Printing in Tacoma at Springtide Press

For the first time, I focused my work trip to the Pacific NW to do only 1. what I had to do (certain things attached to my museum exhibit) and 2. what I wanted to do. Most of it was work, but it was work I chose. The key was letting go of the feeling that I "should" teach. I blocked myself from sabotaging my trip by asking Jessica right away if I could do a mini residency at Springtide Press.

Jessica Spring is the proprietor of Springtide Press and as another friend said, "Jessica is Queen. Full stop." She and I are not fans of the word "master" (I don't want to call her a "master printer" even though that is the easiest shorthand) but she has been steeped in letterpress printing for decades, from the midwest to the west and way beyond. She has a deep well of experience that people coming up now would never be able to get, because of how tech has transformed media. She has seen huge changes in the landscape of her field, while being in its vanguard. Years ago, she coined Daredevil Typesetting and created furniture that makes it possible to set and lock up type on curves and diagonals.

Jessica also had a long-standing collaboration with the late, great, Chandler O'Leary called Dead Feminists. It was a series of broadsides about feminists throughout history (even if they didn't call themselves that). A related project was a beautiful trade book about the project that is a fantastic teaching tool. I hadn't been able to sit down with Jessica since Chandler's death to process it, so this visit was valuable for that alone.

Jessica also makes artists' books that fully involve her impressive printing skills and collection of type and ornament. I am shocked by how affordable they are given the level of craft, which extends to her studio, her home, everything she touches.

It has been almost 10 years since my last visit to Jessica's shop, and my first time meeting Chase. She and I just missed each other in Chicago because she finished grad school at the same program I started a few months later. But we have friends in common and it was affirming to share stories and lament the loss of our program, because a big point of grad school is access to a network, and structure within an institution. We've made the best of it without that, but were reminded why it would have been easier with it intact.

Thanks to Shereen, her 36" standing kutrimmer, I could trim all of the hanji that I brought, with ease and speed. I am excited about what I get to do with these offcuts, which is the legacy of hanji: all the things Koreans figured out to do with scraps! Jessica is the best collaborator you could dream up. Extremely skilled and talented, super smart and hilarious, a whiz with type and language, with an effervescent grasp of design, color, all of it. She's one of a kind, and has committed to community building and activism through print and impeccable craft. She is a remarkable teacher and gave Pacific Lutheran College 16 years of teaching, and continues to teach in other capacities. I was in such good hands.

Here I am pretending that I locked up properly. Jessica said things to me that reminded me exactly of what I say to my students. In my head, I'm thinking, "You forgot?? How many times do I have to remind you??" and then realized that her approach makes you not feel like a total dumdum for forgetting. Because....why would someone who doesn't do this all the time or hasn't done it for years remember every last detail? Maybe if I wasn't chatting so much while printing I would have remembered (again, something else I see my students do, and now I get it).

Here is Jessica locking up properly. Everything I did privately in a letterpress shop, I could not hide from her (like not measuring anything and instead walking back and forth from the press to the furniture, guessing what I needed instead of measuring, doing the math, and taking ONE walk. It's not that I wasn't taught how, I was stubbornly making my life harder because I don't like measuring and doing arithmetic in my head. And then pretended it was about getting exercise).

She had rollers on the press that have a worm gear that enables tight bands of color in a rainbow roll that will never blend out like regular rollers eventually would. I had given her a game plan before I arrived, ditched the idea while packing the night before my flight, and didn't tell her until I got to the shop. A pro can roll with all of that. We spent the first afternoon/evening talking over ideas, deciding what to use (in this case, wood type, rule, and ornament), and setting everything up in the bed of the press.

We printed the next two days. When I arrived Sunday morning, I watched her in the middle of printing a collaborative suite: use scrubs in a bucket! They looked like a magic secret and now I know.

I decided to mostly cut my hanji in half lengthwise (a few are cut the other way), so I needed help at the press to get it off the drum because it's longer than the circumference. We figured it out eventually and insisted that her husband Tim document it. Here we are laughing because I said we had to get a shot of both of our hands on the paper at once, which happens only for a second.

After one run, we'd turn the sheets around and print the other side. I'm so glad she was there to figure out all of the math. It looks very simple but it's not to my brain, which is why this kind of work is not my main jam.

Day two of printing, we switched up ink colors and she insisted on documenting my pants with the new color combo, which was her brainchild.

The resulting prints will eventually turn into new dresses for my next solo museum show that opens this August. This was the main reason that I could not make other visits or book teaching gigs: no time! I was so impressed by what we were able to get done in such a short amount of time given how zonked I was, without a clear directive besides, Let's print onto hanji and later I'll cut it up to sew back together.

Tim kept us fed throughout, and this was one of our lunches. Gabby also visited our first full printing day, which was great fun. Congrats to her for a big recent grant!

Again, like my BIMA visit, there was so much more but it's still processing. It's a gift to get to spend meaningful time working and playing with kin. To the very end, Tim was there to transport all of my heavy stuff (getting my suitcase upstairs upon arrival, and then down the stairs and then more stairs to the car that would whisk me to the airport). Since my return, I've been in that liminal post-travel space where everything is up in the air, but it's settling down as the reality of home, car, and body repairs remind me of everything I left behind. But the photos remain!

March visit to Bainbridge Island

Bainbridge Island Museum of Art has been on my radar for years and this month I was fortunate enough to finally visit, to put finishing touches on my first solo museum exhibit, and give an artist talk to an attentive, curious, full-capacity audience. The first (and I think only) Korean astronaut was in attendance, and later I had an upbeat talk about my work with the former governor of Washington.

I was up at 4am to get ready for a morning flight, managed longer than usual TSA precheck lines, and the car got me to the ferry in time to catch it if I knew how to actually get to the boarding area. But I didn't, but it wasn't an onerous wait for the next one. The curator, Erin, picked me up after I got off the ferry and after dumping my things at the airbnb, I asked for lunch right away. After that, we went to the museum and I got to see the show for the first time as a few other folks. Erin did a fabulous job installing and there wasn't much to update but I was glad I had a few days to fiddle with it.

Concurrently was a wonderful exhibit of the large-scale concrete art of sculptor / gardener / artist duo George and David Lewis, longtime and beloved residents of the island. A lot of pieces were on loan from various collections and had to be dislodged from gardens to install in the gallery, including fountains! It's a stunning show and I was happy to meet George and David my first evening in town. On my last full day before my talk, I took a walk in the morning and on the way back, passed the museum while they were in the gallery to take care of their beautiful pomegranate and tetrapanax sculptures.

It's a wealthy island but also progressive, so I saw a lot of signs like this in the neighborhood where I stayed.

I wasn't able to interact with the owner of my airbnb because of her cold, but I know she is very involved in the arts community and of course the whole house is beautiful and full of thoughtful touches, like the green driveway. I was so comfortable in the peaceful downstairs apartment.

It wasn't since my visit to Tasmania years ago that I had been greeted with such a beautiful welcome spread, which came in handy my second night when I was too jet lagged to go out and was content to have snacks as a meal.

It was gratifying to see my books highlighted at the museum shop, and the newest addition at top is the gorgeous catalog that Laura Zander designed with so much skill and care. Special thanks to Erin for the into, Vicky Stewart for the essay, and Mina Takahashi for the interview, and to all the generous people who provided testimonials that are sprinkled throughout. Everyone who was on this project worked really hard on it, including my photographer of 20+ years, Stefan.

That's just a few gallery shots and I was likely too discombobulated to do very good ones, which is why it's good that the museum has people for that! But you can see more, including a video walkthrough, here.

This is from a walk I took the morning of my artist talk, when things were mostly done and I could breathe a bit, heading to the post office to mail catalogs, happy to feel like I could walk after my steroid injection a week or so prior. I was amazed by how little pain I felt on this entire trip, but it's because I was treated so well, reunited with dear friends, and relieved that something I had worked on for years had come to fruition in an ideal way. There is so much I could share but it's all still processing, so all I can say is that this trip filled and overflowed my heart. Thanks to BIMA, Cynthia Sears, Erin Zona, Catherine Alice Michaelis, and the many more people who make all of this, and more, possible.

I wish it was as easy as tearing and reconstituting paper

 

Before

 

After 

Two years ago, I learned that when I was born, no one noticed my hip dysplasia. When I was 17, I got a bad ankle sprain going up concrete stairs to a violin lesson but my teacher made me stand the entire hour (she was a young woman so maybe she had no physical ailments); that foot is still stiff and creaky. I've never been athletic but threw my body around in college modern dance classes, circus and trapeze ones in my early 20s, and yoga and breakdancing in grad school. My entire life, I was rewarded for being "flexible" but it was not until 11 years ago that I learned that my tissues are very lax, after a car crash where all the impact went up my braking leg that was trying hard to keep me from getting t-boned. That crash likely tore my hip labrum. Years later, after many rounds of PT and other types of care, osteoarthritis began.

I've been conservative with cortisone shots and NSAIDS, and have tried many other things, almost all not covered by insurance. I swim regularly. I have been in escalating pain for years that causes a limp. Everything hurts: sitting, standing, driving, doing dishes, making art, laying down, walking, sleeping or trying to. I try to mask the pain by staying seated during meals with friends when I want to run away screaming. I stay on my feet when my students rush to sit down. I have been unwilling to admit real disability even though my activity, work, and quality of life have been significantly curtailed. I've had physical therapy folks tell me that I can never do yoga again (which doesn't make me that sad; many yoga teachers have fallen into the trap of admiring my "flexibility" and further injured me by pushing my body into extreme poses with their own hands), or that walking is highly dangerous because my pelvis is so unstable (this devastated me; one time walking through the new LaGuardia airport, I worried I would have to ask for a wheelchair because the gates are now so far from the exits). A surgeon told me I had to stop lifting heavy things. Subsequent PTs and doctors have disagreed, saying it's better to exercise because the pain isn't going anywhere, so why not be more fit since it will hurt either way.

Recently I went to a new sports medicine doctor hoping for another shot, and instead he told me the x-rays look terrible and that it's time for surgery. I panicked and scheduled five surgical consults, since my case is not a slam dunk the way many total hip replacements can be. The dysplasia and laxity increase risk of dislocation, and I'm young enough to outlive implants. The first two surgeons said the case is not as urgent as the first doctor made it seem, and that continued injections are fine, even if they destroy my tissue. As the dysplasia specialist said, "Your tissues are already destroyed!" He also said, "Arthritis never killed anyone." A friend reminded me that arthritis causes enough pain that maybe you'd rather die.

The other big piece of the puzzle (aside from aging) is that my work, whether in the studio or the classroom or on the road, is very demanding. I've worked for years to make changes but it's hard not to feel discouraged by invitations I have to decline and travel I have to avoid, the hours doing the most boring exercises every day, the impossibility of converting my sedan bucket seat into a reasonable driving position, how hard it is to live in a multi-story house, and the feeling that it's easier to avoid tedious explanations by staying seated instead of standing up to stretch or pretend to go to the restroom, or by ditching people who won't accept that I cannot walk far or fast anymore. 

Surgery is on the horizon though if I am lucky I will have time to plan it. I am already tremendously lucky because I have so many wonderful friends who are willing to support me through the process. I've heard countless times that this is "easy" surgery, "easy" recovery, that I will wonder why I didn't do it sooner. In the last few years I had to be a caregiver for someone who had joint surgery twice and was frustrated by his recalcitrance, but now I feel some of it. I saw how much work it takes to prepare, recover, and how drastically your life changes, even if only temporarily. I also love my soft and flawed and deformed and decaying body and hate the idea of having to take saws, hammers, drills, reamers, scalpels, and god knows what else to it. Is this how trees feel? Or all the paper that I rip up before I piece it together again?