Erica

happy heidelberg sounds ✨🕺🏻 • last day on press printing for / with @bryn.ziegler (21 runs over the past 3 weeks!) • #offsetlithography #lithography #litho #heidelberg #kors #printmaking #masterprinter

Come print with me @therosenbach in May! I’ll be teaching Intro to Letterpress: Printing Phillis Wheatley on Sunday afternoons from May 10 through May 31. This four-session class will cover the foundations of letterpress, from setting metal type to pulling prints. Learn about the history of printing through exploring an extraordinary publication: Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Participants in this class will produce a collaborative, hand-set, hand-printed, and hand-sewn pamphlet of Phillis Wheatley’s poetry on the Rosenbach’s iron handpress.

1: cut fabric soaked overnight going into the pot to cook in soda ash / 2: fabric after cooking for 2 hours / 3: after 30 minutes in the beater / 4: after 1 hour / 5: after 2.5 hours / 6: checking pulp in glass cup / 7: the studio / 8: the paper, light grey! (a little test sheet) / 9: the second batch, purple! @ericahonson cooked and beat the first 2 batches of fiber this weekend for the @typeofindependence project! We collected 156lbs of cotton and linen fabric from people around Philadelphia between September and December. Here’s the breakdown: ~ 27lbs w/ synthetic content (not suitable for paper) ~ 10lbs set aside for type cleaning ~ 25lbs removed (seams, hems, zippers, buttons, etc.) ~ 94lbs cotton/linen fiber (lots of tees and bits from sewing projects, some bedsheets, some underwear, thread, yarn, etc.) remaining for making paper! We’ll be making paper through mid-April during our residency @historicrittenhousetown where there’s a 2lb Reina beater. It could easily take over a hundred hours to beat all the fabric / textiles to a pulp. We’re planning to beat 28lbs to start; the batches of pulp will be mixed together so that all ~500 (hopefully) sheets of paper are the same color.

PBI 2025: Greek Manuscript binding with Kyle Clark @kyle.a.clark 🔥 another incredible workshop, this time making a model of Mich. Ms. 44 (which could be dated to the 13th or 14th centuries). this was so cool — a hell of a lot of work, but very well planned and paced. Kyle was such a patient and encouraging instructor. thank you! Also big things to Shanna Leino @shannaleinohandbuilt — I did all that tooling with one of her beautiful awls that has a point on one end and a little ball on the other (check out the double ended awls in her online shop!) Love it when a tool inspires me to try something new 🤍 • shaped wooden boards, biaxial sewing, Greek hand sewn endbands, full leather cover, blind tooling, flat braided leather straps with brass rings, bone pins, and bosses • @paperbookintensive #paperbookintensive #bookbinding #bindingmodels #greekmanuscript

PBI 2025: Sandgren Binding with Mark Andersson 📖 also incredible, a Danish binding that led to the Rubow and Millimeter bindings • sewn on frayed cords, machine made endbands, vellum on the head and tail of spine and corners, paste paper wrapped covers • @paperbookintensive #paperbookintensive #bookbinding #pastepapers

PBI 2025: Vietnamese Papermaking with @veronicaypham 🤍 this was incredible, thanks so much for sharing this craft with us! • top to bottom (first slide): corn, rye, miscanthus, lily, all 4 of the above, kozo, gampi, dó, all 7 of the above • @paperbookintensive #paperbookintensive #handmadepaper #papermaking

@commonpress FINALLY got our tympan and frisket fixed (thanks, Ari!)! For the first time in at least the past 5 years, we can print on the handpress as intended ✨ a thrilling last day before I head off on a couple solo adventures this has been a challenging year, personally and professionally, with many things coming into question and many things in transition… I’m so grateful for receiving scholarships for both @paperbookintensive and a residency @incahootsresidency — looking forward to time to create, connect, and reflect. With budget cuts, my position at Common Press ends in August. I’ve loved working here first with Mary Tasillo @matasillo , and now with Jessica Peterson @southernletterpress — you two influenced the way I think about printing, teaching, and building community — thank you. I don’t know what’s next, but I’m open to whatever opportunities may come… if you hear of anything that might be a good fit, please let me know! 🤍

feeling so full and so tired, in a wonderful way. spent the past 2 weeks at Penland School of Craft @penlandschool and it was an incredible and very much need time away from everything to reconnect with myself a little, dive into a new project, think, learn, play, et cetera, et cetera… I took the Movable Books workshop with Julie Chen in which we made a lot of pop ups and movable structures, used the laser cutter and dry mounting press to make pressure print matrices, printed from cut magnets, did some wire printing, bound a sample book of our pop ups, made a collaborative class pop up, and each of us finished making all but the binding of an edition of 10 artist books, except the one copy bound to display at the end of session show and tell. I don’t think I slept more than 4 or 5 hours any night after the first. will share more pictures soon. i’m so thankful to have had the support of @southernletterpress and @commonpress to take the time off work for personal and professional development, and for Matao for holding everything down at home with all the cats, and for my hardworking, generous, and very funny new friends and classmates that really made this experience the joy that it was. #penland #letterpress #bookarts #lasercut #pressureprinting #vandercook

i got to go to the Wells College Summer Institute @wells_book_arts in June to assist with and take a couple classes — I worked with Stephanie Wolff @stephaniewolffstudio in bookbinding and Candy Gonzalez @candy_alexandra1 in papermaking! I learned so much from watching these two teach, and it was a joy to share space with them. the lake was beautiful, we listened to the bells every evening, and it was nice to be a student again. big thanks to all the instructors for their generosity in sharing their knowledge and techniques, and the biggest thanks to Mary Tasillo @matasillo and Rebecca Gilbert @rebecca_print for the invite, conversations, sunset hangouts on the dock, and for all the work they did organizing and running the summer institute. I loved being in the studios and working with y’all again!!!

I have no words for UArts, but the Heidelberg KORS… I love this press. Whatever happens to the university and the rest of the presses, it seems unlikely that the KORS will be saved. Mr. Irvine Borowsky was the first printer and the last man to steward the press. Then there was Patty Smith @pattysmith4296 , Lori Spencer @lori_b_spencer , Amanda D’Amico @tiny.revolutionary , and me. In a field dominated by men, where I hear stories about how only the men were allowed to operate the presses, and anyone else would get in trouble if they *touched* one, it felt incredibly meaningful for me to step into this role and share the KORS with students, visiting artists, friends, and co-conspirators. I ran the press for 2 years. I got to print for my cohort and the cohort behind us when I was learning in grad school. Amanda and Lori taught me everything I know. I got to print for Buzz Spector, Rie Hasegawa, Tia Blassingame, a collaborative project with the Revolution School & Sheryl Oring, and students (my favorite). Thank you all for your patience and trusting me with your artwork. By the end of this spring semester, when I was printing it finally felt like the press was an extension of myself. I was just getting started… I’m so thankful to Amanda and Lori for putting their faith in me to take over running the press. I had so much fun dancing to the rhythm of the KORS and sharing my love for her with everyone and anyone who asked (or didn’t haha). i hope we meet again someday. I had a running joke with my students that if we didn’t greet Mr. Borowsky’s ghost in the morning and wish him well when we leave, he would get up in the press and cause mischief. So, in honor of the good times — goodnight, Mr. Borowksy. #ripborowskycenter #offsetforever

why is the last layer always so finicky? this one wants to have the base wiped every time, the press tripped every 3, and ink added every 9 🙃 (but after this all that’s left to print is the text before taking these to the laser cutter!) • #pressureprinting #letterpress #printprintprint #bluets #maggienelson

no photo can do the blue on this inked up clear plexi base justice… if only there was a way to crawl inside of it…