Okay, now here are they guys you'll see regularly at The Paper Studio. It really does take a village to run a studio. Now I'm actually the only one here "full time" which is
apx 80-
ish hours a week but these are key guys that are here throughout the week and help make the studio work. (I'll do a post on the key gals as well)
Gary is the co-founder and owner of the studio. The studio is really his 2nd full time job where gets to come after working all day to hang out with us in the evenings and weekends either teaching classes or running the shop. He is an accomplished bookbinder and photographer whose work has been exhibited throughout the state. Gary is a great collaborative partner in artwork whether as a subject or as an engineer. A huge 6' x 4' cyanotype image on silk organza, of Gary swimming in a full business suit was plastered all over Chicago during the Manifest Urban Artfest in 2004 and now swims in our classroom. (It took a lot of convincing to get him into that water the day before Christmas eve--what a good sport!) He gets to put his engineering skills to fine use with all the hairbrained installation schemes we seems to dream up at the studio or in our own artwork. Here's a pic of him printing--until recently he's only had time to move and fix the presses but I think he's got the printing bug now!
Mike is our letterpress guru. He teaches our letterpress classes and collaborates with us on our print jobs. He has been involved in letterpress printing since he was a teenager. He trained two years after high school to become a printer but a sudden career change found him as publisher of a community newspaper in Minnesota until he retired and moved to Arizona. He has a print shop at his home and has been active in letterpress printing, including publishing two books. He is a co-founder of a national letterpress group (founded in 1958), the
Amalgamated Printers' Association…an organization composed of letterpress printing enthusiasts—hobby printers,
typecasters and letterpress collectors. Mike has also started a way cool publication called
Galley Gab. What every you do, don't promise this man cake unless you mean it...he still holds it against us that we invited him to a birthday party and we
accidentally held the party earlier & ate all the cake before he got there...oops!
Adam is our photo and web guy who also is fine printer and bookbinder as well. Adam has a
BFA in photography from Arizona State University is a fabulous fine art photographer. See more of his work on
adamdraper.net. Besides helping us he also works with
KAET Channel 8 at Arizona State University. He's getting married this fall so we keep reminding him to get busy printing this invitations!
Matti
Matterson comes to work with me at least twice a week. You'll only see him on the web and never out in the shop because he is very, very shy. He sleeps on the shelf in the office or in the closet and chirps at birds out the window.
