hello again

I'm sure you thought I was never coming back. Well, it seems about time to check in. I've been traveling (to Baton Rouge and New Orleans), teaching (printmaking and book making), and printing (in the shop). Actually, Jake has been doing most of the printing and I've been doing a lot of design work. Wedding season knocks us out every year. Hopefully I'll be back here more regularly...soon.

Where we were...

At the end of December, just before Christmas, Jake and I headed to Aruba for a vacation. It was awesome! I don't think that we've ever gone on vacation without extensively planning it, but I am so glad we did. We got a great last minute deal (booked three weeks beforehand) through JetBlue that we just couldn't pass up. And the timing was perfect - just after the end of the semester and before trade show season and Christmas. So we spent six days on the beach, horseback riding and kayaking on the ocean. In short, we did nothing. I didn't research things to do, we didn't pack our days full of exploring, we only ate out once thanks to a kitchen suite. It was, thankfully, the most refreshing trip I have ever taken.

Let's start at the beginning...

The beginning of August. Every month that passes seems to be busier than the last. August was no exception, as I'm sure you can tell. So, what have we been up to here at Pistachio Press? We visited my sister (Lindsay) and brother-in-law in Florida, took a road trip to Asheville, NC for the Ladies of Letterpress conference, and went to a trade show in NYC. We've been gone for most of the past month and now, thanks to a great gift show, we have a ton of printing to finish up. Oh, and the semester started last week.

The top two pictures were taken at a beach near Niceville, FL where my sister lives. I haven't been in water so clear and blue and warm in a very long time. It was pretty amazing. Seriously, the water was incredible. The third pic is from our road trip to Asheville. Lindsay and Jake drove while I napped and enjoyed the scenery. And the fourth image was taken when we hit the Blue Ridge Mountains. As much as I loved the beach, the mountains were a welcome sight. We hit right at sunset and it couldn't have been better timing.

I've really missed being in this space and I'm planning to spend the week catching up. I hope you'll forgive the lapse in posting and I hope you all had a great summer!

Keuka Lake

Do you like your in-laws? I completely adore mine. Jake's family feels like my family and his cousin and aunt just sent us these great pictures of our trip. I look forward to this every year and I think this was the best trip we've had. The weather was 90-100 degrees every day with beautiful blue skies, a nice breeze and an almost entirely private pebble beach. If we had been in Rochester I would have been suffocating from the heat, but luckily we were 20-feet from the beach! We played euchre most nights after making smores by the fire. Every night a different group cooked dinner. We lounged the day away reading, swimming, canoeing, biking and hiking. It was heaven.

A week at the lake

The last few weeks (maybe even months) have been rough. We've been working non-stop and printing around the clock. I thought that after the stationery show things would slow down and the wedding jobs would thin out. I was wrong! We've been reprinting cards to fill orders from NSS and prep for the gift show in August and the wedding jobs have been flowing steadily for the fall wedding season. I am so grateful that we have such great clients and that business is booming, but 12-18 hour days take their toll no matter how much you love what you do.

So, last week Jake and I made the final push to print everything on our plate, package it up and take it to FedEx before leaving for a week-long family vacation at the lake. We ended up leaving a day late, but I can tell you that it was so worth it. Knowing that we were caught up when I stepped out of the car at the lake was like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. This is the most relaxed I've been in at least three years.

The boxes above are from about four days worth of work before we left. I've never dropped off packages for FedEx on a Sunday, but this felt great :)

Ending the week

Last night we hung out on the studio fire escape with friends and drinks and watched the sun go down. It was gorgeous weather and the perfect way to end the week. Today Jake's family came up and we spend the day at the market and hanging out on the front porch and just generally relaxing. I hope we can take this feeling into next week as we finish a bunch of jobs.

Camping 2011

We just returned from our yearly camping trip with friends on my family's land. Had a great time, but it was sadly overcast and rainy the entire time. Today, of course, is beautifully sunny and we're spending it in the studio printing. At least our windows are big!

You may notice the sweet couch set up at the pond in the middle picture. Our camping trips are more plush every year.

MASS MoCA: Day 5 randomness

I'm just about out of work to show you from our trip to MASS MoCA, so I figured today was a good time to show you a few random shots. Icicles on the tin roof lined the buildings in the complex were beautiful. By the time we left, most had slid down and and were hanging at 45-degree angles. The entrance is lined with hanging trees, an ongoing installation by Natalie Jeremijenko. I wish we could have seen these blooming, I expect they are amazing.

Lastly, we were able to walk through Petah Coyne's beautiful exhibition. I've been in love with her work since I first saw it while helping to edit on a catalog for her work at the Albright Knox. Although the work in the show is gorgeous, I honestly thought the viewing experience was a little off-putting. Only four people at a time were allowed into the main exhibition space and there were two gallery guards watching those four people. Seriously? I get it to a certain extent - Coyne's work is incredibly delicate - mostly taxidermy birds and silk flowers covered with wax and much of it sits directly on the floor. But get close enough to actually see the intricacies and a guard reminds you to step back. Maybe I wouldn't have been so disappointed about this if Material World hadn't been so hands-on and encouraged interactivity.

MASS MoCA: Day 4

I've shown Katharina Grosse's work in my classes for the last few years and it was so nice to finally see it in person. The scale is just crazy and it was great to walk through the gallery. The contrast of stark white is so striking.

MASS MoCA: Day 2

My favorite exhibition at MASS MoCA was Material World: Sculpture to Environment. The piece I showed yesterday was part of this, as are the pieces below. What I liked most was how each unique installation led into the next. The installation below is by Orly Genger and was created using 100 miles of rope. It's so intense and just looks heavy. In the third picture you can see how it's juxtaposed with the rear gallery - lightweight twisted paper dripping from the ceiling. I love this particular pairing.

The paper installation by collaborators Wade Kavanaugh and Stephen B. Nguyen continues on the second floor. In the lower (window-less) space root-like structures hang from the ceiling. In the upper space, they seem to grow out of the floor. Both Jake and I laid on the floor and looked up into the trunk, which was every bit as complex as the outside structure.

Four years

I just realized that I missed my four-year blogging anniversary. I can't believe it's been that long and I have an even harder time believing that so much has happened in that span of time. In this relatively short amount of time I started Pistachio Press, we lost our old dog Tipper and then adopted Cassie and Pancake Sue, we started fostering Dolly, we've gone to weddings and funerals, we spent almost three weeks in Italy, we have painted and repainted rooms, we've met awesome new friends, we've exhibited at trade shows, we drove down the California coast, babies have been born, presses have been moved, my students have made some great work, Jake has written two novels, and mohawks have been shaved. I'm looking forward seeing what happens in the next four years!

Christmas recap (mostly through cookies)

 

 

Well, Christmas came and went. And so did the new year. It flew by and somehow it doesn't seem like it should be January already! It especially doesn't seem like I've been gone from here for two weeks. I missed telling you about cookie-baking at Sara's and dog-cookie-baking at Marni's. Both humans and puppies had full bellies during the end of December! I also missed bragging about the seven dogs at my mom's house over Christmas and how well they all got along (until Pancake Sue started hoarding the bones, that is).

My intention was to take off the week between Christmas and New Year to organize my office, clean the house, sort the junk in the attic, do laundry and just generally do things that I should be doing all of the time but never have time for. Did I? Not entirely. Instead, I took a light work week (6-hour days) and spent time with family and friends. I saw a double feature movie with my husband and sister. I scrubbed under the stove and refrigerator. I tried to catch up on sleep. We hosted our annual New Year's Day brunch, which was fantastic and can now officially be called a tradition after three years :) Although I feel like I should have been working harder, I'm glad I took a little time to rest before the craziness of the new year.

Tomorrow I'm going to begin to semi-regular posting again - starting with roundup of calendars that now grace my office walls.

Christmas tree picking

A few weeks ago we picked out Christmas trees with our friends Sara and Ben. It's become tradition for us to eat breakfast together the first weekend in December and then hunt for the perfect tree at Powers. Sara and Ben always go for the long-needles big round trees, but Jake and I almost always end up with a fraser fir, which is able to hold all of our heavy ornaments. And the best part of Powers is the animals runing around. This year we got to pet a baby goat while the snow fell!

Book Arts Weekend

 

 

 

 

 

This past weekend I took a group of students to the Pyramid Atlantic Book Fair. It was a great event, filled with road-trip mishaps, group bonding, Ethiopian dinner in DC and some amazing books. I also got to catch up with friends at Ladies of Letterpress and Drive By Press. Later this week I'll post about some of the artists we got to meet. Hope you had a great weekend, too.