Stamping out your blues

We have been playing around a bit with our new space technology this week. Like magic we produced our first official production stamp for a friend. Pretty neat. More on stamps soon - contact us for custom work.

your faithful servant

B McC

from the recent past

We are attempting to catch the digital lifestyle of electro sports monthly up with the real clock on the wall of life - hope you enjoy our trip down near memory lane.....

This print was commissioned as an original piece of art for the world premier of "HIlos" by the Latin grammy winner and Guggenhiem Fellow Gabriela Lena Frank.

Performed for the first time by Alias, the acclaimed chamber music ensemble from Nashville, Friday Oct. 1, 2010 to general acclaim and then released as a recording you can also hear via cd. What a night!

We were very excited to be involved in creating the visual representation of the music. It was a pleasure and as such I hope the art work shows that joy. This is just the sort of meeting of the minds I feel is very important to the arts and culture in general. Many thanks to Jennifer Lena and Jonathan Neufeld for making it happen.

When viewed together these prints form one of the larger pieces we have done as a multiple series to date. I like them separately as well.

19"x26" each. Approximately 38"x26" together
smoke - 3 colors
jug - 4 colors
printed on cream stock

Spirit - MTN is a reduction print, which means the blocks were carved down after each successive color was printed, so once they're gone, they're gone for good!

available now on etsy and in the shop!
print run of less than 50
signed and numbered

thanks for looking!

B. McCloud for H. Kneesch - curator to the jet stream set

Trick or treat!

Hello friends – Did you know that today the 7 billionth overly-designed word poster was posted on Etsy and then linked on pinterest?

Even though some of us can barely use the computer here at Isle of Printing – almost every night as we creep into bed - the image of today’s litter of “stay calm and do what your mama told you when you were little” spill uselessly out of our eyes and onto our pillows like little tiny typographic tears…..

Nay – It isn’t that we dislike language, type, or your friend’s designs…

We LOVE letters - and all the things they help us do. We LOVE printing and we LOVE posters.

We especially love that many fine people out there will support the folks that get up every afternoon and knock out a few prints for the fine citizens of the world-wide-craft market to enjoy.

Honest!

Yes it was a nice ride and we all enjoyed the scenery – and we have lots of posters to remind us how and what we were doing or not doing or thinking about doing – in all sorts of typefaces and printing methods and from every corner of creation.

And now I can say that I don’t know about you but I am ready for my prints to quit telling me what to think all the dang time on really nice paper.

Soooooooo

If you seek the honest and are sick of precious buy a poster and tell the world in a slightly snarky way! Fill that hole in the wall of your heart with our love. WE LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!
Poster measures 9"x12"

One-color letterpress print
edition of 100

ACTUALLY ON ARCHIVAL PAPER! This print is going to be around forever! And you saw it here first!!!!!!!

find it on ettttt-sy
or our very own
website

Xxoo
Hiram Kneesch

a step in another direction

Hey there space fans!

Lately
I've been thinking about this space, which we have generated surreptitiously to fill in with our dawdling thoughts, as a more important aspect of our doings than I might have originally given it credit.

Making things is complicated.  But surely an important aspect of making things is the thinking that goes into the making.  

We have spoken about things we are creating and things you might consider buying to help us continue to make things, but I don't believe we have really given much air to the ideas beyond the objects made.

Which is to say....
Art is importantly connect to life and living - and as such life guides the art into being.

I am always awed when I see things made for such pure reasons as to fashion a personal vision into being.  Serving the makers first but in the purity of the making bettering us all.

A simple concept that is a very hard trail to follow through life.

Is art the act of living well?

Here is a video which rang true to me.

Living In A Geodesic Dome Home

The Journey of a Linocut

We've been working hard here at the Isle, and we've got the goods to prove it!

This is our most recent poster, inspired by our love for cargo bicycles and retro advertising. To the untrained eye, this poster may look amazing. In reality, it's really freaking amazing (I can say this because I didn't carve it, Bryce did), and here's the reason why: the awesome carving process.

What starts as a twinkle in our eyes becomes a sketch, which then becomes a graphite transfer, which is applied to a block of linoleum. The linoleum is then carved and sculpted into one layer, starting with the background. Out of context, one layer doesn't look like much–but once supporting layers are added, it becomes a work of art.

This particular poster was created using the reduction method of carving, where one block is used for multiple layers. In the end, the topmost layer is all that remains of the original cut. Every layer is given a different color, and some colors show through one another to add even more depth.

Here's a line-up of each step of this poster's process:

This poster is on sale in our shop right now, and will be available soon online. Stay tuned for more hand-printed goodness from your friends at I.O.P!

-Girl Friday Röthenhofer

New News

Good new news, everyone! You can stop weeping into your pillows, Isle of Printing is back up and running from our move, like the greasy machine that we are.

We settled into our new place at 624 Ewing about a month ago. While we are still working out some of the kinks and playing Tetris with the type cases, our shop is now open, and so is our storefront (sort of)!

Of course, you can't open a storefront with nothing to sell, so we've been churning out new postery goodness, like this Evening With the Johns poster!

Personally, I think this poster is an extremely bodacious example of letterpress––not only because of Bryce's amazing illustrative SKILLZ, but also because it uses a halftone effect, which is normally a shading style reserved for silkscreening. But, who am I to say? Here's a detail shot so you can see for yourself:

So, in closing, if you wanna know how posters are born, if you want us to be the surrogate birther of the poster in your head, or if you are ready to adopt a poster or t-shirt to fill that void in your life, come on down and see us at ze good ole' I.O.P! 

–Girl Friday Rothenhöfer 

Riddle me this revelry-makers...

What weighs 3500lbs, is covered with 75 years of oil and automatically feeds itself?

Our newest press!

Every year around January 1 millions of people resolve to lose weight and do more with their lives.  We salute you fine (if unoriginal) folks for making that pledge.  But here at the Isle of Printing - we decide to buck the trend by doing less and cumulatively weighing more*!  After all this is the 21st century right?  If a press wants to feed itself paper... why not let it?  If a press decides to print that paper and stack it up in a neat pile...who are we to say no?  We don't hate robots here AND we love letterpresses - so why not plug a press into the wall and do a little jig as it rocks back and forth?

WE SAY YES to the Kluge! (that's Kluge like a lugee - not like fudge or luge)

The Kluge Automatic job press - if you think 1901 is modern - then you will be surprised with what the future has in store for you in letterpress technology! 

Old doc Kluge is not quite ready for duty yet but he's looking pretty good for an old iron beast (and former largess paper weight). 

Many more chapters of this saga are still to come.  Slanderers beware.  Children with curious fingers beware.  Stacks of loose paper beware! 

Rub a dub we are fixing you up!

Happy 2011

H Kneesch

*as a print shop with an auto-feeding letterpress

can't seem to reach us via email?

Things in the internet land are a bit screwy right now. so.....
Try isleofprinting(at)gmail.com if you need to get through!

thanks
MGMT