About 6 years ago my brother in law gave me this "Daruma" (also known as a Dharma doll).  He told me that they can be used as helpful little reminders of the goals one wants to reach.  The idea behind them is to fill in one eye when you begin a project and only fill in the other eye when you have reached your desired goal.  I filled in the first eye and told myself that I would not fill in the other until I had become able to support myself fully as an artist.  Over the years I had actually lost track of the daruma but refound it when we were packing for our move.  I realized that I hadn't filled in the other eye yet and needed to do that.  Even though it's just a trinket it was a good feeling to have this small marker of a goal realized.  It took a lot of hard work, staying focused while juggling part time jobs, and the help of family and friends and especially my loving husband, but Quail Lane Press came to be!  ...And we are so happy to have it. 

It's been way too long since my last post, but we've been in recovery mode after our interstate move.  Now we are finally settling in to our new home in Oregon and are over the moon about being here.  I love all the exploring that goes on when you first move to a place.  Little adventures every day.  We've had a chance to tour the marvelous city (and I plan to do another blog post on that!) of Portland, but have also been taking small trips to places just outside the city.  Obviously no place is perfect but so far we've found a lot of pretty insanely cool stuff- berry picking, enchanted old growth forests, and sublime beaches all in striking distance.  Here are some photos of our discoveries plus a look at our shop (she still needs some work but is coming together).

Hey folks, just want to let you know that we are moving to our beautiful neighbor state of Oregon!  We've been a little slow to get new products out lately because, hey it turns out moving 600 miles makes things pretty hectic.  Our shops are going to be closed from May 13th through May 18th, and will be answering emails if you have any questions about orders placed before the 13th. 

The birds are singing and the flowers are starting to bloom, so it is time for our annual 20% off sale in honor of Spring.   Use coupon code SPRING20 for a discount on any print.  Sale ends Saturday, April 4th.

We've had quite a few people ask us about our press and how we make our prints.  I think a lot of folks have heard the term letterpress thrown around, and know it's a good thing, but just aren't totally sure what that means.  I'll say this-lettepress stands apart from other forms of printing because of the crisp quality that is created from the impression into the paper that the machine makes. 

There are quite a few companies that made letterpress machines (Heidelberg, Chandler & Price, Kluge, Challenge, to name a few) but as a whole they can be separated into two types: cylinder proof presses and platen presses.  Our press is a Vandercook Universal I.  It is a cylinder proof press that was made sometime in the late fifties, early 60s.  Vandercooks, in general, are great for larger format pieces.  Sadly, there aren't that many left in the world. Their value was not seen during the transition to digital printing (in the early 80s) and many were considered junk and treated as such.  I heard the artist Tom Killion describe finding his cylinder press (back in the day) on the sidewalk in front of the San Francisco Chronicle waiting to be carted off as trash.  Interestingly now these presses are very sought after. 

If you are in search of a letterpress I think it's important to consider what you want to do with it.  Weighing usually close to a ton (or in some cases much more than that), they are a commitment.  Platen presses are definitely a wiser choice if you are interested in making stationary.  These can be easier to come by too.  If you want to make posters or larger format pieces you might want to take your time and find a cylinder press.  Here are a couple of places to start for either:

NA Graphics (just an overall good source for letterpress info, machines, parts).  Fritz Klinke is the man in charge and seems to know just about everything about presses.  nagraph.com

Briar Press Classified Listings. briarpress.org