Pistachio Press: October 2007

2008 INK+WIT Pistachio Press wall calendar

I am so excited to announce that Tara, from INK+WIT, and I have collaborated on this new 2008 letterpress calendar {above is the sneak peek, see Tara's Flickr for more images}. Tara designed and illustrated the calendar and I will be printing everything. These will be available on INK+WIT as well as our Etsy sites mid November. We will have 200 limited edition pieces. I'm going to start printing this weekend and will post updates when I can. Contact us for more info or to place a pre-order!

I bought an amazing guillotine cutter from Genesee Book Arts on Saturday. It had to be moved up from the basement of the center with a refrigerator dolly and loaded into my friend Sara's van, which took four strong men. Then today Jake, Luke, and I moved it from the van and into the studio. It was a bit harder with only three of us, but we managed to get it in place and I have already trimmed 800 sheets of paper! It's soooo awesome. I'll post pictures soon. In the meantime, our dogs just laid around and loved each other all weekend :) And after seeing the Simpson's movie Jake played "Spider Sue" with Susie.

I also made another treasury this morning. I like making these lists because it helps me find more work to be inspired by, like this great piece from Michele Maule. She has a beautiful color palette and I love the subtle line work in the background.

Instructoart

I love the work of Matthew Vescovo, creator of Instructoart. His illustrations are hilarious {mainly due to his dry humor and slightly uncomfortable subjects}. His work is especially interesting to me because I love his use of simplified line, which is something I try to use in my own work.

The Dissident

Last night I took my drawing class to an incredible lecture by Nell Freudenberger. She read a passage from her new book, The Dissident. I am rarely so fixated when hearing speakers read from their books, but Nell was a wonderful speaker and the passage she shared was beautiful {about a Chinese political artist who was awarded a residency to teach at a private high school for girls}. Obviously, her novel is on my nightstand now and I'm looking forward to some good reading.

Sucker for stationery!

I did the impossible...I made a treasury of my own! Spots for the treasury are usually impossible to snag since everyone wants to make one. But...I was up late working and decided to check the treasury on Etsy and lucked out. Check it out {right here} and buy some awesome stationery!

Total slacker

Arrrg. So it appears that I've been quite a lame blogger lately. But, this is only due to the fact that we've been pretty busy around here...

We've repainted the bedroom. Again. Finally. For the last time! I love the new blue {very soothing} and I made the curtains from fabric from a recent Ikea trip. Gone forever is the green apple paint and the wicked-old pink curtains. That green had been an overcompensation from the avocado green I had painted the bedroom when we moved into the house. Third time's the charm!

Apple picking {my first time} for Kelly's birthday, followed by ice cream and Mexican food.

We also had a very fun Sunday a few weeks ago. We met my dad in Geneseo for lunch and then went Geocaching in Letchworth Park. This is the first time we've gone where I've actually found the cache. The other times the cache was missing or we gave up!

Hi, my name is Rachael...

I am so addicted to making piles that Jake sent me this web comic the other day! I even have virtual piles on my computer and constantly hide all of the crap on my desktop in new folders. I wish there was a super fast way to get organized, but I haven't found it yet!

For Blog Action Day, this post is dedicated to recycling old papers and reducing waste. I'm going to try my best to stop collecting stuff I don't need and live a clutter-free life. I'll keep you posted on how this works out :)

Another treasury

One of my cards made it into another treasury. It's not on the front page, but it's a great grouping of work. Here's the link.

{And here's another one. Treasuries are so fun!}

Contemporary Landscape

Here's a great drawing by artist Caroline Falby. Her work is currently on display at the Tower Gallery in an exhibition titled The Contemporary Landscape. You know that I've been interested in the idea of landscape, so I was very excited to see this show open! Caroline's work looks even better in person and I really love her use of repetition and muted color palette. I'm a sucker for pattern (duh!) and can appreciate her use of decorative paper elements, like the tree in this piece.

More press

Pistachio Press was featured on Poppytalk today. Hooray!

Lisa Kokin

Trophy, image (c) Lisa Kokin

I just came across Lisa Kokin's work and I love the detail in her books. I'm especially drawn to this piece, which combines my love of text, old photos, and the line work from sewing. I really want to gush about all of her work, so it was hard for me to just post one image!