looks too good to not eat

These are (to the best of my knowledge) flowers growing in the center of collard greens. They are so exquisitely proportioned and geometrically perfect and my favorite color that I set them up on my window sill and photographed them. There must be millions of tiny flowers in there.

Then we ate them in salad- taste like mild broccoli. The vegetable fascination called to mind a letterpress card by Pancake & Frank that our friend Anne had sent a few years ago. I found it on their site along with several other lovely vegetables.

Cam's fantasy penny farthing

At Lettre Sauvage we pride ourselves on investing long hours of toil on projects that dig us just a few more inches further into the rabbit hole. You never know when you'll turn that dark corner and suddenly find yourself in free fall through the limitless space of a colorful dream-scape. All we know for certain is that we have to keep scraping.

This Saturday Cam woke up, put on his dashing plaid pants and rubber-toed sneakers, plopped down on his black leather perch and began drawing a penny farthing bicycle.

In his words: "When people used to fall off one of these they called it 'catching a cropper" because you fly over the handlebars and go head first into the ground. They have a high center of gravity combined with a very forward seating position. In my design I tried to mitigate this flaw by sweeping the front forks back and curving the rear axle out, pushing the riding position down and back from the front axle."

Don't you want to be Cam's imaginary cyclist?! This is comfort and charm.

Community Studio

Lettre Sauvage offers training in letterpress printing, book design, simple binding and rents the studio for $10 an hour to trained printers. We're no longer scheduling group workshops since it's been more convenient for everyone to make appointments and pursue individual interests. You can check out our workshops page for examples of things to make while you learn the ropes.

Our Community Studio program has been a way for us to meet romantic, detail oriented people and share our love of letterpress. A few of our guests are Faith and Kathryn of Creative Shift Design, Jennifer from Ambrosia Creative who posted cool photos of our studio, and David and Serg of Hertz-lion.

The photo above is of the lovely Faith with her hand on the steel lever of the C&P. Tours are free. Come on down.

Yma at Work

Yma Ray is the youngest worker at the press. Her jobs include mixing ink, making monoprints, counting envelopes and cutting scrap paper into even smaller stacks of pieces on the guillotine.

There comes a time when real work is a welcome break from all the games, songs and activities we so carefully plan out to practice simple things like counting and spelling. Checking items off a list or counting envelopes and paper are jobs Yma enjoys and she likes knowing that she's really helping.

I read about including children in work in the book Better Late than Early by Raymond Moore. Here's a brief excerpt from the Moore Foundation site:

Work. Constructive, skill-building, entrepreneurial work builds children's self-confidence, creativity, and self-control, and does it more quickly. It is the most dramatic and consistent cure for behavior and personality problems. If you give children authority to manage your home to the extent that they can accept responsibility, they mature rapidly and naturally. Make them officers in your home industries. There is no more certain key to happy home education-or other schooling-regardless of institutional level. We've seen no one fail, rebel, or burn out.

Begin small. Start your children to work when they start to walk. Add freedom as they accept responsibility. No cash allowances! Let them earn their way, helping you make or grow and sell cookies, muffins, bread, wooden toys, vegetables, or service lawns, baby-sit, etc. By 6 or 8, many can run businesses. See Minding Your Own Business (MYOB) for more than 400 cottage industries. Do comparison shopping: apples/oranges, Grapenuts/Sugar Pops, etc. (nutrition, frugality, and math lessons). Let your kids use your checking account to pay your bills. The bank corrects their "math papers."

And also, for a stark look at creepy child labor, check out the photography of Lewis Hine.

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.

Cameron's Recommendations

Disconnect your TV even if you can't remove it.

Disconnect your Land Line phone or use it as a FAX only.

Read more, a lot more.

Start making things where you are. Start making up ideas to make more things. Ask other people for help. Help other people.

If someone offers you food, money, or anything immediately useful, take it and just say "Thank You".

Recycle everything you can't turn into something else or use as a tool.

Don't hoard things. Give things away, especially to anyone who will enjoy them more than you do. Leave items in poetic positions that give them increased meaning. Rearrange the thrift store.

Don't become so cool that you become unapproachable. Actually try to be interested in what other people are doing.

Always walk from the mailbox to the outside trash can when retrieving mail. Throw away everything that is not a bill. Some would recommend you throw those away too.

Don't drive unless you have to. Try to combine trips, or get items brought to you. Take walks.

Believe that people are the most important thing. Do not support causes that require you to abuse or negate other people or yourself even for a moment.

Believe that good things can happen, are happening, and are about to happen to you and everyone you know.

Talk about what you love and enjoy doing. Try to make a living doing what you love.

And lastly buy printing from Lettre Sauvage.

house, tree, car, street

Today Cam gave the Dart to a man named Steven who lives on the corner of Forest and Mariposa. Steven keeps 9 cars in a giant metal buiding at his family ranch. Shima will be very dissapointed that her meditation shell is missing, but now our wide driveway is clear. Cam then cut the dead limbs off the oak branches. As soon as I saw what he was doing I decided I'd wash his clothes after all and make him some lunch.
We agreed that Forest Drive is a good name for any journals we publish and even a series of books. I finally put all the things I want to send to Sophia in an envelope. And its my first blog entry on my first blog. All in all a very productive day.