Artisphere 2012 The Print Factory

On the Main St. Bridge, Mark had the patience to wait while I stood in line to make a free print at the

Print City Team, Wheelock left and Burnip right from Kansas, MO

Kansas, MO based Print City, part of  Creative Concepts an enterprising team which evolved from three founding members of C&C, Jesse McAfee, Zach Springer, and Will Burnip, who met while studying at the Kansas City Art Institute. Creative Concepts believes in traditions, building and practice and one way they put their money where their mouths are in the art intervention known as the Mobile Print Factory. Shown in this photo from the 2011 Maker Fair depicting a similar setup which we were lucky to have on hand in Greenville. The two artists in aprons in the foreground, Will Burnip and Cory Wheelock, were helping us use the press. All the presses and tools are handmade by the print shop techs, as well as the carts, crates and backpacks designed to use or transport to various cities around the country. .

Wow, they let us print out own piece of art!!!  Not completely our own, afterall the woodblocks were already carved by artists and donated to Print City. I chose a long horizontal city scape carved by Will Burnip, then another print shop tech/artist inked it with black ink. Wheelock placed it gingerly on the lovely heavy textured paper (already signed by Will on the back) and inserted it between two layers of foam. I was invited to turn the wheel to roll the paper and woodblock through a press made by a machinery student who built it for his senior project and voila out came my print!!  I want a roller press now!!  But I have to be practical with my arthritis, lack of carving talent or precision, I doubt I'd ever be able to carve wood blocks or maybe even lino blocks. But what fun it was for a person who is addicted to presses. Those who know me, are aware of how nuts I go - to the point I bought a 1920's flat press weighing 90 lbs and had it hand delivered by my friend Donna from the wilds of New Hampshire, to use when I published poetry chapbooks with Shadow Archer Press, which leads me to another story...
 

Artisphere 2012 part 1 Jullie and Kent

I made it out today, after a few weeks of having to take it easy and read or spend time with my granddaughter due to flare ups in my arthritis and what a great day it was.  I met Mark downtown (Greenville, SC) for the Farmer's Flea Market where we enjoyed West End Coffee, homemade apple coconut bars and more, and strolled through the booths salivating over the displays of gorgeous vegetables and fruit and tasting goat cheese, salsas, breads and more.  I could have filled my bag with goodies, but didn't want to carry much since our next stop was only a few steps away to the massive annual Artisphere festival.  Artists, bookmakers, potters, ironmongers, printers, photographers, fiber artists, jewelers and more were on display and this was the best festival ever since so many local artists had booths or were doing Art in Action along the Main St. Bridge, including Ryan Calloway from Creative Ironworks along with glass blowers, and my absolute favorite part a print shop from Kansas!  It was great to see Julie Shakbie Hughes (photo by Patrick Cox), a nationally known impressionist artist and good friend who has a studio in the Pendleton Street Arts District right down the street in the West End, from where I lived in my art studio at the Village Studios and Gallery - Boy do I miss those days!  I'm lucky enough to own one of Julie's incredible figure drawings and this time she had many of her cyclist paintings on display, since this is a cyclists town. Kent Ambler was also there with his woodblock prints which are such a feature of the Greenville art scene.  He had a great book on display on how he completes each woodcut then creates the prints but he only has one copy!!  I talked to him about the company which produces art books the way Amazon's Create a Space produces novels and non fiction books, so hopefully he'll look into it because I'd love a copy of this stunning informative book. 

Steampunk story to finally be published!

This has to be the longest time period I've ever experienced to see one of my short stories published. May 10,2010 submitted a 6,700 short story called , The Foxglove Broadsides to a steampunk anthology title Clockwork Chaos which I found on Duotrope.  Granted it was a long short story, but that's what the guidelines asked for from the Library Of The Living Dead Press. a small press which publishes novels and anthologies and the cover art was above the level and highly creative and professional in comparison to many other horror publishers.
 Now maybe I should have noticed that this press published mostly horror, even though they have a Library of Science Fiction imprint under their overall banner. But they seemed to be branching out. I took the chance. It was a long short story even for some anthologies.

On October 25, 2010, (148 days) I heard from Neal Levin, the editor, that my story had been accepted for publication if I was okay with his edits and that a contract would be forthcoming from the publisher.  I was very excited, since this would be my first published steampunk story to add to my collection of steampunk items, which included a number of items I had made (and sold or given as gifts or prizes or auction fund-raisers) which included steampunk journals, beeswax collages, mini albums and that's not counting my steampunk costumes and gear which I wear to cons and local steampunk events.
This was maybe a little longer than the average of acceptance times I experienced from magazines, but pretty much within the range of time period for acceptances from anthologies. (For example, Ocean Stories Anthology took over a year to reject one of my stories, although it had been selected after the first cut to go further through a committee of editors.)
But then I didn't hear anything for months from the Library Of The Living Dead Press .
All the posts and notices on the Library Of The Living Dead Press site's forum, in a section devoted  to the Clockwork Chaos anthology, had stopped. There were no responses to those who submitted stories and were accepted for inclusion in the steampunk anthology.  Needless to say, this was disheartening to me, but I  imagine how crushed a new author would be, who might have had their first short story accepted.

I finally contacted Neal in March of 2011 to see if he'd heard anything from the publisher.  But unfortunately he hadn't,  but he'd been trying to contact them. As an editor for Fissure Magazine, (which featured a special steampunk issue,) I knew how much time Neal, (who is a game designer and author in NJ)  had already spent in reading the many submissions an anthology receives, in editing the acceptances, and then the time spent in emailing all authors as well as the publisher.  I felt for him at this point, because he was stuck in the middle, most likely not to get paid for his efforts and time, and may have had a number of authors ticked off at him.  I wasn't because I knew the precarious situation he had been placed in, having to act as liaison when the publisher was AWOL. 
Neil wrote me back immediately to inform me that he had not heard anything from the publisher either but since he was attending the Steampunk World's Fair, he was going to see if he could find another indie publisher, or perhaps even publish the work under his own press, Dark Quest Books.
On April  24, 2012, nearly two years after submission, I received a very nice email form Neal asking if I wanted my story to still be included in the Clockwork Chaos anthology.  I was delighted.  He had gone to all the trouble to find another indie press to publish the anthology.  Now that's a dedicated editor to work on a project for nearly two years.
Since I've been quite slack in submitting short stories as I work a highly demanding full time job as a rehab support specialist for individuals who have suffered severe brain and spinal chord injuries, I have little spare time, So I  focus on my uncompleted novels, or those which need an edit, I haven't submitted much in the past 12 months.  So, my short story,  Foxglove Broadsides, still hung around in the unpublished pile. I had given up on the anthology and gone on to other projects.Neil didn't mention the name of the press or a publication date.  I imagine he is now having to contact all the authors who received acceptances to see if their stories are still unpublished and available.
If I had the ability to give an award to Neal for Most Dedicated Editor, I would.  This is service beyond the normal duties of an editor who also has a demanding full time job.