Contrary to what you might think after reading too many rambling blog posts, I can actually write a coherent article. In fact, I wrote one for BRAVA Magazine this month—came up with the idea, interviewed an expert, wrote full sentences and everything! (I even drew the illustration.)
And since I’ve already named this post “Random,” here are a few laugh-out-loud funny (for real! no hollow “lol”-ing around here) time-wasters I’ve discovered this week:
Enjoy!
While traditionally called “quilling” and referred to by Yulia Brodskaya herself as “papergraphic illustration,” I can think of only one word for her work: Amazing. Painstakingly created from tiny colorful strips of paper, the pieces are so fluid they seem to have grown organically onto the page.
The Russian born, UK-based artist cites her work as the combination of her favorite things: typography, paper, and highly detailed hand-made craft objects. Her work has appeared in publications and ad campaigns around the world, check out more here.
622 press cards are now carried at Driftless Studio, which is owned and operated by Anne Connor. Anne is an amazing nature photographer, and the gallery exhibits much of her work as well as that of local and international artists. The shop carries everything from hand-woven rugs to unique jewelry to handmade crayons, and of course Anne’s photography graces coasters, mousepads, canvases and more.
She picked up my vintage owl notecard, plum and silver feathers note card and two colorways of my gone to seed note card. Driftless Studio is located at 2981 Cahill Main in Fitchburg, just behind The Great Dane on Fish Hatchery Rd.
Books and Brew, a delightful coffee shop in my hometown of Milton, WI, also decided to carry my cards full time. They picked up a few holiday designs last year, and the new owner Carla ordered a few of almost all of my notecard designs as well as one of each of the limited edition prints. She’s doing some really exciting things with the store including an expanded menu and earlier hours and giving the whole shop a facelift.
Books and Brew is located at 613 W. Madison Ave., in Milton’s recently restored Old Junction Mill, which is also home to The Red Rooster and Peddlar’s Loft. If you’re in the area you should definitely make a point to stop by!
Hey kids, I know I’ve been missing in action lately, but my life has been, to say the least, chaotic. I won’t go into all of it, but the highlights (or low-lights as they were) include my press having a major break (fixed now) and the company I worked for ceasing operations (still working on that one — yes, I am accepting freelance work, letterpress or otherwise).
In other news, here are a few pieces I created before the press cracked, and I’ve been working on custom pieces like crazy to catch up, so there will be lots to come! In the mean time, you can always keep up on local happenings on Hold That Thought, an interim publication for a few of us from the old company. (I’ll be posting about Hair Affair in a day or two!)
This has been a week of getting very close finishing up several projects — thank God because I also happened to start quite a few new ones last week and I’m just barely keeping up.
Although I still have to cut and assemble the above invitation suite, they’re all printed and they turned out beautifully.
I’m also thisclose to wrapping up a project I mentioned waaaaay back in October for the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. I designed the logo, save the date and invitation, poster and large-scale window clings that will soon plaster the front of the museum. A very special thanks to Jason Gaylor who created the foliage photoshop brushes that are and integral part of the whole identity.
622 press | LETTERPRESS GOODS MADE BY HAND 