Dive only in the deep end
Last night, Rick and I were re-watching season 3 of Mad Men. I was struck in particular by the last episode of the season in which the Don persuades Lane to fire all the principal players so they can exit their contracts, start their own agency, and avoid being swallowed in a merger.
You probably don’t remember the conversation Don has with Bert Cooper, the oldest member of the cast and the owner of the agency, in which he’s trying to convince Bert, at this late stage in his life (I’d put Bert at mid-70s), to risk everything he’s worked for and put his fortune on the line in order leap off the precipice with them and start over.
It’s a choice between safety and the known on one hand, and a vivid, juicy, risky creativity on the other. I could SO relate! Among other statements, I could relate to Bert saying, “I don’t have years to make back the money I could lose!” And I could relate to his sense of weighing the aliveness of the new challenge with the dead feeling of security.
Many of you know that I’ve been a graphic designer for 23 years. My business, Clarity, provided us with a solid income through the years when Rick was just starting out as an artist (having left the illustration market when it circled the drain in the mid-nineties). It helped put our son through private school, which was very good for him, and it helped get him through college without any debt.
It taught me that I could do anything I put my mind to, with or without formal education. If you want it bad enough, you can learn everything you need to learn on your own. I am one of the few people who has actually read 600-page software manuals from front to back. I loved my work, and I never thought I’d say that in the past tense. But in the last few years I’ve experience a moderate case of burn-out, combined with a burgeoning desire to spend my time making my own art, for what it’s worth.
I just gazed away from the computer screen for a second and my eyes fell on a schedule for the YMCA swimming pool. They landed on the line “Jump or dive straight in. Dive only in the deep end.”
Yup, that’s about it. Clarity is pretty much a thing of the past now, and although I’m still doing an occasional bit of design work if I feel like it, I’ve definitely taken the leap and am in mid-air. No net has yet appeared nor any parachute, but I’m enjoying the spectacular view and sensing that, in fact, there may be no ground to hit.
I did a big housecleaning in my studio last week, and finally threw out and recycled years of old software manuals, client files, state-of-the-art books on web design from 12 years ago and nostalgic relics like this:
In fact, I may still have the original floppy disks from Aldus Pagemaker 1.0 and Aldus Freehand 1.0 somewhere. Think they’re worth anything?
Warrior Printress
Rick and I figured out a while back that we really weren’t interested in being a production lettepress shop. We did one wedding invitation with hand set type a few years ago. It came out fantastic, took something like six weeks to do, and we were only able to charge… well, let’s say we made well below minimum wage on that one. We’d rather just do our own special projects and the occasional supremely interesting project for someone else.
So when a local ad agency asked us if we’d be interested in printing an invitation for them I was all ready to turn them down with the usual “well, we’re really not a production shop” when it occurred to me that our very own W.P. loves to print and was already starting to print bags for siiviis and J. Skylark.
We asked Janelle if she’d like to start her own business using our presses. We’d advise and help out as needed in the beginning (she really doesn’t need much help to speak of). Warrior Printress was born. Duluth now has a letterpress printer!
Here she is, doing makeready for the invitation.
And here’s the big-ass stack of thick, luscious paper it will be printed on.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the studio (this makes it sound like the two ends are more than five paces apart) is our friend and painter extraordinaire, Miriam Sommerness, who each year volunteers to change the color of our display wall before the Earth Day show. In this case we’re going from indigo to tangerine. I wanted raspberry but Rick needs a little time with that particular suggestion. Maybe next year.
Mental Health PSA in lino form!
Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night, say around 2 a.m., and find that within seconds your mind is attacked by thoughts that in the light of day would seem not only unrealistic but downright ridiculous? Do these thoughts have a circular, repetitive, not-so-nice nature? Do you feel as though you are chasing your own mental tail, and not in a good way?
If so, you may be suffering from an infestation of Brain Rats.
Dr. Kenspeckle, who has spent hours, night after night, doing the research, offers many helpful remedies in this “destined to be a classic” new print. Come see it and others of more familiar ilk at the siiviis Grand Opening, April 21 in Duluth!
Over Easy
I’ve always loved Easter Eggs. The form, the texture, the colors. Maybe in my last lifetime I was a Pysanky painter from the Ukraine.
So I’ve been working on a series of egg prints. I’ll be showing all six of them at the grand opening of siiviis, the new Sivertson Gallery in Duluth (and Rick’s and my Earth Day show). But I thought I’d show at least one of them here. This is called “What You Seek is Seeking You.”
In other news: this coming Saturday, March 10, I’ll be giving a fireside chat at Sivertson Gallery in Grand Marais. It starts at 6 p.m. and I’m going to talk about how I managed to reconnect with my lost creativity. Anyone who knows me knows that I’d been saying for decades that I had no interest in creating visual art. And then something happened. So I’ll talk a little bit about what happened and ways that I found to pick up the long lost and nearly invisible trail of creative breadcrumbs in my personal inner forest.
If your breadcrumbs are also lost, maybe some of this will help. If you already have plenty of breadcrumbs, I’ll probably be somewhat amusing and wacky, so come and egg me on.
The Panic Sets In
This happens every year when we realize that it’s only a matter of weeks until Earth Day and Rick’s big show at Sivertson Gallery in Duluth. This year I’m sharing the panic a bit because we’re sharing the show (it’ll still be mostly Rick, but I’ll have a bunch of new stuff to bring out). Plus I’m giving a Fireside Chat in Grand Marais on March 10, which could be a pants-peeing disaster of epic proportions, so any public speaking advice for novices would be very much welcome!
Meanwhile, on a whim, I went on Pinterest and searched for Rick Allen, just to see if he has any presence there, and low and behold:
So thank you, sweet pinners, whoever you are!
Printer Humor
Printers are notoriously cantankerous types. And in the old days, before inkjet and laser printers, they were the only ones (as Rick is fond of saying) who truly had freedom of the press.
Any time we visit an old print shop, like the one from which we just purchased our Kluge, we find these little letterpress-printed gems with which some ink-smudged wretch, slaving over a hot press, vented his frustration. They are wonderful! I have a whole collection that I thought I’d start sharing with you.
These first two I just found today, tucked into an old drawer at the soon to be-no-more Quickprint in Superior Wisconsin. Fantastic!
Here is one from the legendary Dave Churchman whose shop was located in Indiana. He had a sense of humor that was a bit more refined, but equally biting.
So biting, in fact, was his socially inappropriate sense of humor that he began printing newly manufactured historic oddities and selling them on eBay to letterpress lovers. This magnificent little baby is as big as a postage stamp, printed on old vellum and then packaged on a piece of black card stock in a tiny glassine envelope.
He did quite well selling these things, from what I understand.
Moving the Kluge
I think that could be a new dance, don’t you? Instead of “Do the Dougie” it could be “Move the Kluge.”
Our friend Randy Larson helped with the move. Randy and Rick have been friends since they were little boys. Randy is a master of all things physical having to do with building and machinery. Here they are consulting with each other. Rick’s in the white shirt, Randy’s in black. They have the same glasses.
Here are the Kluge’s former mom and dad, Kathy and Kermit, saying goodbye.
On the truck and ready to roll, in beautiful downtown Superior, Wisconsin.
And finally, having arrived at Randy’s shop—its temporary home until we figure out how to fit it into the tiny space that is Kenspeckle Letterpress.
Rick covered it with a tarp after rubbing its exposed bits with turtle wax. The love affair has begun. I should tell you that this press is considered so unsafe to run that you have to be an owner in order to operate it legally. When it’s running it’s like some kind of comical yet logical Rube Goldberg animation… beautiful.
Are you a Turophile?
Then you’ll enjoy this print. An oldy but a goody. Not cheesey at all. Much. Rick did this for the Northern Waters Smokehaus, way back when they first moved into our building. Everyone who works here smells like smoked salmon, and that’s the way we like it.
It’s called “The Adult Form of Milk.”
Turophile: A lover of cheese.
Some ice and a Press
We’re already 19 days into January, which makes me shriek a little with apprehension because good lord there was so much I swore I’d get done before now, like this blog post, but instead we were out taking pictures of little pools of pancake ice, out of context.
The really BIG news around here is that we bought another press. Another press for which we have no room, but it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. It’s a Kluge (pronounced Kloogie) and is a wonderful letterpress built in the early 1960′s. It will allow us to print bigger and faster, once we figure out where it will go and how we’re going to move it. Isn’t it pretty?
In the meanwhile we’ll store it at our friend Randy Larson’s shop because he has room. And also a truck.
Week Two
Week Two of the holiday crazies is upon us as we shift gears to contemplate the momentous event-stream that will be 2012. Here at KL World Wide Industries, we are very excited about 2012. Things are falling into place for us. Marian is planning to do less commercial design work and more art, and she’ll even be giving a Fireside Chat this year at Sivertson Gallery in Grand Marais. More about that as the time approaches.
Rick has a new book project in the works, which is always a big, exciting undertaking. And we are starting off the New Year with a couple of Left-Handed Gestures: two new cards!
How Good are You Willing to Let it Get?
And Some Day. A couple of piggies to wish you Happy Birthday, baby.
Thank you, everyone, for making this such a fantastic year for us. The love is flowing and we are so very, very appreciative! May this year dream for us all, even more than we dream for ourselves.