Notes From the Studio

2/28/2025

What in the world happened to February? Oh yeah, everybody and their second cousin twice removed was sick. Aside from that, my month was full of saunas, snowboarding, conferences, and taxiing children around to various engagements.

One of the highlights for me this month was hosting a troop of Cub Scouts in the studio. I talked a little bit about printing and then fired the Chandler & Price press up so they could print their motto - Do Your Best - on cards. But the real fun happened when I pulled out my (very limited) selection of wood type and let them print their own creations. Printing this way is a super accessible form of art, it's not like painting or drawing where it takes time to develop the skill. Pretty much all you need is to be able to spell, and even that's not really necessary. My absolute favorite thing is watching people's faces as they peel their print off the type; it's always this joyful expression of "oh wow, I made that!"

Ink on Paper

Aside from the Cub Scouts, I did a run of business cards for my mother-in-law. They were a bunch of fun and turned out really sharp!

I'm currently working on lining up several lock-ups in anticipation of building up inventory. Exciting times in the studio!

Other Rambles

I recently fell down a sauna rabbit hole, which led me to "Sauna-Akka," a Finnish "sauna healer," who mixes sauna with mythology, ritual, and story-telling. This quote has really stuck with me: "In the sauna healer's eyes, the soul and the body are not different. Your body is what your soul looks like. Your tensions, your stress, you worries, they are your aching shoulders and aching knees, so, you don't separate it from the sauna healer's point of view. When you cleanse the body, you cleanse the soul."

Full video here: https://youtu.be/ZB5IDYdnFbY?si=4AKRiaOEnS_WaAxn.

Stay warm!

PB