This weekend I was going through some of the piles of random crap that have been lying around ever since the move. It's mostly piles of papers - photocopies, clippings, printouts, notes - and even with all the space I now have, I still have nowhere to put it all. I guess I need a filing cabinet, but I don't have anywhere to put a filing cabinet. Probably I should throw it all away, but the current plan is to scan and toss most of it. It's a long term plan.
Anyway, buried in the pile of crap that had been on the fridge in the old apartment, I found the first thing I ever printed. I guess it had been on the fridge, but I don't remember having seen it for a few years. It was nice to come across it because it's funny to hold a piece of paper in your hands and think that the process of creating this one piece of paper changed my life. Or at least it changed where any extra money and space in my life went.
So the first time I ever printed was this four hour session at a NYC studio that we were required to do for either my History of the Book class or my Rare Book Librarianship class for library school, I don't remember which. But all of us had to sign up for a time slot on a weekend afternoon or morning, and I picked a time that was convenient, not a time with people I was friendly with. When I showed up I found that my time was shared with this irritating woman who talked non-stop about her wedding for four hours (I believe she actually got the studio to print her invites later) and the most disliked student in all of library school. Literally, this student was horrible; everyone hated her. I'd often go out for drinks with people from classes and there would always be about five minutes of complaining about this woman or bragging that one didn't have any classes with her this semester. So this is my group for our letterpress printing workshop, the instructor and I did not hit it off, and I still loved it.
We were supposed to bring it a short quote or something that we might want to print, and then the three of us looked at our quotes and picked one. Thankfully we picked mine, and then I was able to talk them into a sanserif face to go with the quote (that concept went right over the heads of at least one of them). We each handset two lines using our little printouts of the California case, and then we had the option to add an illustration or ornament. It was at this point that I was completely outvoted and they chose this inappropriate and random "T" to plop down to the left of the quote. The instructor totally judged us for that (she was like that - and hell, I did too), locked it up for us, inked up the press, etc. while explaining what she was doing. Then we each printed a couple of them, redistributed the type and went home.
Not beautiful to look at, and not a piece I even particularly like, but when I finished that class that day, I was bouncing off the walls with excitement. I went out and signed up for the next more in-depth class that had room, and here we are today.
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