Meet Kelsey

Last weekend I made a trip up to Madison, NH to visit a woman who was selling her Kelsey Excelsior 5x8 press after over 50 years. She had an enormous beautiful barn filled with lots of ancient treasures. I've been toying with the idea of purchasing my own letterpress for a while now (one much smaller than the ones I operate at work) and needless to say, when I saw what beautiful condition this little press was in, I couldn't turn it away.




This particular model is from 1893, so the fact that it still has all it's accessories is pretty amazing. It also came with 6 full drawers of type and one of the chases was still set up from the last thing that was printed in the 50's.



I'm just waiting on new rollers to be able to put her to full use.....Lastly, here is a photo of my little shop with it's newest addition:

Cats go to Market

I recently picked up an old picture book called The Cats go to Market, by Joan Cass and illustrated by William Stobbs. I've pretty much been obsessed by the illustrations in this book since I first saw it in the store 6 months ago. I believe it is circa 1969, which falls right into my favorite era of picture books.


The color separation is to die for!!!


My favorite part of the whole book is this black cat, which bears a striking resemblance to Julia's cat, Serif.





fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads...

Bless their patient little hearts...

I couldn't stop laughing the whole time I was drawing this. I'm thinking of a series based on these little guys. Who knows what will come of it.