Our gift show commute

Our truly torturous one mile walk along stunningly sculpted pedestrian park on the Hudson River Greenway.

A burned out old pier - I love that they just left it there, probably because it's too expensive to remove, but it stands as this historical remnant of the former glory of the piers. Gritty-pretty to boot.

The wild grasses planted along the walkway.

Lounge chairs.

Oh my goodness, the benches with awnings in the same wood as the walkway we just left! And solar-powered street lamps! The architect and designer in me has died and gone to heaven.

Surf? In Manhattan? But of course! It's so easy to forget the reality of the water on the shore when most of the day you're surrounded by towers of glass and steel (and the smell of garbage, and honking taxis, and hordes of people, and and and) but here it was just the crash of the river-surf on the rocks. Okay, and the surf-like sounds of the cars on the west side highway behind us.

Love it.

New York International Gift Fair

Just over two weeks ago (it seems so much longer) we set up our very first booth at the New York International Gift Fair in NYC. As first time IGF exhibitors we were grouped in the New York's Newest division, which is located in Pier 92 about a mile north of the Javits Center. Initially I worried that the remote location would be a detriment, but in fact buyers went out of their way to see all the new goodies!

We were able to make use of the same booth we built out for the Stationery Show and again shared with Angela of Carta, Inc. Kelly of May Day Studio took over a portion of the booth with her hand-bound journals and albums (bound with her hand-letterpressed papers) and all in all it was a great collection of paper goods! (ps. that's us on the last day, right before breakdown - we were not usually so casual)

We had fun "curating" little color vignettes on the front table each day, taking from each of our collections in the composition. Red, definitely my favorite. Although we also put out the stamps as giveaways, it seems it comfused buyers more than anything - I guess IGF doesn't have the same "freebie" atmosphere that you find at the Stationery Show.

One of my favorite parts about being on the piers was the natural light!!! Great big giant windows as far as the eye could see. And you could head out onto the walkways to see the giant cruise ships docked at the pier next door.

We had some fun company in our NY Newest division. The girls from City Girl Farm were just the sweetest and made the most adorable hand-tufted, life-size, bronze-foot chicken footrests. Okay, maybe our home decor couldn't really absorb them, but you have to admit they're a conversation piece! Plus the heads bobble.

Also near us were the girls from Noon. They make simple and fun jewelry but what really drew me in was the amazing display they created - all sharpie-drawn on corrugated cardboard. Just look at that detailing - so clever and fun!

We never got tired of the crazy fashion from the girls at tabbisocks who were directly across from us. Their tagline: "super kawaii Harajuku legwear"; kawaii means cute in Japanese and these girls both certainly fit the bill! We watched them spend 8 hours carefully arranging all of those socks on the walls - and then less than an hour to take it all down. Isn't that always the way?

In the end we all had a really successful show, made some great contacts, took orders from great new stores across the country (and into Canada!) and can't wait to do it again in January!

More pics to come...

A taste of Italy

There's not much internet access for me while I'm traveling, but here are a few sneak peakeroos of the print-happy things Italy had in store for me.

Marisa and I spent a lovely yet intense four days printmaking and typesetting in Urbino, in le Marche province. Here's a photo of the studio where we were working:



And the single-digit century house where we stayed (with the maestro of the studio):



Of course, Italian typecases are laid out differently than English ones, but I was typesetting in Italian, so it made intuitive sense.



The composing sticks were single line.



This is Surgo, the ginormous proof press which I had to work on; hand inking only (not my forte, I discovered).



In the three actual days of printing I undertook an ambitious, eight-page, three-print-run-each, edition-of-sixteen book project (which I only *just* finished printing before we had to leave, though my carving suffered a little for the rush). Here are two of my favorite pages.





More pictures from the trip and more after my return this weekend.

Ciao ciao!