the Forest Drive

The long yearned for review of word and image is finally on the press.

The plan is to work closely with a few writers and artists in the studio to form a cohesive book/object/utterance in honor of the Forest Drive in all our lives. So far poems by me (Fiona Spring), Desiree Morales and Sophia Kidd and drawings by Chance are in the mix.

Some notes on development:
The challenge has been the conflict between the desire to produce the highest quality edition and the lack of monetary resources. Finally the brilliance of the whole thing took root and I realized that the answer would be to utilize fine papers that we have on hand and set all the poems in metal type rather than ordering costly photopolymer plates. Now I'm inviting artists to carve linoleum or work with sandragraph techniques (as above) using materials we have in the studio.

The edition will be around 80 copies and a smaller number may be hard bound.

An Evening in Fillmore

Lately we've been out to meet our neighbors every chance we get. Whether it's at Golden Gate Park or at the local library, We are in a sociable mood!

Yesterday we spent the evening in downtown Fillmore showing off our Pilot table top press. To our amazement, the man who used to teach letterpress at Fillmore High with the equipment we now use was one of the first visitors at our booth. We'd never met before and there was excitement all around. He seemed so pleased to know that the presses are still in use. He was the perfect picture of a shop teacher with a freshly pressed short sleeved shirt and matching blue canvas pants. A dapper and cheerful man we hope to see more of so we can learn the origins of our beloved machines.

Yma set up her snacks and stuffed animals on this brick planter pictured below.



Downtown Fillmore is lovely! As the night came on a cool breeze brought oaky and citrusy smells into town. All the little antique shops were tricked out for the Art Harvest and offering some great deals I might add. I felt proud to be a resident of the Heritage Valley.

Art Predator Cranks Press

Art Predator just posted a blog about working here at our studio on elegant business cards (above) and stationery. Her design sense was really impressive. She took stock of what was available and quickly put all the elements together in an expression of her mission as a writer.

This kind of collaboration is really what Lettre Sauvage is about. In a day-long workshop we can cover a lot of basic printing skills and vocabulary while creating valuable paper goods.

The studio is also available for rental. We can shift gears to a support/resource role for printers who have trained with us to get set up for a project like printing their own book or making cards. Use of the press includes storage space, getting in on bulk paper & supply orders, sitting under the oak tree and a library of books about books.

Capsule Design Festival

This Sunday, October 19, we'll be at Capsule Design Festival in San Francisco in the lovely Hayes Valley area. There will be about 160 designers, artists and musicians for us to hang out with in the park while grooving to DJs. Our booth is #29. We'll have new journals and t-shirts along with our books, broadsides and cards.

Capsule is a collective of selected designers including clothing, furniture, jewelry, studio art and paper goods. We're excited to be among the few stationery vendors. We recognized Lizard Press on the line up-- we met at Bazaar Bizarre in SF last winter. We really like their style and craftsmanship.

San Francisco, your city lights beckon us...

The Rich & The Poor

Our friend Frank Boross from Eye-Yi-Yi Digital Video and Toxic Coyote Press just worked on a music video The Rich & The Poor by Carl Morehouse, former mayor of my home town, Ventura, California. The sweet sound of a voice standing up for the basic dignity of people, for the possibility of peace and justice…

Everything Frank is involved with is top-notch. I wish he had a site with a gallery of his graphic design and printing that I could refer to. I can refer you to a very different project, a book he did with the comedy writer Sean Maher.

Sean is someone I met in the early 90s when he was starting to do stand-up at Ventura clubs I was too young to go to. His insightful spoofs of some of the most popular mental crutches are hilarious. Here are a couple of one-liners from his cards:

“If at first you don't succeed,
pout and mope around.”

“Human rights should be
reserved for the elite.”

My commentary on humor may be a little obtuse. Thoughts seem to be stacked on one another as if some would fall off the pile if they were no longer supported by the deeper ones at the foundation. I think that good humor brings thoughts out that most people don’t know how to handle. Ideas that might otherwise be depressing, cold, or frustrating are suddenly funny.

Obviously, Sean does this “pulling out the dirty thoughts” thing. But he seems to get at some of those deeper elements to really shake up the mind. Check it out. Am I romanticizing this guy’s talent because I lounged in his bachelor pad as a psychedelic 16 year old? No, he’s really funny.

Santa Barbara Book and Author Festival

If you happen to be in Santa Barbara this weekend, please join Lettre Sauvage at our Santa Barbara Book and Author Festival booth where we'll be presenting our Editions and giving live printing demonstrations with our table-top Chandler and Price.

The program starts tomorrow (Friday) and we'll be there all day on Saturday. There will be a number of wonderful poets, workshops, panel discussions, and other goodies downtown, in and around the public library and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

Bill Rector poetry reading

USC's Visions and Voices series presents Praxis and Poetry, with poet and physician Bill Rector reading a selection of his poems on Wednesday, September 10th. The event is free and will take place at 4:30 PM in Doheny Library, Intellectual Commons Room 233.

For this event, Lettre Sauvage printed a very limited edition broadside of Rector's poem, "Exponent of the Horizontal." We'll be selling some at the reading, and copies will be made available for sale on the Lettre Sauvage website soon.

Hope to see you there!

Yma's art sale

Yma has been hosting an art sale this weekend in the front yard of the Lettre Sauvage studio. She is selling drawings of various sizes, and has also taken this opportunity to sell some toys and housewares. When I arrived to print this weekend, she greeted me at the car and convinced me to buy some of the work.

Yma's artwork has long been an inspiration for us at the studio. She's learned about printing from her parents and creates strikingly original work. We've also included some of her poems in the zine, brick. There are times when words seem to just spill out of her with tremendous poetic force. Just last week she said to us, "What do you know? Pomegranates can be secrets."

I'm particularly fond of this drawing. It demonstrates an unusual amount of restraint and shows how Yma is aware of the borders of the paper. The color choices, alternating between strong and soft tones, work so well with the smudging and blurring that are otherwise occurring in the piece.

When I asked Yma to sign her piece, she was at first confused and insisted that I sign it, since I would be the work's owner. I am impressed with her willingness to let go of her objects, to release them into the world without names or titles or figurative reference to cling to. It is a good lesson for artists of any age.

Green, city, beautiful poets

Greener & Greener

Lettre Sauvage has been added to GreenMaven.com, the premier
search engine for websites with social and environmental values.
We’re already learning about how to run our studio more
responsibly from other sites we found in their directory!

Check it out.

City Lights

The long wooden stairway lined with shelves and framed broad-
sides leads to the most exquisite seat in town: the simple
wooden chair under the small window where one can sit flanked
by floor to ceiling shelves of poetry. Upstairs at City Lights
is one of my most beloved reading spots. 

Genevieve has been in San Francisco for a couple weeks. She took
our latest publications to City Lights where they enjoyed a very
warm reception. We’re so thrilled to have our work in their store
and on their website.

Santa Barbara Summer Poetry Workshop

I visited the workshop to talk about my experiences publishing
collaboratively with poets. I couldn’t help but borrow the term
“the third mind” coined by Brion Gysin and William Burroughs to
describe that realm of shared thought and creation where
collaborative work is produced. I think the group shared my
enthusiasm about

“a praxis of two subjectivities that metamorphose into one”
-George Gerard Lemaire

While at the workshop I had the pleasure of hearing some
impressive work,
fresh from the notebooks of participants. 

I also sat in on their discussion time and learned more about the
monthly poetry journal, Sage Trail (cover above).  I had picked
one up at a Santa Barbara Poetry Series reading, and was honestly
surprised by how strong the writing was – not to sound jaded or
anything- but there are so many bland journals out there. This is
not one of them. And, this gem is only $15 for a year’s subscription
or free online.

Mutanabbi Street Starts Here

This is a broadside of the poem, Midwife of Fallujah, by Weam Namou that we created as part of the broadside suite, Mutanabbi Street Starts Here. The suite, formed to express solidarity with Iraqui literary culture is named for the famous Mutanabbi Street booksellers' district that was bombed during the current war. The work is now part of the permanent collection at the Arthur and Mata Jaffe Center for Book Arts. The Florida Atlantic University libraries recently digitized the entire collection for online viewing. We feel honored to be part of this project and are eager to finally view the work of fellow printers.

Collections and individual broadsides are available for purchase to benefit World Medical Relief. We sold out of our copies and raised $135. Inquire for further details.