Well, that was overstimulating

It took me about two weeks to recover from the delightful confluence of the Letterpress Printers Fair and TangoFest in the same weekend, both well-attended and full of art and improvisation.

Artists rolled out work all day long in the Print Make Share Challenge.

The crowd never ebbed; free Ninkasi beer helped.

I came away with these beauties from the print auction:

by Nicki Vance

by Diane Jacobs and her team

Here comes the Black Menace (another M word!)

This from the often info-apocryphal abyss of Wikipedia: "Cooper Black was advertised as being 'for far-sighted printers with near-sighted customers,' as well as 'the Black Menace' by detractors."

I've never been a huge fan of Cooper Black myself, but for the Em Space abecedarium I chose M and that big fat letter seemed to demand a big fat font. Luckily there were just enough Ms in the drawer to make my print. What a delight to find those brackets, too!

This ink-stained copy is all I have left after barely making the number required for the edition (26, of course). Check out this and the rest of the alphabet—all printed by Em Space members as a fundraiser for our facility—at Em Space itself (opening Oct. 5, and up for some weeks) and at the Letterpress Printers Fair at ADX on Oct. 13.