The new show at Central Booking is opening this Thursday, February 6th. Escape Wheel, my informational pamphlet on mechanical, biological, and narrative time is included. Come out and take refuge from the slush! Enjoy a range of work on time.

Opening on February 6 in HaberSpace, CENTRAL BOOKING’s gallery for art and science exhibitions, is Time and Again, an exploration of time and space curated by Maddy Rosenberg. Concurrently, the unique wearable “Jewel Books” of Elisa Pellacani is featured in the Focus Space in the Artist’s Book Gallery.

Time is of the essence for most of us, we speak of time speeding up and slowing down. The physics and the perception of time do not always converge. We often wish for re-does assuming better outcomes, with fantasies of time machines and time reversals. And yet would the times be that different?

February 6 – March 30, 2014

Opening Reception: Thursday, February 6, 6-8pm

Art & Science Panel:
Time and Again: Retrograde Paradoxes
Friday, March 7th, 7:00 pm
Carlos Cuellar Brown, Dr. Frederik Denef, Chris Jordan, Ellen Weiner, Thomas Parker Williams

More information on their facebook page here.

Come to the opening of the Winter shows at the Center for Book Arts tomorrow night, January 17th at 6pm.

Published by SP Weather Station (Natalie Campbell and Heidi Neilson).

Featuring six years of monthly editions by 85 artists. SP Weather Station is an interdisciplinary project that collects weather data and produces weather-related events, publications, and exhibitions. Each year, SPWS publishes a collated portfolio of weather reports. One artist (or artist group) per month is invited to ‘report’ on the weather data taken by SPWS instruments on the roof of Flux Factory in Long Island City, NY. This open-ended assignment may be interpreted strictly or loosely; artists have created prints, booklets, drawings, audio files, photos and video. On view at the Center for Book Arts are six years of SP Weather Reports (2008-2013):72 reports by 85 artists.

My contribution concerns the 19th century mania for looking for water vapor using prisms in a tube as a way of predicting rain. Totally works. Read the pamphlet. 

AND it’s only one of 72 amazing projects, AND there’s also two other shows to see AND we always throw the best openings ever, with lots of free liquor and reception cheese, AND you don’t have something better to do in January. Right?

Also, hand decorated weather cookies. That is all, have a good night.

January letterpress is made up of bits and pieces and odds and ends. To wit:

Page for a collaborative book. ( I DO SO work well with others.)

One half of a weather report. Due this weekend! On view you know where starting the 17th, along with SO MANY OTHER WEATHER REPORTS.

I’ll post the finished products when they’re, you know, finished. In the meantime, put some socks on and cuddle up to what you have at hand. It’s cold out there.

That time of year when we shuffle around the house in dirty sweat socks, navigating sudden dips in mood and blood sugar as we absentmindedly munch on leftover holiday cookies. I’m so ridiculously happy not to be working on three things at once. Do I really have to blog? Can’t I just sit here? Did I mention I had a busy fall? Did I mention no days off for months, while marathon training? Two holiday parties on one day? I don’t even like parties?

Here’s some pretty photos from the open studios on Governor’s Island, lovely people came (thank you!) and said interesting things (yes!). I got to freely distribute informational pamphlets to a willing and receptive audience, from my lovely information rack and information desk. Leftover pamphlets are soon to be dropped in the mail, don’t worry. I made my fantasy business card (Sarah Nicholls, pamphleteer) and pressed it into sweaty palms.

God, I made a lot of work there. Damn, that means a lot of internet updating. Crap, that seems like work. I’m gonna go to bed now, all this interneting makes me tired. Go watch this video here, it’s all you need to know about my fall. I’ve got some things to take care of, I’ll tell you about them soon.

It’s here! The final week of the Governors Island Swing Space residency. Come to the Open Studios this Friday, 2-6pm! Info and RSVP here.

I’ve got new pamphlets to hand out:

I’ve got some early submarines to see:

I’ve got a diagram of the history of the pamphlet:

There will also be amazing work from my fellow artists in residence:

Work by: Jonathan Allen, Nobutaka Aozaki, Lena Bergendahl, Rachel de Joode, Lisa Fairstein, GOOD WORK Productions (Tijana Miskovic and Nina Wengel), Dominic Mangila, Eileen Maxson, New Draft Collective (Michi Jigarjian and Libby Pratt), Sarah Nicholls, Really Large Numbers (Chad Stayrook and Julia Oldham), Raúl Díaz Reyes, Romy Scheroder, Jennifer Schmidt, Max Stolkin, Ginta Tinte Vasermane, Carlos Vela-Prado and Claudia Cortinez, Elizabeth White, Jade Yumang, Jiajia Zhang.

You should come. It’s on an island!

It’s finals week in pamphlet land. Runs 3 4 and 5 went off mainly hitch free: 

The text is written, I have more type than I used to this time around, and slightly fewer words. Hopefully I will do something other than feverishly set print and distribute type this weekend. It looks nice. I think I’m happy so far. But no title!

In Island news, this is happening:

And I’m still deciding on pie for this week’s Famous Pie Holiday. Got any suggestions?

Ok, this will be quick.

1. I did not win the marathon.

But I did FINISH it without dying, or giving up, or injuring myself. Which isn’t bad.

2. Run 2 of this happened today:

But with a certain amount of technical difficulties, mostly having to do with the crappy block that Dick Blick sent me, and partly having to do with operator error. I originally planned this side as a reduction print, but I think that idea is out the window now, to be replaced with Plan B, otherwise known as, well shit, what now? Luckily I am (slightly) ahead of schedule. It does look nice on the press, though, doesn’t it?

Onwards to run 3. Wish me luck.

You can totally guess what this is going to be, right?

Back to birds! Bonin Island Grosbeaks were technically not Grosbeaks, and technically only found on one of the Bonin Islands, (though maybe at one point it had lived on more than one). So let’s start at the beginning:

1. Where are the Bonin Islands?

The Bonin Islands are also known as the Ogasawara Islands, and are an archipelago of over 30 subtropical and tropical islands,  some 1,000 kilometers  directly south of Tokyo, Japan. Bonin is the English name for the archipelago, derived from an archaic Japanese word for “uninhabited”. Which these islands, for the most part, are. The exception is the island Chichi-jima, the largest, which was the home, when it was alive, of the Bonin Island Grosbeak.

2. What do you mean, not a grosbeak? Why’s it called a grosbeak, if it isn’t one?  Beats me. It’s used sometimes as more of a vernacular word for various finches with a big beak, instead of as the name of a specific species. The beak in question for all these birds is large and powerful, and was useful for beating open the shells of seeds.
3. Why is it extinct? Well, it liked to stay on the ground, looking for seeds to eat, and wasn’t so into flying or perching in trees. Ground dwelling birds are generally much more vulnerable to predators. It also lived mostly on one island, and one island alone. That right there is a recipe for evolutionary disaster. The smaller and more specific your habitat is, the more likely you are going to disappear.

Which is what happened to the Bonin Island Grosbeak. Whalers in the nineteenth century used the island as a stopping point, introducing rats, goats, sheep, dogs, and cats, all new predators to the island in the process, and cleared some of the island for settlement. The combination of habitat loss and a whole bunch of new animals running around their island home looking for something to eat did in the bird.

But before it disappeared, several people decided to draw it; here’s a sampling of various images of the bird:

I’ve been neglecting this poor blog due to a life that is literally scheduled down to the minute. So here’s an obligatory catch-up post:

I’ve been working on Governors Island since the beginning of August. And there is an open studio weekend coming up this very weekend! So if you’re not participating in or doing or putting on or hosting one of the twelve million other cultural events taking place in New York this weekend, COME TO MY STUDIO TO READ WORDS AND PICTURES. Afterwards, you can pet a goat. No, really, I’m not kidding.

Also a fancy chicken. If that’s what you’re into:

You can also check out my amazing view into NY harbor (where I totally saw the President fly into town on Monday.)

Working on Governors Island is wonderful; I’m there on Sundays and Mondays right now. On Sundays hordes of NYC families come out for a variety of wholesome activities, as well as the young kids in their fancy costumes for the occasional jazz age dance party:

Or the antique carousel aficionados, they come out too, to see the beautiful vintage amusement park things:

I’ve been working on a new book while there, and tentatively working on a fall pamphlet, among other things:

This weekend is the last public weekend on the Island; starting in October it’s insiders only. So if you want to visit a ghost town, during the week is where it’s at:

Other than that, I don’t know, there’s been some work in some shows:

New York Bound: International Book Art Biennial at the Islip Art Museum. (Literally round the corner from Mom’s house. Hi Mom!).

Some pamphlets went out to a lake in Minneapolis back in August for a water-based adventure called The Floating Library :

Using a boat to dispense paper goods on a lake may seem like a juxtaposition of two things that don’t go together (books + water), yet this project draws on the common past time of beach reading.

In the summer, Minneapolis lakes are crowded with boaters drifting leisurely and folks reading on the sandy shores. The Floating Library looks to provide artist-made reading materials to these folks who are already gathered on the water.

Awesome, right?

There’s an ephemera show coming up in October:

918 Letterpress Ephemera Show

Ephemera is defined as any transitory written or printed matter not meant to be retained or preserved. Examples of letterpress printed ephemera include: posters, greeting cards, pamphlets, postcards, tickets and zines.

And of course the printed media steam bath known as the New York Art Book Fair:

And marathon training, and fall CBA scheduling, and some other things that are none of the internet’s business. I don’t know, it’s too much. Come to my studio this weekend and we can talk it all over.

Ferry schedule: click Here.