As of this week, I’m starting a new residency at Guttenberg Arts in NJ. Three artists enjoy the luxury of 24 hour access to their facilities at a time for three months; I’m planning on starting work on a new book, and am wildly excited. (Details to follow.)

To kick it off there will be an exhibition of my work opening on Friday, January 8:

Reading Time is a reading room installed in the gallery at Guttenberg Arts that invites visitors to engage with monologues, brochures, ephemera, manifestos, scientific matter, propaganda, and alternate histories in the form of printed language. Included are a range of publications and a selection of prints which collectively revolve around the authority of the printed word. Publishing creates community, though that community may only be temporary and hard to hold together. In a culture where visual noise is inescapable, printed matter creates an opportunity to pause, ruminate, speculate, and share.

Totally accessible via a short bus ride from Midtown, Guttenberg Arts is a 4500 square foot gem, with both printmaking and ceramics facilities as well as a gallery. (It also serves as home base for the great artist-driven magazine Carrier Pigeon) Come say hello! from 7 to 9pm. I would love to see you there.

I’m not sweating today. It was the first day of class at Pratt. There’s a scant number of days left in August. I’m fairly certain this means one thing: fall is around the corner.

Which I am thoroughly relieved to hear. There’s two things coming up in September that I’m excited about that I’d like to mention:

ONE: I’m teaching a workshop next month in Connecticut. Come one, come all! It’s called Experimental Letterpress Posters. It’s happening over three Sundays starting September 27th, and it’s at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk. Register Here. We’ll be using wood type and pressure printing techniques in as many different combinations as we can fit. Spontaneity, atmosphere, layering of textures and imagery, check.

TWO: I squeaked into the upcoming Renegade Craft Fair here in Brooklyn. Come say hello while I sling prints, zines, and assorted printed materials September 12 and 13 at the Brooklyn Expo Center in Greenpoint. That might as well be tomorrow! I better get ready….

If you’re planning on going to Bushwick next weekend, come say hello to me, slinging my pamphlets at Saturday: Lavinia Roberts invited me to hang out and distribute letterpress-based information that day, in the company of some of her fantastical masks, and the amazing zines of two other publishers, GAMBA Zine and Basement Babes. I think it’s pretty lovely of her to have invited me.  Here’s the details:

Bushwick Open Studios Weekend
Saturday, June 6th, 2015
12:00 to 3:00

A Personification: Masked/Unmaked is an exhibition of masks exploring transformation, identity, and our relationship to nature. The work will be displayed for the month of June at Fairweather Bushwick.

274 Wyckoff Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11237
http://fairweatherbushwick.com/

Live Music and Special Drinks will be offered at the Opening!

More information here. You can learn more about Lavinia and her masks here: http://laviniaroberts.com

Spring is here my friends. I had a fantastic time at my first Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair. Books were ogled, read, flipped through, manhandled. People liked my field guide. I talked about myself without too much difficulty.  It was a good day. The Field Guide to Extinct Birds, standard edition, is officially available, by the way. Five whole copies are bound, with more on the way. Contact me if you are interested in having a copy.

I spoke about the WONDER and the JOY of Letterpress at the Strand last Thursday. Thank you to Jessica C. White and Kseniya Thomas, the founders and leading light of the Ladies of Letterpress for inviting me to join them, along with the lovely Gina Houseman of Papersheep Design on a panel in honor of the publication of their new book:

WHICH IS AMAZING and you should all get a copy now. Really.

But the best thing about spring is undoubtedly New Spring Informational Pamphlets:

The Spring 2015 Brain Washing From Phone Towers Informational Pamphlet is done, and copies are going out in the mail to subscribers, strangers, and friends right now as we speak. You should be receiving your copy shortly, if you haven’t already. The Spring edition concerns the history of cryptography, and asks the following questions: How do we solve the problem of communication at a distance? What is the best way to communicate secrets? Has the government always been reading our messages? What kinds of things do we substitute in place of language in order to keep things private? And other related issues, in easily portable paper form. I promise no one will eavesdrop on you while you read it.

I’ll be at the Brooklyn Zine Fest this Saturday, April 25th at the Brooklyn Historical Society in Brooklyn Heights, with pamphlets in hand and subscription forms at the ready, as well as a few other small-scale productions. Come say hello!

Bird books are being bound, new pamphlets are in the making, and the snow is melting, leaving lovely little piles of formerly frozen trash everywhere. I can run without breaking something. Things are looking up.

Exciting events are in the making. Here’s the spine of one of the books I’ll be taking with me to the Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair. Isn’t it straight? On April 11th the Field Guide to Extinct Birds will be making its public debut; I have not yet reached the panic stage. The fair will be held here: St. Vincent Ferrer parochial school on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 65th Street, from 8am to 4pm on Saturday, April 11. I’ll be there alongside friends like Barbara Henry, Nancy Loeber, Ana Cordeiro, and many others.

I’ve been binding in the generous studios of Small Editions, right on the waterfront. You should visit them when you have a moment, I think it will be lovely there this spring. Corina Reynolds and Kimberly McClure make wonderful books for artists and have a small gallery in their studio.

I’ve been looking forward to the Brooklyn Zine Fest this year; Saturday, April 25th & Sunday, April 26th, 2015 at Brooklyn Historical Society in Brooklyn Heights. I’ll be there Saturday only, with pamphlets in hand. The zine fest-ers have also organized a zine library at the Brooklyn Museum this year; come browse the pop-up zine library in the entrance pavilion at the Brooklyn Museum on Thursday, March 26th from 7pm to 9:30pm. The library is happening in conjunction with the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibit Chitra Ganesh: Eyes of Time, and is part of their one-night Art off the Wall party, featuring a DJ, bar, extended gallery hours, and other special events. Chitra did some fantastic Hindu mythological-comic book-type zines at one point, just before she was a resident at ye-olde Center for Book Arts. 

AND the new pamphlets are officially on press. More information soon. Now go outside!

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. 

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!

The Print Center’s 87^th Annual International Competition features works by 43 of the finest contemporary artists working today. This year the competition was juried by Irene Hofmann, Phillips Director & Chief Curator, SITE Santa Fe. The Print Center’s Annual International Competition is one of the most prestigious and oldest juried exhibitions in the United States. This online exhibition presents portfolios of the work of the 33 semi-finalists and 10 finalists.  It provides a unique opportunity to view the work of local, national and international artists in a forum which emphasizes individual talent and expressiveness rather than a specific exhibition topic. Hofmann reviewed over 2,700 images submitted by 549 artists. Taryn McMahon, Lydia Panas and Soledad Salamé were selected for solo exhibitions, which are on view at The Print Center June 7 – July 27, 2013. Awards for the competition will be announced on July 1.

Philadelphia’s Print Center hosts great print exhibitions, among other things, and you should definitely pay them a visit when you’re in town. I’m lucky to be a Semi-finalist in their annual competition this year; you can see all of the artists online here. And the three solo exhibitions are on view through the end of July.