Remember when PRESS: Letterpress as a Public Art Project was on Main Street? Come see what it is now in MCLA’s Bowman Hall, Room 303, on Friday, May 17, 2024 from 1-6 p.m. This event is free and open to the public as part of the 2024 Berkshires ArtWeek. Join artist and MCLA Professor Melanie Mowinski in the PRESS Room for a peek at the cylinder press, platen presses, crazy paper cutters, AND, a Risograph duplicator! Use the Vandercook (cylinder press) and Golding (platen press) to print the final layers of a mantra give away card with the text: “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” Co ..read more

This Saturday is the year anniversary of the inauguration of Donald Trump to the United States Presidency and the start of The 50 Card Project. Join me and thousands of people all over the country and the world in some kind of action. Go to a march. Make some art. Join me in the Bowman PRESS letterpress studio and art lab to create postcards and posters with positive messages depicting an issue you care about. Collage • Stencils • Stamps• letterpress printing and other materials provided! 12-4 pm. Bowman Hall 303. Saturday, 1.20.18. Check out our Facebook Invite for details!   ..read more

Here it is, the end of the year, the end of a project. As the anniversary of the start of this project approaches, 1.20.18, I continue to turn to these cards for inspiration, encouragement and power. I’ve talked about the project to students at MCLA, where I teach, and here are some of the things they heard me say. I have lived from the assumption that art changes lives…That is not a common understanding…How do I use the art to change this assumption? Art is accessible to anybody. and Balance is impossible, but we can seek harmony. and While sometimes I want to separate my art from my po ..read more

It’s a year ago this week that MCLA alum and former PRESS intern extraordinaire Isaac Wood and I created the card “We are Marching in the Light of Love.” We made it for a student organized rally to help all of us try to cope with how we were feeling after the election. Fear and disillusion dominated conversations, we wanted to cultivate strength, courage and lightness. Little did I know that two months later I would embark upon The 50 Card Project.  And just like that, the project ends in a few weeks. The 50 Card Project directs my life right ..read more

Selections from the first nineteen weeks of the 50 Card Project will be on view at The Center for Book Arts in New York City through September as part of their summer exhibitPROTEST ≠ PROFEST: GLOBAL BURDENS. Pictured above are all the cards to date, 30 weeks. Thanks again to all of you who supported the project! If you are interested in getting 5, 10 or all 50 cards, they are available via my website. Later in the year individual cards may go on sale. Stay tuned if you are interested. 50% of all proceeds from 50 Card Project sales from my website are donated to various lo ..read more

It’s been a busy twelve weeks since Inauguration Day and the launch of the 50 Card Project. Big thanks goes out to Amanda Romanelli, my current intern for all her help in making these cards and to all the people who supported the project on Kickstarter. One of the challenges of this project is choosing. For example when creating week number 12, I considered everything that happened that week: Republicans chose the nuclear option as a way to get their supreme court nominee passed, Trump authorized bombing of Syria, Devin Nunes stepped aside, Bannon was banned and Jared Kushnar seemed to b ..read more

I made a card of FDR’s Four Freedoms on Inauguration Day. By the end of the three-color limited edition of 100 cards I decided that I needed to make a card every week for this entire year. These cards respond to what is happening in our country at the moment and how I can frame the situation to keep me and others energized. They also serve as a reminder about what is important and at stake in our country. And I want to share them with you! This project will be going live on Kickstarter in the next few days. You can follow me on Facebook or Instagram to get the latest updates. Or subscribe to t ..read more

Many of my friends all over the world knitted pink hats, traveled far and wide and are ready for one of many of the Women’s Marches that are happening tomorrow, January 21, 2017. We have two of our most recent mantra cards heading to Boston and D.C. in the hands of friends to share with those who are marching.  We spent today, and will spend one day a week every week of this upcoming year making mantra cards directed toward the idea of “marching in the light of love.” We must (I must) embrace radical kindness in everything we/I do and everywhere we/I go. We/I must follow Gandhi’s lead and ..read more

We’ve been hard at work printing our 2017 calendar. We think you are going to love it. You want to make sure you reserve your copy today, as this is the last year that we will be printing a calendar! This year’s calendar is the result of collaboration with MCLA Professor Zack Finch’s Creative Writing rock star students. We explored three distinctly different techniques including pressure prints+linoleum, type collage and two-color linoleum block prints. Thematically we responded to the idea that If bodies are temples, why shame the gods within? as written by PRESS intern and apprentice Isaac W ..read more

It’s a good sign when three calendar pages are completed by the middle of October! Yes devoted readers, production of the 2017 calendar is underway. This year we are deviating  a bit from our past calendar formats. We’ve partnered with students in Professor Zack Finch’s creative writing independent study. They’ve written short aphorisms and poems inspired by the following prompt: Explore IDENTITY in relationship to the following key points: Disenfranchised areas (how to communicate and celebrate the changes that have happened while acknowledging the ongoing struggles) Gender and sex ..read more