collaboration station (what the heck is the keep writing project?)

I have had penpals since I was 10. By the time I was 18, I thought it was normal to have friends I knew only through the mail and would travel great distances to meet them.  (This is so far before social media normalized treating strangers as confidants...)  When I was 31 and starting college, I wanted to stay in touch with my friends while at school. So I started a project, asking $1 for a subscription for the first 2 months, and wrote a mailing list. I sent  postcards I designed in computer classes and soon began typesetting and letterpress printing them.  In the second year, I asked friends to collaborate with me. (you can see the results in the archive here ) By the 3rd year, I redesigned the postcards to be a two-part folded card--one side was a postcard designed for the recipient to keep, and one side was to be mailed back to me, with question or prompt for response.  In December 2011, I had a showing of the cards and responses. I worried people would feel to shy or self-conscious in an art show setting to read through a basket of my mail. But within the first hour, people were sitting on the floor, reading and sharing the variety of responses I receive for each question. 

Since then, the format has remained mostly the same with the occasional exception--some months I send just a single postcard, no question, just a moment to enjoy.   

This past July I sent my 100th postcard. Some months have been more experimental in form and some months were experimental in numbering (see if you can find the 2 with the same number). It seemed like a good time for a shift in perspective. I asked 13 people--artists, writers, printers, penpals--if they would collaborate with me on a postcard one month each. Some have ideas for themes or questions, some are sending drawings for me to print and a few extra brave letterpress printers are willing to interpret my mountain of notes, emails and templates to print the whole thing themselves.

At the end of the 13 months, we will be nearing our 10 year anniversary.  Which seems like a good time to have a party. November 2018, plan on coming to New Orleans to read postcard responses, eat cake and have a drink with us. The location is tbd. This is the 3rd time we have shared the postcards and responses--once in Baton Rouge and once in Oakland--but the 1st time for New Orleans. Please join us.

So, if you have been putting off subscribing, now is the time. The first of the collaboration cards will go out in mid-September, with a small gift to help keep your cards safe so you can show them off to your friends. Or better yet, you can gift them a subscription.

It had meant a lot to me to be able to keep in touch with so many pen pals this way, to reconnect with old friends, to meet others and to hear a little from their lives. This kind of correspondence has allowed me to ask questions, request advice and build bonds.  It seems like just a letter writing project, but it has meant so much more to me.

If you still have questions, you can check out this FAQ page, or contact me gutwrenchpress@gmail.com.

Thanks. And keep writing.

Leaving Some Space

my side of the table and the empty desk area left by my missing tablemate

Boy howdy, I am starting off the season busy! Though there are tabling events all year, including three I signed up for and then missed, September is really the start for me. First the SF Zine Fest, then SFCB Roadworks, I start tabling just about every other week until, well, Christmas. I am not trying to get you all anxious about the holidays, and I still only have one holiday card design , but mid-November though late December becomes a blur of weekly events where crafty people and giant megastores alike, offer up their goods under the heading of holiday season.  I don't participate in the big business gift frenzy, I usually make something for my family and friends. And I don't make anything especially holiday-like, (see that one card design above) but I do like making things and I like that people want to buy them. People are a little more into buying things in the fall and early winter. Last year I said yes to every tabling opportunity I was offered, and by the last show, I was tired, unable to see straight. I put away my stuff for a few months and focused on the postcard subscription  and becoming a yoga teacher.  In June, I thought I was ready for more. I wasn't. So this season I am being a little more choosy about which events I table, and am trying, like every year, to be a little more prepared.  Andy G. is employed this season, which means more coffee and chocolates for me but more tabling by myself.

The thing is, I kind of like tabling. It is exhausting but also fun. You put all the stuff you love making on a table and see if the people are interested. It can be rough when it feels like no one is interested or it is loud or raining coal dust but I have been lucky that I still have another part-time job, that I am mostly going to events where I have been before, and I have good company.

That said, it is also a lot of work. No matter how I prepare, I always remember I need more labels last minute or I forgot to assemble zines or I bind just two more books. Or I have to print next month's postcard even though I won't be selling the cards.  Because that is how it goes. I cleared off my work table two weeks ago only to be buried again before I left yesterday morning for SFCB Roadworks.  I was leaving behind piles of zines and future books but I couldn't leave them on the floor since there seems to be some kind of superflea in our house feasting on my ankles and Andy kindly took care of it while I was out in the sun selling postcards.

We arrived fashionably on time, with time to get coffee and time to feel a little rushed as I had a new set-up thanks to a postcard rack I found on Market Street a few days ago.  With a little spray paint and magnets,it changed my display but allowed me a little more room on my half table.  I stacked, arranged, crowded, moved and was ready.  I only reserve a half table and make do, which usually works out for me at this event.  At eleven o'clock my table was craftily stacked, my coffee and donut were in my belly and I was almost forming full sentences without sounding crabby (my sleep schedule is changing which at the moment means Not Enough Sleep Ever. this is temporary.  But unfun).  The other half of my table remained empty.

11:30. Usually if one has not arrived 30 minutes after an event opens, it is acceptable to take over their space.  However, the table was so blissfully bare, blonde pine shining in the sun. And I realized what is missing in my life.

Space.

So I kept my side stacked and organized, the cozy clutter I like in my life, my desk, my shelves of books and jars and photos and mementos and notes. It is not an unworkable aesthetic. But I kept the other half of the table clear, propped a chair behind it and opened my notebook. I took out three pens (three colors!) and without a plan, drew. It was as delicious as reading a book, something else I haven't done much of lately. I sat, and doodled, talked to strangers and postcard subscribers and a lady from Vermont who holds a grudge against New York State ( I am from NH and can relate a similar grudge against Massachusetts.)  It was lovely. I drank more coffee, sold postcards and was home by five. I am not sure what I did until 9 but when I closed my eyes I slept and slept and slept.  The piles are still on my desk this morning but I am ready.

notes from the show

Seashells by the Seashore

Between a new computer, which subsequently crashed, and a tendency to hold onto any scrap that might inform later, I found these photos om my desktop.  About a year and a half ago, a friend drove us to Muir Beach for the day, for the first cold swim of the season. We discovered that the beach adjacent to the famous forest is packed, even on an overcast day in May.  The trick is to hang out on the corner of the beach with nudists.  No kids, no families, plenty of wet sand and rocks to explore.  After a brief swim that was so cold I gasped, we walked up and down the beach.  There is something appealing about many tiny things that make up something larger.  I've been holding onto these photos waiting for the story, decided to share them without a story and, as I have been writing this, thought if what I might use them for. For now, enjoy.