Whose Got the Button?

Here at May Day Press I am dreaming a new project into being. It is called Button Box. It began simply. I made a hand sewn book with stitched text wound on a wooden spool and put it in an art show. Several people came up to me with stories related to someone who sews. The stories were touching and full of heart. I wondered, what will happen to these stories when the people who tell them are gone?

Stories can be like buttons kept in a box, buttons we may need to use to replace what today feels reliable and true, but can be lost, loaned, or given up on. Without them we can feel vulnerable and perhaps a little naked, or we may feel free and energized to be less defined/confined. I may be stretching the metaphor a little far here, but I take stories seriously in that I know our identity is created from our stories. As our identities change or beliefs dropped, the old button isn't needed anymore!

Whether button or story comes first, write it down and send it in. I am creating a repository for stories and buttons as well as choosing several of the entries to be letterpress printed as broadsides. You can find the vision and specs here on my website: www.Catherine-Alice.com Thank you!

Long Hours — Short Distance

A proof printed over a proof. My favorite prints are often the ones that never make it into my books.

I feel I have been moving at a snail's pace lately, so there is a snail in my latest book. If I were a mollusk, this would be me. The book is so fresh that the ink is still wet on the cover and not a copy yet bound. But by this time tomorrow I hope for both book and box to be done.

Beyond Blue

It's been so long since I posted anything, I have been working so hard to get multiple projects done for multiple shows. But here is my latest, Beyond Blue. It's a spool/scroll book - an embroidered poem spooled around a seal knuckle bone, a map sewn into a piece of indigo dyed cotton, an agate from an ocean beach, and a salmon leather box I beaded together. The salmon leather was made by my sweetie, Billy.

I'll be making more salmon leather boxes, and I do have a few more bones to wind . . . so it's back to work time already!

Below is Mother's Measure, my first embroidered spool/scroll book.  It features two poems, the second a found text within the first. It celebrates my mother's dedication and sacrifice to sewing my clothes when I was young.

As a letterpress printer, I have always loved the way setting type has slowed me down and allowed me to take in each letter, sound, and the sometimes silliness of English. I am thinking that sewing texts has become an even slower, but necessary antidote to all the digital video work I am doing of late.

The Bees Knees

 I have a lot of creative irons in the fire.

The newest, direct animation, is so much fun! I started letterpress printing on film leader, and have two very short clips below. One is bees and butterflies, the other is a font of type set in the press before distribution. It makes a crazy sound, like a cello! This is the ink printed over the sound file on the edge of the film. I love it! (You might turn your sound down a tad, it's a little loud.)

 

 

I'm having a great time with all the different processes I've been engaging, but find it hard to switch gears. This weekend I am off to do a bunch of video work on beautiful Bainbridge Island!