Wandering Book Artists in Alabama

“You are doing what I have always wanted to do.”

“You are living my dream.”

“Can I have your life?”

Parked under the raining pink magnolia blossoms in Tuscaloosa, AL

We hear this sort of thing almost every day. Living your dream is nice work if you can get it. We are grateful for this opportunity to see the country traveling in our gypsy wagon. But, we want you to let you know that traveling as wandering book artists has its challenges too. Like yesterday morning, we were at Cloe's Cup Coffee shop using the internet, so engrossed in the mundane but necessary work we do every day on our computers (setting up the next stop on down the road, confirming workshop details, and sorting out the always challenging “where can we park the truck and gypsy wagon,”) that we forgot we were in a two-hour parking space and came out to find we had gotten a parking ticket. Darn. The good news was that it happened in Tuscaloosa where parking tickets are only  $15.

Office work at the cafe

On the first Thursday of the month there is an art walk in the quaint town of Northport, Alabama, just across the river from Tuscaloosa. Wandering around we found “The Southern Letterpress,”  new enterprise that is the result of Jessica Peterson and Bridget Elmer dreaming, risking, and working hard. The shop opened a few months ago in a "shotgun" building (it is about 6 feet wide and 100 feet long and used to be a gun repair shop). During the “Art Walk” visitors were invited to print a poem on the Vandercook press. The poet, Samuel Gray, was there, and he gave us an impromptu reading of the poem! Jessica does job printing, artful printing and sells letterpress printed cards and broadsides in the Northport shop, while Bridget works out of another branch of the shop in Saint Petersburg, Florida. We felt a real kinship to them running a business out of such a tiny little space.

The Southern Letterpress

From the back of the shop

Entranced by the colors in this mosaic at the Kentuck art plaza, Northport

In Tuscaloosa we talked to the letterpress and papermaking classes at the “Crimson Tide” University of Alabama. It is one of the few universities in the country that offer a MFA degree in Book Arts. We could see that the current students in the program are focused and hard working. Clearly that is a tradition here, as we have been impressed by the number of UA graduates that we have met teaching book arts teachers at other universities in the south. Those UA graduates are living their dream, sharing the book arts with their students. Hopefully they also find time to continue making their books too. Good job UA Book Arts!

Peter at the mini Hollander “cocktail” beater, before adding the red rags to make some “crimson tide” pulp in the parking lot at the U.

And another oops: Chewing into a cheese cube at the reception after his talk at Emory University Peter broke a bit of tooth off his molar and so had to find a dentist in a strange town. No big deal, but we’re showing you this just in case you think that wandering book artists somehow escape all the tribulations of life…..