Blog – Campbell Raw Press

“…Often he bid me come and have a look
Up the brass barrel, velvet black inside,
At a star quaking in the other end.
I recollect a night of broken clouds
And underfoot snow melted down to ice,
And melting further in the wind to mud.
Bradford and I had out the telescope.
We spread our two legs as it spread its three,
Pointed our thoughts the way we pointed it,
And standing at our leisure till the day broke,
Said some of the best things we ever said.
That telescope was christened the Star-Splitter,
Because it didn’t do a thing but split
A star in two or three the way you split
A globule of quicksilver in your hand
With one stroke of your finger in the middle.
It’s a star-splitter if there ever was one,
And ought to do some good if splitting stars
‘Sa thing to be compared with splitting wood. …”

–from Robert Frost's "The Star-Splitter"

The tiniest detail of one project I’ve been developing these last few weeks

January 4, 2012
There’s a trend going on around here: every year is somehow exponentially faster than the one before. If I had to guess, it has something to do with being in our 30s and having a toddler; we’ll have to check back each decade, when years feel like days, if that trend is any indication…

2011 was the first year things really felt like they jelled. I often find myself explaining that I’m essentially in self-imposed design school, a total trial by fire. I sit down and draw as much as time allows, get ideas out of my head and onto paper, make new contacts whenever possible, and anchor my work in some key (not always visible and obvious, but present) quotations that I refer to when I find myself straying from the path a bit. I feel lucky, but I know that I worked hard to get myself where I am.

And now, I have a list of ideas that are just waiting to be executed…it should only take me about 17 years to get to all of them.

Matt and Charlotte and I chased the moon around the sky all year and noted its phase and arc each time we caught sight of it. 2012 promises to bring wonderful opportunities and new developments, and while I’m wistful for the sweetness of the last year, I know (from all of you parents who have reassured me that it’s so) that it only gets sweeter.

February 1, 2012
This time of year you can see the stars in Brooklyn when it’s clear. I know right where to look for Orion as I make my near-nightly trips to the studio to print. Moon almost directly overhead, Orion straight above, just over the roofs of Prospect Place, throwing a leg up and over just like in Frost’s “The Star-Splitter”.

Finding center means looking out into the dark and not down at these feet that carry me and carry me. Looking up as high as I can, like I’m in some European cathedral, marveling at the detail above. Just finding a few guiding lights to follow, above all this brightness and noise.

February 9, 2012
If you still haven’t gotten enough Campbell Raw Press and my musings, the delightful Chandra Greer of Greer Chicago (one of our illustrious retailers!) just presented an interview with me on Felt & Wire. Enjoy!