The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) is one of my favorite archive-adjacent organizations. They offer affordable and useful programing related to small museums and history-related organizations, and hold an annual conference as well. They have an online workshop on October 20, 2026 that delves into a subject I have found comes up with every client — whether an individual artist, artist estate, or a heritage organization — getting rid of stuff that you don’t need.
Registration link
Collections Inventory 101 webinar
For the past 6 months I have been working with the team at X Gallery Art and Oregon Heritage to create a guide and workbook about the inventory process, specifically designed for small Oregon Heritage Organizations. It’s been a good challenge to break down the steps and the thinking behind each inventory project, building on the work I do with individual artists.The guide is now under review for design and a future online release, but as a final step in this project I will be contributing to a webinar about inventory “Collections Inventory 101: Planning a Collections Inventory Project” on October 27, 2026. It’s free, register on the Oregon Heritage site.
The Fiddler Book Release Event
We’re excited for the official release celebration of The Fiddler, a short story by Herman Melville, which was printed under our Craft Printing House imprint with type cast at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry. Join us at Mother Foucault’s Bookshop on Wednesday, September 23 at 6:30pm. The book release includes fiddle music by Dave Mount and a reading by members of “Call Me Herman: A Melville Book Club.” Chapbooks will be available for purchase at the event or on the C.C. Stern Type Foundry marketplace.
Arion Press Craft Talk “From Zines To Metal: Building Community Around Print”
I’m pleased to be speaking with Brian Bagdonas as part of the Arion Press Craft Talk series at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, CA on the eve of “Type High Day.” As printers inspired by the traditions and culture of craft printing and by the DIY punk ethos of the 1990s, we will discuss our personal paths through print – from zine making to commercial printing and hot metal typecasting.
Thursday Sept. 17, 2026
6:30-7:30pm
Fort Mason, Bayfront Theatre, Building B
San Francisco, CA
Thank you to Brian Ferrett, Sienna McCulley and the team at M&H Type and Arion Press for arranging this opportunity.
enough of enough!
When we had our CAWZ (Club About Websites and Zines) meeting this month, just before “summer break”, I declared that I still hadn’t released the last three zines from the 2025 enough! zine project and mused aloud about how to complete it. I have a hard time not following through on what I said I’d do, even if it’s something I just promised to myself, and this project sticks out as a failure in that regard. My club-mate, Erin Yanke, wisely suggested that I post my zines-in-progress and call that the completion. So, I’m doing that. Here are images of Oct, Nov, and Dec 2025 zine pages as they exist today.
If you are interested in the podcasts, music, audiobooks, books, movies and authoritarianism I ingested while living in America I’m happy to send you a list upon request. I can also share the critters, mail, and outdoor/garden adventures that I appreciated.
Notecard collaboration
Letterpress, hand-set metal type
Linocut illustrations by Tracy Prescott MacGregor
4" x 6" folded
This collaboration with local farmer and animator/illustrator, Tracy Prescott MacGregor, was one we’d been ruminating on for nearly a year, but came together quickly for a small run of greeting cards that we have available at the local Clatskanie Food Hub.
Type is Monotype 18pt Kennerley 268 (cast at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry), and ATF 14pt Spartan Medium (from the case). Copyright credits printed on back of card.
Artist Legacy Work on Film
This film series presented at Anthology Film Archives in New York City looks to be an interesting one for artists and their legacy keepers. Starting on May 29 and running for 5 days, the series features a recently completed film, Woman in the Sky (2025) paired with Problemista on opening night. Other films included: A Photographic Memory (2025), Flying Lessons (2024), Art for Everybody (2023), Ho‘oulu Hou (2022), All the World’s Memory (1956), A Revolution on Canvas (2023), To Live in June with Your Tongue Hanging Out (2018), Paint Me a Road Out of Here (2024). Short films: Alix’s Pictures (1980), Toute la memoire du monde (1956), An Amplification Through Many Minds (2019), and Your Giorgio (2018).
Find out more and get tickets for this in-person screening series
2026 Raymond Carver Writing Festival is May 9th
It’s time for the annual Raymond Carver Writing Festival in Clatskanie, Oregon, the birthplace of Raymond Carver! We’ve been busy at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry and Craft Printing House, casting type and printing bookmarks, keepsake posters, and “Steal Time to Write” writing prompts. Check out the full schedule of (free) events on the new festival website.
April is National Poetry Month!
For the last few months we’ve been working hard on a new poetry postcard subscription program, coordinated by the C.C. Stern Type Foundry. The promotional materials alone were fun to cast type for, a mixture of Linotype and Monotype composition. And now the project has launched! The first cards went out to subscribers a couple days ago, but it’s not too late to sign up yourself. Each month for a year a new poem will get cast and letterpress printed, so if you join after the April launch, we’ll send you the previous cards (the “back issues”) with your first month’s card.
Subscribe on the C.C. Stern Type Foundry website marketplace.
Announcing the publication of The Fiddler by Herman Melville
Letterpress, metal type (Monotype composition, Linotype and Ludlow decorative material)
Dimensions: 6” h x 4” w
I’m pleased that this chapbook is finally complete and out in the world. The Fiddler is one of Herman Melville's lesser-known short stories originally published anonymously in the years following the completion of Moby Dick. The chapbook is printed on Mohawk Superfine text weight paper. An edition of 26 lettered copies are bound in red and yellow book cloth on board. An edition of 100 are numbered and hand-stitched in Mohawk Carnival paper covers with Colorplan 270gsm turquoise wraps. The type is 8 point Monotype Bodoni 175 cast using a Welliver interface connected to a Lanston Monotype Composition Caster. The titling is 18 point Monotype DeVinne 11 cast on a Lanston Monotype Sorts Caster. Decorative border and ornamentation cast on a Linotype Model 31 and a Ludlow Typograph. All casting was accomplished at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry. Printed at Craft Printing House. Bound with guidance and assistance from Jules Remedios Faye.
Photo courtesy of Marie Watt Studio
Printing Circle with Marie Watt at UMFA
I have the honor of joining Marie Watt and members of her studio team at the Utah Museum of Fine Art this coming weekend for the opening of their installation of Storywork: The Prints of Marie Watt. On February 21, we’ll be hosting a hands-on printing activity (printing circle) with members of the public as part of the exhibit kick-off. Participants will be guided in the process of making simple word-based card stock relief printing plates, and then have the opportunity to create pressure prints in the museum classroom. Duplicates of the resulting prints are sometimes used in future artwork, a variation of Marie’s practice of making patchwork textile tapestries drawn from multiple sewing circles. You can see an example of the use of pressure prints from printing circles in the piece Companion Species (Passage).
CODEX Book Art Fair: Feb 2026
I’ll be part of the team representing the C.C. Stern Type Foundry at the CODEX Book Art Fair February 7-10 this year, exhibiting alongside type casting peers and heroes of the printing craft. The table will be stocked with a selection of broadsides, chapbooks and prints. Look for a chance to purchase rare final inventory from Stern & Faye, Printers alongside new work produced by the C.C. Stern Type Foundry community (Peasandcues Press, fiddleink, Craft Printing House). Stop by to browse and say hello!
Guild Card
Letterpress, Monotype hand-set metal type
2.5" x 3.5"
The C.C. Stern Type Foundry issues new cards annually to supporters who donate to the organization. Each guild card is printed in a small edition.
Type is recently cast hand-set Monotype 10pt. Bulmer 462 and 18pt. Bulmer Italic cast in 2003 at Monotype University. The ornaments were recently unearthed in a reorganization of the galleys in the print shop and appear to be rarely used American Type Foundry BI1056 and BI1055 (reference is the Monotype Corporation Fleurons broadside). Unfortunately, I don’t recall where or when we procured this sweet little box of ornamental border material.
The Point v.6
The Point Volume 6 is out in the mail as of today! Cast primarily in 10pt Bulmer 462 on the Monotype Composition caster, with classifieds composed on the Linotype in 8pt Spartan Heavy. This annual newsletter for the C.C. Stern Type Foundry is 10 pages, folded to a 4” x 6” finished size. Available for donors to the Foundry at the Printer’s Devil level and above. This year all the lower case e’s were just fine. In fact, the Bulmer matrices seem to be in great shape.
r.i.p. pica the cat
This week we buried Pica, a small cat with a big personality. She never really took to the print shop, made morning coffee, or learned to collect the mail … but she was still a great friend to us and will be missed.
Typesetter's T-Shirts
I recently unearthed a box of these t-shirts from over a decade ago! Shirts are made in America, screen printed in Portland from a clean proof of wood type. Sales benefit the programming at C.C. Stern Type Foundry. Buy one here.
P.S. The lovely model is Emma Swartz of Squeezebox Press.
No Kings Day (Again)
On October 18, 2025 the streets of Portland were full of people with signs, wearing inflatable costumes, chanting and dancing. Rage with a smile. Three hours of walking the downtown march route and both the Morrison and Hawthorne bridges were still full of people on the move. If seven million showed up for this single day protest, we’re getting closer to the tipping point.
weathergrams
When printer-friends visited C.C. Stern Type Foundry and Craft Printing House in early September, we engaged in a fun last-minute project of making Weathergrams. Inspired by Lloyd Reynolds and his interpretation of the Japanese tansaku form, we set type for seasonal poetic notes and printed a small edition of 30. Tied to branches with string, these little Weathergrams were hung at the Autumnal Equinox and are doing their best to become soaked and tattered as the leaves themselves at the end of the season.
Printing Circle in Grand Ronde
I was lucky enough to be on the team from Marie Watt Studio that led a printing circle for youth at the Chachalu Tribal Museum and Cultural Center in Grand Ronde, OR this summer. Participants created pressure prints addressing the language of democracy using stitching and collage methods. This is part of a multi-year project in which Marie Watt will ultimately quilt these with other prints created at various community group gatherings, forming a public installation piece.
American Typecasting Fellowship Conference in Clatskanie!
In April, I cast decorative ornaments (Monotype 1258 and 1259) at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry as part of a project with Montana State University, and this month we had a chance to put them to use ourselves. Paired with Linotype Electra and Gothic No. 13, they make a nice impression in gold ink on red paper. This little project announces the 2025 American Typecasting Fellowship Conference which is scheduled for July 31 - August 3, 2025. The C.C. Stern Type Foundry is hosting 4 days of fellowship, including technical sessions, a panel of presentations, banquet, swap meet, letterpress fair and auction. Registration closes on July 15.
More information on the C.C. Stern Type Foundry and American Typecasting Fellowship websites.
