welcome
gutwrench press is now hope amico!
ps it always has been.
choose your own adventure style! full story? read on just want to know what this means? skip ahead to the bulletpoints.
If the past 2 years has been an ongoing lesson, consider me a scholar of adaptability.
Remember two years ago when I bought this camper and planned to be hitting the road to bring you classes and zines and printing out the back of my truck? Then I fell in love, got married, became a step mom and moved to Portland. I intended to follow through with the travelling plan from my new homebase and even started booking classes and markets along the west coast.
Then I arrived in Portland, in time for a freakish late season snow and the first COVID related shutdown. I hunkered down like everyone else, taking lots of walks and baking while cancelling events and settling into uncertainty. Like many of you, my long term plans became more vague as I responded to the day by day bits of homeschooling and unemployment and social unrest.
After nine months without a regular job or properly qualifying for unemployment in my new home or my old home, I got a full time job so I could pay off some debt and eventually return to teaching. I found a studio, slowly expanding my space to accommodate my press and my ideas and tried to slowly integrate a little teaching with full-time work.
And then I was injured at work and now here we are laughing at plans.
My favorite viral tweet lately: the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse could be here and we are still going to work.
It sometimes feels like end times. It definitely feels like time to be doing what I love.
While at home recovering, I decided to take a business course with Bear Hebert, about marketing but it made me rethink my plan again. Honestly, I rethink my plans constantly--I was looking over notes from a coaching session with Bear two years ago and it was about simplifying and clarifying. I am still working on recovering to return to my job, and I won't be teaching full time anytime soon but I want to take steps to be able to do that. I haven't quit my day job but am making plans for a more sustainable work life.
As always, these changes seem small --a website name change, adding a third color to my palette, removing some old postings--but it's always with intention. and I like sharing that part. I like talking about the thought process behind choices, whether they are design choices or business choices. Because I assume that there are artists and small business owners out there with some of the same conundrums.
Gutwrench Press has always been me. I liked having a business name and a mystery identity. When I started making collage work a few years ago I chose my birth name. I've always liked it. I found myself correcting reporters in press interviews and laughing when they thought my last name was Gutwrench. I've decided not to keep my art and my postcards separate because to me they are not. I don't need or want two websites or two different personas. I just wanted what I have to work better for me.
Isn't that what adapting is all about? Working with what we have, not wishing for something different?
What's changing :
gutwrench press.com becomes hopeamico.com--you should be forwarded here if you try to navigate. the new site has all of the keep writing and classes of gutwrench press plus all the collage of my personal website now in one location
instagram handle changes to @hopeamico
monthly blog is back! more about postcards and occasional other writings (think seasonal notes, end of year musings, that kind of fun)
email! hello@hopeamico.com
What's you can still count on:
Friday Night Collage, online every Friday and in person on the first Friday of the month.
Keep Writing subscriptions and archives--if you are a subscriber, thank you for your patience with the many delays this summer. We should be all caught up! email me if not!
Classes coming soon
my po box address!
10% of all sales being donated to local important causes
What you might miss (or not):
the name gutwrench press
custom letterpress printing--I love printing business cards but I haven't been doing any custom work for awhile
zine distro --I loved showing up to zine fests with a selection of zines I love to share with new audiences but I am paring down the selection of what I sell--check Antiquated Future, Portland Buttonworks and Brown Recluse Zine distro for loads of new and amazing stuff
facebook presence! (sorry mom!)
I know this is long. Thanks for sticking it out. And for being here these past years--I'm looking forward to sending you more fun, less verbose news every month!
A version of this appeared in my monthly newsletter. To receive news, stories and a top 5 list every month, sign up for The First of the Month Club!