I finished this guy this weekend. Was a bit of a struggle, like many things right now. He’s a bit off (as am I), but turned out ok.

In better news, some water-themed pamphlets are on their way to Minnesota to take part in this year’s Floating Library. If you’re a Midwesterner, consider swimming up to it this year.

I’ll be teaching again this month, August 16-17 at ye olde Center for Book Arts. We’ve got a spanking new kitchen and bathroom you can check out while learning all about the wonders of the printed word. Register here.

Also this month: Zine Swapping and Making galore: the Center has a zine show up in the galleries and we’ve got a slew of exciting zine programs coming up. Take a look here.

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.

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?

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

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.

This is what wall #1 of the studio on Governors Island looks like so far.

This is what the other looks like. I’m there Sundays and Mondays for now, at the Center the rest of the week, and on Mondays after leaving the island I do this:

Go on a long run in preparation for the NYC Marathon. Last night was 15 miles. It’s a bit much, and come Tuesday morning I’m noticeably stupider than normal. But right after I’m done? I have the heart of a lion.

I’m working on free! informational! pamphlets, hopefully a few different ones, in slightly smaller, new-and-different formats, in the hopes of distributing some to a captive audience at the open studio events that LMCC has planned. I’ve got one started already and plans for another are underway. I’m not sure if these are going to be all letterpress, all the time, (probably not), and they will be slightly less complex that the final one I’ll mail out at the end of the year, but I think they will be nice, and they are a place to put all the extra research that doesn’t really fit with the main storyline. Which will remain a secret, but rest assured that it will be awesome.

Oh, and the birds? They’re still coming, though slower than before, but I am chipping away at that in the evenings the rest of the week. I’m not a sprinter, after all, and it’s not a race. My time right now is almost completely scheduled, which is very productive, and mostly full of things I want to do, but it’s a lot.

In case you’re wondering what the first new mini-pamphlet will be about, it’s about this, which might be a portrait of Lord Cornbury, former colonial governor of New York and New Jersey, or else just a random homely Englishwoman. Lord Cornbury build a pleasure house on Governor’s Island at the beginning of the eighteenth century, which sounds a lot more decadent than it probably was.

New Pamphlet in the Works: two runs down, innumerable ones to go. Everything else is somewhat on hold in the meantime.