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.

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:

 

 

Make & Take photos

As we were scurrying around to prepare for Saturday's Make & Take event, Marty was able to snap some photos:

See more on Marty's post at the Pyramid blog!

Make & Take!

Join us for Make & Take, our gift-themed holiday open studio!

When: Saturday, December 3rd

Time: 6 pm to 9 pm

Where: Pyramid Atlantic, 8230 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring MD

Cost: $10 ($5 for Pyramid members!)

Admission includes a print and two festive drink tickets.

 

Make:

• a monotype print for your "secret santa" in the printmaking studio
• paper garlands to "deck the halls" & Furoshiki japanese gift wrapping paper in the papermaking studio
• 2 color holiday postcards in the screenprinting studio
• 2 color wrapping paper in the letterpress studio
• Ornaments from old book pages in our book bindery

Take them home and impress your friends and family with your art skills!

Purchase gifts created by Pyramid Atlantic artists including:

• Our 3rd annual Letterpress calendar,
• "Drink Me," our recipe book containing 13 linoleum block prints & 13 winter beverages recipes, and
• Our Pyramid Atlantic sketchbook (8"x 9.5") packed with handmade paper

Type Truck Visit

Here are some photos from the Pyramid-sponsored Type Truck stop earlier this month!

The truck parked just south of Dupont Circle on 19th Street NW (special thanks to Miranda for volunteering to take care of the permit application):

Truck owner, Kyle, talking with one of our visitors:

Leslie admires the map showing where the truck's been so far:

And a photo of Kyle's tour poster in its new home at Pyramid:

The event was a lot of fun. We wish Kyle a lot of luck on the rest of her tour and hope to see her again soon!

Visit the Type Truck - TOMORROW!

Come meet Kyle Durrie and check out her mobile letterpress studio tomorrow, November 4! Kyle will be parking in Dupont Circle, at 1300 19th Street NW.

Stop by any time between 4:30 and 7:30pm!

Pyramid Letterpress at Crafty Bastards!

Just thought I'd share some photos from the Pyramid Atlantic booth at Crafty Bastards earlier this month. We had a letterpress demo going on the little Vandercook 0 proofing press. Volunteers Sarah Hanks, Lauren Emeritz, Molly Moran and Erin Brophy helped fairgoers print on the little guy.

Here's a photo of Molly and Erin doing just that:

Photo by Rachel Carrier

And here's a photo taken by Molly of a completed print:

Photo by Molly Moran

Check out Molly's blog post about Crafty Bastards here!

2012 Letterpress Calendar critique

This year I decided to include a critique as a part of the process of creating the 2012 Letterpress Calendar. I figured this would be a great way for this year's calendar crew to get some feedback on ideas and also just have another excuse to get together and get to know one another a little better. Here are some photos of the critique which took place last week (including a few mock ups and draft designs!):



Can't wait to see the final designs in print!

goodbye summer!

Gretchen organized a Pyramid family portrait this week to sort of mark the end of summer. This summer was really great... filled with a lot of fun letterpress happy hours, the Ladies of Letterpress Conference, a great group at Artscape and even acquiring a new type cabinet!

A few things to look forward to this fall: the 2012 Letterpress Calendar, the Type Truck's DC stop, fall letterpress workshops and, of course, more happy hours!

Type Truck coming to DC!

Kyle Durrie and her mobile letterpress studio, the Type Truck, will be coming to DC in November! We're working with Kyle on her DC stop to spread the word about letterpress, the Type Truck and Pyramid Atlantic. She'll be in DC on November 4, specific location TBD.We're hoping that this'll be a fun event for everyone. Newbies can get their first taste (and of course, sign up for more workshops/Happy Hours at Pyramid). And veterans will get to check out her set up and her presses!

Stay tuned for more info!

Photos from BookWorks!

This past weekend, I went down to Asheville, NC for the Ladies of Letterpress Conference. Half the conference events took place at BookWorks, a print and book arts center.  I was blown away. Everything was so clean and organized and the space had a great open layout. Here are a bunch of photos!

Here's me, with a whole lot of book presses:

Gretchen and Steve chatting in the letterpress area:

Another view of those great Hatch Show Prints on display (with fancy track lighting!):

Steve was drooling over the awesome inventory of wood type:

And here's a shot of Gretchen taking a peek inside the nice little gallery area (with conference organizers Kseniya Thomas and Jessica White in the foreground):

Some more shots of the studio space, equipment and materials:


A some photos of the gallery and the work on display (work by various members of Ladies of Letterpress):


I'm feeling really inspired to make some improvements to our studio!

Ladies of Letterpress Conference!

The Ladies of Letterpress conference is this weekend! Gretchen (Pyramid's Artistic Director) and I will be presenting at the Community Print Shop Panel on Sunday to talk about the challenges of running a studio such as ours and some of the solutions we've come up with. Stop by if you're coming to the conference!

Photos from Artscape

Just wanted to share a couple photos from our Pyramid Letterpress booth at Artscape this weekend (taken by Steve)!

Here's a shot of the whole crew (minus Steve). From left to right is Amelia, me, Melanie, Moira and Sarah:

Here's Moira, Amelia and me, as we're hustling to finish our booth set up:

And here's our lattice display, featuring selected works:

Can't wait til next year!

Artscape!

This weekend, a gaggle of Pyramid Letterpressers will be selling their work at Artscape's DIY section in Baltimore! Amelia, Moira, Melanie, Sarah, Steve (who printed our sign above) and I will be taking turns manning the booth over the 3-day fair. Come visit (Booth C15) and see what's kept the studio so busy lately.

Festival Hours:

Friday July 15, noon - 10pm
Saturday July 16, noon - 10pm
Sunday July 17, noon - 8pm

Hope to see you there!