Container Corps Blog

It's Summer

2010-06-21T12:42:00.000-07:00

At least in theory. Here's a bunch of stuff I've been meaning to make public.

Somebody interviewed me. Cool! Thanks to the good folks at the new print culture blog Bangback for a chance to blather. I'm psyched about their blog.

New in the shop are the wonderful offerings of my friend Rafael's cassette label, Eggy Records. Just look at those tapes. You know they have to sound good. He puts out stuff from Portland bands like Mattress, The Woolen Men, Orca Team and stuff I don't even know where its from like Street Gnar and Jovovontaes. And an amazing tape from the 70's by Turkish singer-songwriter Selda Bağcan. $5 a pop people.

There's a fresh batch of xylobooks available in the shop and on the website. This time around the species are (from left to right) Oregon Bigleaf Maple, Eastern Walnut, Western Walnut, Douglas Fir, Oregon White Oak, and Cherry. As always, the wood is reclaimed and sustainably harvested to begin with. You can also get em at Canoe downtown, Paper-Ya if you're in Vancouver BC, and a fancy resort called Bardessono in southern California. Strange but true.

The Disappearing Book

2010-05-01T18:33:00.000-07:00

Damn, April turned out to be a busy month at Container Corps. Thanks to everyone who came to our release party for The Disappearing Book this past thursday.It was, according to the Mercury, one of the two things to do on thursday night! Here's some photos. And a special thanks to Ninkasi Brewing for providing the sweet sweet beer with which we toasted the release.

If This Is You, Please Don't Sue

2010-03-26T17:06:00.001-07:00

We had our opening for Nick Abraham's book release and art show at the gallery last night. It was our first of many such events, and it went great! Thanks to everyone who made it out to the shop. The show will be up until late April, so come by and check out the awesome original drawings by Nick, and see the zine we made together.

We're also really excited about next month's release, The Disappearing Book. We're making it in collaboration with amazing artist Melody Owen. In it, a group of artists working in all sorts of disciplines respond to a species of animal that is on the verge of extinction.

2010-02-26T18:46:00.000-08:00

Here's some new posters we printed, and will soon be polluting your visual landscape. We wanted to make some public service announcements. In tiny letters at the bottom, they say "Container Corps is an arts press and gallery. Accepting submissions for artists books, literature, and other projects" so they're also a call for submissions.

We believe publication should be more accessible to up-and-coming artists and authors working in the avant garde edges of culture. By operating as a press in the medieval sense (one shop housing editorial, design, printing and binding), we are able to avoid the inefficiencies of corporate publishing and produce truly radical publications. Anyone and everyone interested in arts publications is welcome to submit drawings, paintings, portfolios, stories, photographs, designs, and other project ideas.

Firepower

2010-01-30T12:53:00.000-08:00

So I was looking around on ebay for a machine to speed up saddle stitching at the shop. I found a nice-looking little foot pedal electric stapler going for cheap. I put in my high bid (more than I wanted to spend, but ebay always does that to me) and I lost in the last possible second. This always happens to me. Flood of adrenaline, then a big spiraling letdown. I hate ebay.

Just as I was equating this ebay loss with the failure of my business and my eventual homelessness, jordan called up and, in one of those miracles he's often conjuring, told me there was a nice looking saddle sticher on Craigslist for 20 bucks. I was skeptical. I took a look, and boy oh boy, I was floored! The kind folks over at Pinball Publishing were offloading the most bad-ass piece heavy artillery in the war against loose pages. A vintage Acme Model 706 heavy-duty saddleback stitcher. 100 pounds of cast iron, foot pedaled, book stapling dominance. Zines quiver in its shadow. And the best part? Pinball parted with it for free. What are the chances? Thanks Pinball! Thanks Jordan! Thanks Adam, for the ride!

Thanks

2010-01-10T19:08:00.000-08:00

Just a brief and belated note to say thanks to everyone who made it out to the opening last month. It was a last minute switch-up to have the party before the holidays, so I really appreciate everyone making time to come see the shop, hang out, and raise a glass. See, you know its an art gallery because of the Trader Joe's cheese and 2 dollar charles. I had been waiting to post this until I found some photos of the night, but, it seems like no photos exist. It shall live on only in our memories. Maybe it never even happened.

I had a vague plan to make a speech at some point in the night (DORKY) but, thankfully, I never got a good chance. So I'd also thank some people and institutions without whom Container Corps would never have happened. First and foremost, I want to thank Paula Savoca and her family for trusting me with the equipment that made this whole thing possible. Thanks to the Celebration Foundation, the Regional Arts and Culture Council, and MercyCorps NW for helping me with much needed funding. Thanks to Jordan for countless hours helping me get the space fixed up and also endless supplies of moral support. Thanks to Lizi for lending me her car pretty much whenever I ask. And finally to all my family and friends for putting up with my endless yattering about this project, thank you much.

Publication Fair

2009-12-15T20:08:00.000-08:00

The Publication Studio and the Ace Hotel Portland are putting on a publication fair this Sunday, December 20 at the Cleaners. I am honored that Container Corps was invited to participate. Come down and see what we've been working on for the past months. And say hello to Jordan and Joanna, my helpers for the day and the best friends I could ask for. I'm really bummed that I can't make it but you'll have a good time anyway.

Studio light fixtures

2009-11-20T23:38:00.001-08:00

Self-Design

2009-11-20T17:53:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, I started this press because I wasn't satisfied with my role as a designer. I wanted to make things, with my hands, and graphic designers rarely get to do that. Since the Industrial Revolution, people don't make much of anything they use on a daily basis. If you need something, you just go out and buy it. One result of this is that the actions of manufacture, of making useful objects, seems like something completely outside of our daily experience. It seems like the objects we use need to be produced in a factory, far removed from the place where the objects are used and lived with. The usual reaction when I tell people that I bind books is one of disbelief. It seems completely foreign to most people that a person, not a factory, can produce a book.

Of course my press isn't the first project to question the absence of making in everyday life. It has been something designers have been pondering continuously since the Industrial Revolution created their occupation. Enzo Mari did it in 1974 with a suite of furniture he designed called Autoprogettazione (roughly, "self-design"). You couldn't buy this furniture. Rather, simple plans to make it were given away, and you had to make it yourself. It was designed to be simple to make from readily available raw materials, namely wooden planks. There's no complicated joints, only straight cuts, and everything is held together with nails. By going through the process of making this furniture, Mari hoped to demystify the manufactured object and bring the making of useful things from raw materials back into the realm of everyday life. He wanted people, in a small way, to work through the considerations that he had to when designing furniture, and that manufacturers did when producing it.

So when I needed furniture for the studio, it only seemed natural to take part in Mari's kindred experiment and make my own Autoprogettazione pieces.

I made a desk, chair, and shelf unit. They're made almost entirely of salvaged fir 1 × 2 that I found at the Rebuilding Center, a fantastic source for reclaimed and deconstructed building supplies here in Portland. So besides being philosophically appropriate, this furniture is cheap. I spent about 30 bucks on lumber, 20 of which went into the non-salvage cedar fence boards that make up the desktop and shelves. It was also fast. Me and Jordan banged the desk together in a couple hours. I made a few adjustments to Mari's designs (which, coincidentally, he considers an integral part of the process of making this furniture). Probably the most blatant was to reinforce the connections in the base of the chair by replacing the prescribed nails with 1/2 inch oak dowels. I was worried about the chair falling apart.

2009-11-09T13:40:00.000-08:00

My neighboor at the new shop is the proprietor of one of those idiosyncratic Portland institutions, the perpetual garage sale. A lot of these places have a specialty, and this guy's niche seemed to be animated plush. You know, christmas trees that sing, mounted fish that sing, rock and roll flowers, slowly writhing baby dolls, that sort of thing. He gets really excited about them and eagerly turns them on for you as you pass them on the makeshift shelves, saying things like, "Check this out... would you look at that?"

Sadly, he's moving out, and he's been slowly expunging the three car garage of all his wares over the past weeks. Lately he's been leaving the last of the stuff on the sidewalk, hoping it disappears overnight. It makes sense, he had a ton of stuff in there. So I went to the shop the other night and lo and behold, he had left behind a pair of Eames shell armchairs. They were in rough shape, the red naugahyde upholstery ripped up and the foam underneath soaked with rain and black mold. Also, at some point someone decided to spray paint the back of the chairs in velveeta orange. Thus began my weekend project.

The upholstery came off easy enough but underneath was what the Eames office called foam-in-place. After the upholstery was on the chairs, holes were drilled in the bottom of the shells and latex foam was sprayed inside, filling up the space between the fiberglass and the naugahyde. Its nasty stuff. I scraped off as much of it as I could with my hands, then used CitriStrip to soften the gluey stuff that was left sticking to the chair. It says on the label that CitriStrip can be used to get rid of epoxy, so I was a little worried that it would destroy the fiberglass. I waited just long enough for the glue to soften and then started scraping, then scrubbing with 0000 steel wool. It worked, but it wasn't easy. The spraypaint yielded more easily to the stripper. There was definitely an epoxy-ish smell coming off the shells after I sprayed the stripper on, but the fiberglass seems totally unfazed. Anyway, here's the after shot.

From what I've learned the color is called "parchment" and the bases were known as the "contract base." I've read that foam-in-place shell chairs came after they stopped using rubber shockmounts to mount the bases on, but these chairs have shockmounts. I thought at first that they were from the 70's but maybe they're earlier.

BEFORE...

2009-10-14T16:50:00.000-07:00

Exciting news! After searching for almost 3 months, and negotiating a lease for 2, I finally found the perfect space and have started on the buildout. Here's some pictures of the space as it came. Consider these the before shots.

Outside the shop. The owners (great guys) got some grant money from the Portland Development Commission to improve these storefronts. We're working on those changes, but for now I'm concentrating on the inside.

The tree in the foreground is growing in one of those nifty rain swale curbs the city has been putting in. The curb bulges out into the streetside parking area to encompass a parking-spot-sized planter. As rainwater runs down the street, it flows into drains on the curb and down into the swale. They are planted with different species that can actually digest the chemicals and nasty junk in the runoff before it seeps into the groundwater. Secondary benefit: a garden replaces a parking spot.

This front area is going to be the gallery and showroom. Where people can come in, look at books, buy stuff. Every publication is going to be launched with an event, be it a reading, art show, performance. This is where a lot of those are going to happen.

This kneewall divides the space nicely. The back two-thirds is the workshop area. As you can see, most of my equipment is moved in. I have to thank my boyfriend Jordan, my friend Justin, and my sister Lizi for helping me with the move. The press alone weighs about 2500 lbs. Its a beast. I'm sure there are professional movers who eat this kind of thing for breakfast, but we're DIY. The move was hard, but without major incident. Thanks again guys.

A shot of the press. She's a beaut, huh? In the back, the guillotine, another beast.

On Storefronts

2009-10-07T17:20:00.000-07:00

I've been looking for a place for this press to occupy for what seems like forever. In actuality, its been about two and a half months of city-wide scouting missions on my bike and Craigslist scouring. Why it's taking so long is the fact that I'm looking for a bit of a needle-in-the-haystack type place. Specifically, a storefront, less than 500 square feet, in a primarily residential neighborhood.

This, I'm finding out, isn't normal. Most design studios and publishers, small or large, occupy office space, of which there is seemingly endless square feet to be had in this and many cities. Most printers, meanwhile, build their shops in the more industrial edges of cities. Both offices and industrial zones are, by their definition, out of the realm of general public life. You have to know where to go, maybe make a special trip, to get there. Christopher Alexander of the Center for Environmental Structure has a lot of good things to say about a lot of things, so I'll quote him,

"In modern times almost all cities create zones for "work" and other zones for "living" and in most cases enforce the separation by law. Two reasons are given for the separation. First, the work places need to be near each other, for commercial reasons. Second, workplaces destroy the quiet and safety of residential neighborhoods. But this separation creates enormous rifts in people's emotional lives… [It] reinforces the idea that work is a toil, while only family life is "living"—a schizophrenic view which creates tremendous problems for all the members of a family. In order to overcome this schism and re-establish the connection between love and work, central to a sane society, there needs to be a redistribution of all workplaces throughout the areas where people live…"

I want my shop to be a part of the everyday life of wherever it ends up being. This weird little studio, producing goodness-knows-what, next to the drug store, the grocery, and the record shop. Again, Alexander:

"…We imagine a society in which work and family are far more intermingled than today; a society in which people—businessmen, artists, craftsmen, shopkeepers, professionals—work for themselves, alone and in small groups, with much more relation to their immediate surroundings than they have today. …In the case of the workshop, the public nature of the work is especially valuable. It brings the workshop out of the realm of backyard hobbies and into the public domain. The people working there have a view of the street; they are exposed to the people passing by. And the people passing learn something about the nature of the community. The children especially are enlivened by this contact. And according to the nature of the work, the public connection takes the form of a shopfront, a driveway for loading and unloading materials, a work bench in the open, a small meeting room…We therefore advocate provision for a substantial workshop with all the character of a real workplace and some degree of connection to the public street: at least a glancing connection so that people can see in and out; and perhaps a full connection, like an open shop front."

In this way, my shop and others like it add to their neighboorhood's sense what is possible. And that is something that seems to me to be sorely lacking in communities these days.

Here's what happened

2009-10-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

During design school, I realized that I was going to be a book designer. As a vocation, book design combines my dual interests in graphic design and architecture. I imagine a book to be a tiny building whose rooms are pages. The reader, using hands and eyes, visits the book and travels through it in whatever way suits their purpose. Some books are to be strolled through, others purposefully navigated. If the book is designed well, the reader will enjoy their visit, get what they came for, and maybe even want to come back, or move in.

Another way I think of books are as containers of culture. It seems weird, but old-fashioned books are the most durable mass-information storage media we've come up with. Compare books to digital media, and there's no match. For books, no one ever has to change the batteries or keep the electricity on. Dust and magnetism aren't a problem, nor is obsolescence, that perpetually looming threat. What if Macbeth had been a Kindle Exclusive E-Book? Or if Plato's dialogs were stored only on ancient 5.5 inch floppy disks? The point is that if you think whatever it is that you've got to say deserves to last, so that it can be communicated through time, you had better get it printed and bound into a book. We live in a time when it seems to a lot of really smart people like the right thing to do is ditch printing as a relic and fully embrace digital publishing as the new way to do things. But if human culture is a product of language and a result of its transmission through time and space, then this seems to be, to put it mildly, a bad idea.

Something else I realized about myself in school is that my ideal practice is a craft-based one. I use the word craft only insofar as it means a combined activity of designing and manufacturing. If I'm going to be making books, I want to be involved in the whole manufacturing process. And why not? That's the way it used to be done when printing was invented. A "Press" was a shop that combined the intellectual, white-collar editorial aspects of publishing (finding work to publish, editing it, designing it, and funding its production) with strenuous, blue-collar manufacturing that is now the domain of a distinct printing industry. But what's a book "crafter" to do without a printing press? Bide his time, and learn. Which is what I've been doing until recently, when an unemployed press that had belonged to a family friend who passed away found its way into my life, and I poured all my energy into starting this business.

Container Corps is a double experiment, one cultural, the other socio-economic. The first experiment asks: what place does printing have left in our culture? What can it do that other media cannot? What would we lose if it were to disappear? The second experiment asks: what has been lost or gained by the separation of the industries of publishing and printing? Can a press, in the word's original sense, be a viable business today? What can it do that large corporate publishing houses cannot, and vice versa? What are the rewards and hardships of a practice that combines design with manufacture, the publisher with the pressman and the binder? I'm going to find good work, design it with respect, replicate it in a durable way, throw it out into the world and see what happens.

Hello

2009-09-06T20:53:00.001-07:00

If you're interested in this sort of thing, I'm going to be using this space, for the time being, to document the process of starting Container Corps. I say starting, but really I began working on this idea five years ago, when it was my thesis at Parsons. And its taken 5 years of learning, negotiating, persuading, swindling, borrowing, and... uh... grant writing to take this idea as far as it has come. Right now I'm looking for a studio space to rent. Once I find the right one, the real work begins. Also, I'll have a party