2013 PA Letterpress Calendar available!

The 2013 Pyramid Atlantic Letterpress Calendar is now available for purchase online!

***To purchase, click here to visit the Pyramid Atlantic Sales page. The calendar is $35 plus $5 for shipping.***

This year's calendar features designs by (in order by page): Julia Louie & Melanie Ouellette Karlins, Kathy Hoeppel, Alyson Hurt, Alison Whitty, Erin Brophy, Amanda King, Bridget Stoyko, Deirdre Jacobs, Sarah Hanks, Janine Awan, Megha Shah Even, Beth Roszkowski, Sara Shaffer.

As always, all proceeds from the calendar go directly to help fund Pyramid's programs and facilities. Special thanks to all the artists who donated their designs and their time, as well as the volunteers who helped put the calendar together!


To see more photos and check out previous years' calendars, see our Letterpress Calendar page!

Wood Type Poster Workshop

Here are some images from the Wood Type Poster Workshop last saturday!

First, we set a wood type poster together as a group,
then everyone had a chance to create their own lock-up!
It was a lot of fun! Thanks everyone!

Letterpress Calendar Crit

Work has already begun on our 2013 Letterpress Calendar!
Last Wednesday, September 26 we met to go over the designs in progress.
Here are the sketches & the printers!

Birthday Party photos!

Here are some photos from last week's celebration of Pyramid's 31st birthday! Here was guests got to make in the letterpress studio, a fun greeting card to go along with the party's Olympics theme:

With your choice of Olympic-ring colored envelope!

Here's Lauren, Janine and Leslie finishing up with set up:

Some guests printing their cards with the help of our volunteers:

A couple shots of Erin manning the scoring station, where guests scored their cards and chose their envelopes:

And a photo of our Letterpress Marketplace where guests could check out and buy letterpress goodies made by various artists that use our studio (manned by the family Karlins!):

And here are some photos of the activities going on in the other studios!

In the Bindery, visitors selected a pre-made book cover:

And then got to sew the pages in and foil stamp them, with help from Bookmaking Associates Patty Lee and Linda Rollins:

Papermaking Associate Laura Kinneberg helped people make paper medals:

And in the Screenprint Studio, Associates Marty Ittner and Becca Katz helped everyone do two-color screenprinted bags to hold all the goodies from the other studios:

 

Thanks again to our awesome volunteers! Hope to see you at next year's party!

Go For The Gold!

This Saturday, Pyramid Atlantic is celebrating its 31st birthday with an Olympic-themed party! Make and take items in the papermaking, letterpress, bookbinding, and block printing studios and then screenprint a swag bag to carry all your goodies!

+ free gifts from Plaza Art for the first 100 guests!
+ cupcakes and treats! 
+ Letterpress Marketplace: We'll have marketplace in the letterpress studio so you can see and purchase cards, prints, stationery and other paper goods printed by letterpress artists at Pyramid

Details:
Date: Saturday, April 14
Time: 2-6pm
Admission: $10, purchase advance tickets here.


And this year's invitation was letterpress printed! Erin Brophy designed the invitation and then helped me crank them out on our Universal.

In the studio...

Alyson Hurt was recently in the studio to print some stationery for a birthday gift for her mom, featuring some of Pyramid's metal ornaments:
See her post (with a lot of great photos) over on her blog!

In the studio...

Bridget Stoyko, Sara Shaffer and Erin Brophy are veterans at printing with photopolymer on the Vandercook and wanted to try their hand at setting some type and printing on the tabletop platen press. So I gave them a crash course and helped them print some awesome coasters (photo by Bridget):

Photo collage time!

Bridget printed coasters for her beer-loving husband:

Sara printed posture reminder coasters (they just reminded me to sit up straight!):

And Erin made some cute coasters with a flamingo ornament!:

Thanks to Bridget for taking all the photos!

In the Forest & It Came from the Deep

Just wanted to share photos of the two pieces from Pyramid's spring staff print exchange  that included letterpress. Letterpress Associate, Melanie submitted this pretty radish pressure print:

Artist-in-residence Lee Marchalonis also included letterpress in her print:

Very nice! It's interesting to see how letterpress looks on different types of paper.

Check out the Screenprint Society's post on the screenprinted pieces from the exchange and see all of the prints up on the display wall at Pyramid!

In the studio...

Pyramid has partnered with the Sargasso Sea Alliance for a project called the Sargasso Sea Scrolls. The Scrolls will feature illustrations of Sargasso Sea species rendered by artists from the US, Bermuda and the UK screenprinted onto translucent handmade paper.

Erin and I were in the studio this weekend to print the broadsheets that will serve as the key/credit sheet to the illustrated species on the actual scrolls. We printed three colors onto a beautiful rainbow roll background, previously screenprinted by Marty and Becca.

Here are some photos taken by our photographer/taskmaster, Marty:

In the studio...

Former intern, Amanda King, was recently in the studio to print invitations to her friend's bridal shower. With a little help from Leslie and myself, Amanda set all the text with lead type and printed these on the Universal! (The cute toaster image was done by screenprinting).

Maintenance Day photos!

This Saturday, we had our semi-annual Letterpress Maintenance Day. Thanks so much to all the volunteers who chipped in to help whip the presses and the studio into shape:
Helen Baribeau, Erin Brophy, Bob Cmarik, Lauren Emeritz, Kathryn Hoeppel, Alyson Hurt, Amanda King, Jason Lee, Janine Osif, Elizabeth Reiner, Michelle Seaman and Sarah Studer.

Here are some photos that Melanie was able to snap during the day:

And here are some "after" shots. Love how tidy everything is looking!

UPDATE 10:33am:
Here are some more photos, taken by Alyson Hurt:

 

 

In the studio...

Once again, I happened to be at the studio when someone was making something beautiful! Unfortunately, the photos don't really do it justice...

A wedding invitation designed and printed by Erin Vincent:

A closer shot of the calligraphy, done by Erin herself:

So pretty!

In the studio...

This may be the cutest thing I've seen at the studio: Erin and Peter, making valentines together! I happened to stop by the studio as they were getting ready to print the second color of these really awesome valentines.

Here they are, trying to register their second plate:

Choosing the shade of pink for the hearts to go between the two figures:

I'll have to add a photo of the finished valentines some time!

In the studio...

Alright... time to catch up on some blog posts! There's been a lot of activity in the studio recently. One new member of our community is Brei Stevenson of Cucumber Press. She recently moved to Richmond and occasionally makes the weekend trek up to Silver Spring to do some printing. I happened to come by one day as she was finishing up some prints:

Here are a couple nice photos taken by Brei that are posted on her blog:

Happy Hour 2.1.12

Some photos from this week's happy hour!

Erika came by to finish up some notecards/valentines:

And Erin was there to do some proofing for her own valentines:

The next Letterpress Happy Hour will be the 15th. Hope to see you there!