New Year’s is barreling down on us this week. 2014 has been a big year of ups and downs and changes and frankly I’m ready to say goodbye to it. But 2015 seems to have some tricks up its sleeve as well, the big one being, well, what now?

The Field Guide is coming along well and most of the printing is going to be done by the end of this week. I’ll have a few weeks of work on that in the new year, and then on to the adventure known as edition binding.  After that, I’d really like to finish a new pamphlet. I’ve got most of it planned out already, it’s unfortunately been on the back burner for most of the past year due to various, hmm, events.

Here’s the tricky part: free studio access for me ends at the end of the week. I negotiated studio time when I left my job, but that ends in the new year, and the studio itself is going through a big reorganization and will be closed for most of January. On top of that, the rental fees are, from what I’ve heard, most likely going to go up by a whopping third, putting monthly rental on a regular basis out of my underemployed budgetary means. So what then?

Well, after some wrestling with it I’ve decided to try a subscription series for the pamphlets. I’d really like to continue doing them, but it doesn’t seem feasible to do them in the same way that I have been. Here’s what I’m thinking:

A year’s subscription to the series would guarantee 3 mailings a year, including at least 2 pamphlets (I’d like to do three, but I don’t want to overcommit). As well as special additional ephemera produced throughout the year.

IN ADDITION, all subscribers will be asked to nominate a friend to be added to the year’s pamphlet mailing list, as a surprise gift. Subscribers will be contacted individually for their nominations. I’ll need their mailing address.

I’ve always resisted doing the pamphlets as a subscription, because I liked two things best about them: the surprise and the gift. But realistically, in order to continue making them, I think I need some kind of income to support them. My intention is that with the “add a friend” part I can keep the surprise gift aspect going as well. It’s an experiment, we’ll see how things shake out.

So, right here’s the link where you can get yourself a subscription. If the spirit moves you, please do! I hope you all are ready for an exciting new year.

Bird update: I’m mostly setting the text for each bird at this point. If all goes well I should have almost all, if not all, of the individual bird pages printed by the end of the year. (Fingers crossed). Which means all that would be left after that is the intermediate stuff (this is what happened in Hawaii, etc.) and the beginning/introductory stuff (this is why people made field guides, etc.).

Whew. In the meantime, I’ll be setting and resetting pages and pages of type. I’m pretty quick at it at this point.

If you’d like to see some of the pages so far, let me direct you to my etsy shop right here, where you can browse the finest of extinct bird prints available.

Hope you’re all having a fantastic December so far. My cohort Jasper here is glad to have me working from home today.

This is the bird of the week in my house, regardless of any national holidays that may or may not have occurred.

Norfolk Island is a tiny island in the Pacific near Australia and New Zealand. He’s one of the many birds described by naturalists traveling with Captain James Cook around the world.

Norfork Island was turned into a penal colony in 1788, which was the beginning of the end for the bird.  In the nineteenth century the island was the place where they sent repeat colonial offenders, criminals who committed crimes after already having been sent to Australian penal colonies on the mainland.  The remote location was a way to isolate the worst of the worst.

No time to blog, have to get back to printing. In a mad dash to finish most of the birds by the end of the year. I’ve started printing the text, I’m going with Consort Light in 10 point.

This is how the book looks so far:

and here:

I’m thinking about giving alternate views for particularly great ones:

And still trying to figure out how to deal with the major stars. Here’s the foot of the dodo, in the meantime:

In other news, if you’re in the market for a holiday card, here’s one for you:

He’s available in my shop, here. There are some individual prints from the book there as well, I’ll be adding more as I go. Back to printing!

Been drawing ornithologists this week, to complement all the birds:

Alexander Wilson

John James Audubon

Florence Merriam

Captain James Cook. Not an ornithologist, but brought naturalists along on his trips round the world.

Also looking forward to Print Week: 2014. The Editions/ Artist’s Book fair is back this year, and Central Booking is holding a new book fair this year: Buy the Book, November 7-9. Here’s a short list of things going on, there is a more complete list of everything on the IFPDA’s main website, (link below). Many of these events are free to the public. 

I printed this guy this week:

He came out well, I think. A little folk arty. I caught up on my photo archiving and posted a bunch of pictures from various sign hunting expeditions:

Someday I may do something with these; at the moment photographing signs is just a way to relax.

I’m printing faster and faster in an effort to get it all done. This guy happened all in one day:

I also posted some new prints in the etsy shop this week; they’re a little something on the side I’m thinking about:

You can see them and get a copy here.  My five point solvency campaign is underway. More work is ahead. 

This week I printed several lovely birds, including this one, called the Choiseul Crested Pigeon. Here he is:

The first run was inked by hand, because I didn’t want that orange color on the entire bird.

Then I did a pale blue run on top.

Then a sort of blue-gray on top of that to add some depth and detail. Then the black run on top to define everything.

And there he is.

Bird printing is progressing apace. Job having really gets in the way of work. Fall is here for real.

Now that I’m almost officially done with my full-time job, I can start in on that list of things I haven’t been able to do for the past twelve years. I wake up every morning and add something to the list. The top contenders at the moment:

1. Anything on Saturday.

Do you know how many fantastic cultural events in NYC only take place on Saturday? I do, because I’ve been able to go to a grand total of none of them for the past twelve years. Here I come, Mermaid Parade. Can’t wait for the Brooklyn Comic Festival. Prints Gone Wild? Good thing I don’t have to get up early the next morning.

2. Galleries

I kind of hate galleries, for many reasons that many people understand and sympathize with.  But they do show art there, for free, and I like art, and I like free, and sometimes that art is even worth seeing. And it’s easier to do now that I don’t have to be at work during all of the hours that galleries are open.

3. The High Line

The High Line is a sweaty packed freeway of tourists during most of the times that I have had the time to visit. But Wednesday mornings? Perhaps there’s hope.

4. Going on the Lam

Those of you who know me know that there’s nothing I like more than wandering around aimlessly in a new city, taking pictures and talking to no one. Much easier to do when you’re not expected to be at work the next day.

5. Afternoon runs 

You know what sucks? Forcing yourself to get up at 6am in the winter, in the dark, to go run 5 miles. Yes, I  know I don’t really have to, but you know what happens if I don’t run? I’m like one of those large breed dogs that starts biting the kids and chewing its fur off if it doesn’t run around on a regular basis. 2pm sounds civilized, it really does.

I’m leaving my full-time job as of the end of the month.

I’ve been running programs at the Center for Book Arts for 12 years, which is a very long time in one job at a very small organization. It has been everything to me for a long time. I have been extremely lucky to have been able to do work that I enjoy and think is important with a great group of artists.

However. While the community there has always been fantastic for me to be around, it has also always been a very demanding job. The last few years especially have been tough.

It’s time for a change, time for some rest and rejuvenation, time for a little peace and quiet.

I’m super excited, and very lucky, to have the ability to focus on my own work for a while, to figure out new things I want to do, to have a new routine and new priorities. It’s like a reset button has been pressed.

On the agenda: a bit of teaching, a new pamphlet, a new book, and who knows what else.Here’s to new beginnings. A perfect thing to think about for fall, don’t you think?

I went down to Washington DC for a quick minute last month; there’s some funny things about it. For one thing, there’s a strange lack of food in places you would expect to find it, except for too-expensive food carts that all have the same signage:

The city itself is really surprisingly small. I went for a run and almost ended up in Maryland. Other things that you expect to be big are small, and vice versa. I went partly to see this exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Which turned out to be only two small cases, with some books. Once there were billions indeed.

I comforted myself with an assortment of taxidermy:

And a visit to the birdhouse at the National Zoo:

The transit system was sufficiently dystopian:

The signs outside of the tourist zone were EXCELLENT:

All in all a good trip.

I’ve been informed that I’ve been neglecting this blog. Fine, so it may be.

Next week I’ll be teaching a letterpress again at Pratt, and so in honor of the new school year, go take a look here at Lynda Barry’s Syllabus (and leave me be to finish my own…)