Chickens on the road

One of 2 new logos for Crowing Hens Bindery.

This past month has been a busy one at Crowing Hens Bindery. I’ve gone through all of the legal channels to get bona fide and CHB is now an officially recognized small business in the state of Tennessee! I’ve also applied for a number of local vending opportunities and festivals for this year, three of which landed in the month of June.

The first was the Porter Flea Modern Handmade Market, a 2-day biannual Nashville makers’ market tradition already in its fifth year. Porter Flea was started so that entrepreneurs and artists could reach out to their local communities, sell their goods and services, and forge relationships between maker and consumer.

Business cards, booksmarks, and books- all in preparation for the Porter Flea Summer Market.

Porter Flea was my first vending opportunity since I’ve set up shop in Nashville and there was a lot of preparation to be done. I needed a logo, signage, business cards, and ephemera. I needed tables, a booth setup, and shelving. I purchased my first iPad and iPhone to take credit card sales, and began updating my website, and counting inventory.

A stack of new springback journals drying underweight, waiting for their decorative papers.

But of course, you also need product to sell and I was determined to be fully stocked. I brought letterpress prints and new greeting cards. I sold this year’s Daybook collection and journals large and small, ruled and blank. I even hired a buddy of mine to help finish up a few hundred books several weeks prior to Porter Flea.

Scribes, Links, and Clutches, 3 journal and notebook designs in progress.

This year’s Porter Flea experience was a wonderful opportunity to sell goods, meet like-minded local business owners, and to celebrate the creativity, ingenuity, and support that our unique Nashville community has to offer.

First time designing a booth setup. Many books to touch and hold!

The popularity of Porter Flea continues to grow exponentially and this year was no exception. The foot traffic this year exceeded 6,000 attendees on Saturday alone. I can only imagine how large this year’s winter market crowd will compare during the holiday season.

Be sure to find us at future local markets and the holiday Porter Flea! I may or may not be donning my world-famous chicken hat/bun warmer.

Look for Crowing Hens Bindery at other upcoming events, such as “Handmade and Bound” hosted by Watkins College of Art and Design on October 2-3, and “Made in Nashville” at Centennial Park on Saturday, September 12. You can also find my work at the Shimai Gallery of Contemporary Craft by the Loveless Café. I will also apply for the holiday Porter Flea, so be sure to keep us in mind as you shop for you and your loved ones this holiday season!

Making the Rules

I work with a variety of clients. Some of my clients commission custom books, decorative papers, specialty tools, and ex libris while others come to me for rules — ruled paper, that is.

As many bookbinders know, high-quality blank paper is readily available but very few options exist for bookbinders who want ruled pages of the same caliber. At Crowing Hens Bindery, I've solved this dilemma by making my own ruled papers by hand. I also work directly with clients to design custom pages either to satisfy a book commission that I bind in house or for bookbinders to use in their own work.

By drafting my page designs by hand, I am able to capture the organic qualities of the drawn line.

One of my latest commissions was from my good friend Dave Rollins, owner of Black Magic Bindery, a fellow full-service bindery located in Iowa City, IA. Dave uses his supernatural powers to conjure custom codices imbued with spellbinding craftsmanship. One of his latest commissions is for the second annual GeeklyCon, taking place this year during the first week in June in Louisville, KY. To make these books all the more enchanting for his Geekly warlock chums, he commissioned me to design custom-ruled pages to suit the occasion.

Light blue rules and Gill Sans on Mohawk Superfine natural text make an enchanting combination.

As with all of my ruled pages, each design is first drawn by hand, a process that gives me more control over the design and one that maintains the charming characteristics of the drawn line, as opposed to the robotic sterility of a digitally designed page. I then digitally color it, add text if necessary, and then using Mohawk Superfine papers, I print the pages on our high-resolution color laser printer. As a bookbinder, I know that simply printing lines on paper is not enough. For the paper to be serviceable for a binder, it is important that the paper be right grain, that it be archival, that the ink be colorfast, and that the paper be large enough to account for trimming.

My custom pages in the hands of mage binder Dave Rollins of Black Magic Bindery. Photo courtesy of Black Magic Bindery.

And now with the papers in hand at Black Magic Bindery, all I can do is wait to witness what wizardry will occur when runic ruled pages meet forwarding sorcerer. All I can say is, "ABRACADABRA!"

April Fool's, 2011

Four years ago today I was accepted into the University of Iowa Center for the Book’s MFA in Book Arts program. At the time I was living in Nashville, Tennessee and well into my fifth year working as a letterpress printer, designer, and occasional cat bather at the historic American letterpress Mecca, Hatch Show Print.

Hatch Show Print's storefront at their previous location on Lower Broadway in downtown Nashville, TN.

I began my career at this 130+ year old Nashville institution in 2006 after graduating from Maryville College with a BA in Fine Arts. I had a fair amount of experience in relief printing but none with letterpress. Hatch Show Print has a reputation for their intense and much sought after internship program. Eager to learn, I was invited by then Production Manager and all around illustration extraordinaire, Agnes Barton-Sabo to join the ranks.

Brad Vetter teaching a group of summer interns.

At Hatch Show Print there is no time to dip your toes in the inky pool of letterpress job printing. The internship program is designed so that the pool is instantly knee deep. Within the first few weeks interns are designing with type in hand, talking directly with clients, and rubbing elbows with some of the most talented letterpress printers and artists that I have ever known. My letterpress instructor, Brad Vetter, had already been working at Hatch for several years and was an expert designer and artist in his own right. He was responsible for training us interns so that we could gain hands-on practical experience in a fast-paced, high volume letterpress job-printing environment.

We worked fast at Hatch, almost too fast to capture on film.

At the time I started my internship, it was an unusual time of transition at Hatch. Several veterans of the Hatch empire had moved on to pursue other endeavors, and positions slowly became available. It was November when I found myself atop the 20ft rolling ladder putting away some of the larger type in the archive when I looked down to find the base of the ladder suddenly surrounded by the entire Hatch entourage. “We’ve given it some thought and want to know if you would be interested in working here.”

What do you say? “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll need to think about it.” NO. When offered your dream job, (especially when you’re precariously high off the ground) you say, “Seriously? Yes, absolutely!” Talk about climbing the ladder of success!

Our last staff photo before I left for Iowa in 2011. RIP, Huey the Hatch Cat.

That day started what would become over the next five years to be my most formative job experience to date. Had I not worked at Hatch, I doubt that I would have been introduced to bookbinding at all. I wouldn’t have discovered a desire to own my own business, and I certainly wouldn’t have applied to the UICB’s MFA program. It is now nine years after I started working at Hatch Show Print, and four years to the day since I received my acceptance letter for grad school. I am fortunate to count both of these institutions on my CV, and the next time I see a ladder, rest assured I’ll be on it, not under it. I’m no fool.

Everything must come from something.

Starting a business isn't supposed to be easy and I knew the challenges and obstacles that I would face as a self-employed, fledgling entrepreneur- or at least I knew of them, that they existed, and that they were many and formidable. Plugging along, I've come to find, is what I do best. My tendency to strive for perfection, to overanalyze, overthink, and do my best to avoid all error can be paralyzing and it's something that my MFA thesis committee at the University of Iowa Center for the Book did their very best to make me aware of and help me to begin to overcome during my final year of grad school. 

I know that I will make mistakes and that not all of my decisions will prove to be fruitful. I am an excellent counter. I love to number crunch material costs, cost per item, and production efficiency. Those things are calculable and fairly predictable. However, they are a safety blanket that can occasionally suffocate my productivity. Color combinations and material choices are something that I struggle with, at least I feel that I do, although some of my colleagues will probably disagree. Speculation as to how to price and market my books, and who may purchase them are another struggle. Technically you're only "self-employed" if you can generate enough revenue to support your needs and that of your enterprise, right?

My springback cutaway sampler, completed a few days before my show installation in early October.

Ultimately I am my harshest critic. This past month I have been simultaneously juggling new work for a gallery show, two separate production runs of springbacks, and preparing for my first bookbinding workshop in Two Rivers, Wisconsin at Hamilton's annual Wayzgoose conference. I must say the gallery show at Maryville College, my alma mater, looks amazing in pictures and has been well received. I look forward to seeing it in person later in the week at our closing reception. I am fully enjoying my production runs and while I am making many mistakes, they are accounted for and I am learning from them. You'd better believe I'm taking meticulous notes. And the workshop is an exciting beginning to the kind of bookbinding evangelism that I have been looking forward to since I began my MFA.

What I wasn't anticipating was the silence and the desire for distraction. The lack of patience and the self doubt. The questioning. The bird watching. The Woodwright's Shop. The Cheetos. And my bonsais.  

During my MFA interview I was told that most professional bookbinders work solo, that the majority of them were kindof quirky as a result. I can see now where the quirks could come into play. I talk more to my cats now than I do to people, at least on a daily basis. But to be fair after being away for three years we have a lot of catching up to do. I'm constantly talking to myself, my materials, and my tools- more often when they're not cooperating. And more than anything I am constantly under the impression that I should be farther along than I am, that I should already have commissions, a website, business cards, a logo, a well designed blog, a business plan, and income. And income.

As of yet I've done very little socializing and networking since I've been home, professional or personal. I am rediscovering Nashville again since it's grown so much while I've been away. I am getting used to my studio and making changes so that I can more easily work and store my materials and tools, and I am learning to work alone. It is a slow process of adjustment, one that I am fully committed to.

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My humble workspace.

I'm not sure where the inspiration came from. I now have three bonsais, two of which I started from saplings no more than a few inches tall, and one from seed. Another two, a dogwood and a persimmon, have yet to sprout. They sit in my window and I get to watch them grow day by day. The hackberry I started from seed is growing like a weed. It germinated in about two weeks and in less than a month is nearly as tall as my other two, a white oak, and a red maple. Even so, I am surprised at how impatient I am with them all, frustrated at how slowly they grow, but how happy I am when I can actually notice changes.

My pitiful hackberry seedling.

So long as I continue to nourish them, they will grow. The same goes for my business, I suppose. A cheesy metaphor I know, but it's true. It has only been a little over 5 months since I graduated, 2 months since my move, and I am still making the transition in a post graduate world, one that is perhaps more challenging since my job will only exist if I make it so. Perhaps the greatest advantage is knowing that I get to call the shots, and I get to do what I love. And all of these adjustments, we'll call those growing pains.

I left a lot of people behind in Iowa that I dearly miss. Colleagues, friends, mentors, professors, my entire social, educational, and professional safety net. But I knew that before I moved. And I am here now, and so long as I grow, my safety net, my social circle, and my success here in my hometown will grow concurrently. I haven't lost my Iowa friends either, just their immediacy. And I am reconnecting with my family as well as my Nashville and East Tennessee friends.

The growth of my business, this blog, my success, and my bonsais- all of it is a slow process. One that requires time, investment, and what I am hoping my bonsais will contribute above all else, patience.