

The first one is actually a re-print of one of my favorites. It was printed on off-cut paper with straight out-of-the can warm red and some indigo ink that was laying around the shop from a previous press run. This is Mr. Plumb's style--never wasteful, always use what's already available. These prints will not be sold, only given away as ephemera for the love of letterpress.

Off the Press: Ragazza Postcard

Just finished these postcards to benefit a good cause. Ragazza restaurant in SF is hosting a silent auction starting today (runs through Monday Jan 31st) and a benefit dinner on Jan 24th to help a friend in need. Please check out what they are auctioning off--there are some amazing items on the list! I'm auctioning off a set of custom letterpressed notecards so hurry and check out what else they have before it's gone!

Hello Camille + Bird Loves Bee Event

Camille is my other lovely intern who has been a great addition to the Olive-Route family recently. Besides helping me at the shop, she keeps very busy with other things: keeping a full-time job, freelance writing, starting her own small press, publishing her first set of art "zines," producing and curating her first art show coming up...just to name a few things on her plate. Geez, this girl is one busy bee!

Speaking of bees...Camille has been hard at work all season for her upcoming show next week titled "Bird Loves Bee" where she will release the 3 art zines she's been producing as well as showcasing some local talent in the art and music industries. To read more about this event, please visit her pages:

Birdlovesbee 
One Red Delicious Press
FB Event Invite 

Here are some photos of her recent work for the event. Hope you can make it! Your support of small business and all things crafted by hand and heart is always, always appreciated. What Camille is putting together is quite an undertaking, I'm very proud of her and wish her the best! You can purchase copies of her zines as well as the limited-edition letterpressed poster at the event.

The event is on Friday, January 21st from 8-midnight (free admission).

A writer in New York: Printing and Pressing in the Big Apple

by Camille
 
As a writer and an aspiring book artist, I had a great opportunity to participate in the Letterpress Printing & Fine Press Publishing Seminar at The Center For Book Arts in New York in November. After submitting a portfolio of my writing, I was invited, along with seven other writers, to spend a week letterpressing and printing in the Chelsea District of New York City. For five days, I had the opportunity to meet with writers from a range of diverse backgrounds--writers teaching in art programs for youth to recent graduates from some of the top MFA writing programs in the country--who shared their insights and experiences from different cultural and social perspectives.

Hello Lauren

Just wanted to write a post formally introducing Ms. Lauren Aczon. She's been an intern at my shop since the beginning of summer and came to my rescue during peak wedding season when I was in over my head with production work. She started out doing some assembly work and was up for some non-glamorous tasks at the shop--organizing samples, trimming paper, archiving, and even spray painting!

But since then, her internship evolved into something closer to an artist in residence so-to-speak but without the living in my shop part :) Lauren expressed interest in letterpress from the get go, and had some previous Vandercook experience in college which always helps. She's also a fantastic artist and after perusing through her sketchbook, I could easily see how her style of linework would translate well into letterpress. I harnessed my inner mother-hen and encouraged her to print her own work and see where it takes her...

Off the Press: AE biz cards

Super fancy cards for the awesome ladies at Alison Events! I love the simple design they gave me--minimal and no fuss typography--goes perfectly with the letterpress and painted edge detail. Love.