Weekend Update: Memorial Day

Weekends always start out better with the prospect of an extra day, and us lucky interns got Memorial Day off! Friday has seemed to become 'Hatch shirt' day, and John wore his too.

Lovely People

From left to right: Annie (intern), Brad (Intern Sensai), Laura (intern-on press)

The best part about working at Hatch thus far (aside from the amazing historical significance and all of the awesome old stuff) is the awesome people. Everyone is super friendly and fun to be around, and I've had a blast working with them every day.

Two weeks in, four weeks out

There's nothing that makes you homesick for Oakland quite like seeing a suburban on blocks in the parking lot on Monday morning. Who knew people loved rims in Nashville as much as they did in Oakland?

In other news, we've started to design our own posters! It's really awesome that we get to create things so soon, and I'm loving working in the shop. Brad is a great design mentor, and I'm learning a lot about design on top of learning a lot about letterpress.

I've been revolving around these colors for the jobs I'm working on (I'll post them when they're totally finished so you can see the process from beginning to end). Pastel primaries and browns, maybe it's spring fever?

Every Tuesday night this restaurant/bar in East Nashville called the Family Wash has Pint and Pie night for $10! We got delicious Shepard's Pies, covered in melted cheddar cheese. YUM!

Also, I can't believe its almost the end of my second week! These next few weeks will fly by, I'm sure. I need to find something to do in the evenings other than spend money. So far John and I have been watching too much TV, and browsing the internet tubes. I think I need some kind of art project to keep me busy, something that I can do with very limited supplies. Any suggestions?

Weekend Update: Fairs and Fleas

This weekend was pretty awesome, as weekends go. Our intern leader (Brad) invited everyone to his house on Friday night for a Taco party, and we got to drool over his amazing studio setup and adorably decorated house. This is his tiny treadle press, JEALOUS!

Recap: Week One

I can't believe my first week at Hatch is already over! I thought six weeks would be a long time, but now that there's only five left it feels like it's going to fly by.

Brad took us up to the 'archives' this week, which is actually just a bunch of boxes stacked on the floor. Someone needs to buy these people some shelves!

Process: Painted Coffee

This week we got to work on our first print! It's amazing that we're able to print already, and we started with a pretty easy and fun project. Most of the stuff in the shop is from the late 1800's/early 1900's, including these two 'coffee' linocuts. They may have been used to advertise some specific brand in the past, but now Hatch prints them as artwork to be sold in the shop.

Process: Imogen Heap

This week, Brad has been working on printing a poster for Imogen Heap, a musician who will be performing at the Ryman in June. It was nice to see how he designs and prints a poster from beginning to end, something we will all be doing shortly!

This is Brad's "Proof" which he sent to the Ryman for approval. Instead of printing a proof on the press, they brayer the type with ink and print it on tracing paper (by rubbing the back of the paper with their hands), so they can photocopy it at kinko's and shrink it down to 8.5x11 to fax to the client. To keep the ink dry, they cover it with cornstarch after printing it.