We are open! The new space is open to the public. Wednesdays through Saturdays from 10-5, you can find us there. Other hours by appointment. If you’re interested, here’s how we got this far….
For those that don’t know, Blue Canary Letterpress is located inside Art on High, along with Corsica Studio. Corsica Studio is a fantastic photography studio owned by my friend and business partner Sherrie von Sternberg. But let’s go back to the beginning….
I started doing letterpress about about 2 years ago now. I had just moved back to Chestertown, and was working the holiday rush with my friend Robbi and her husband Matthew who self-publish awesome, amazing, wonderful picture books for children and adults. You can find out all about their books here. Robbi and I grew up together, and working together was just like old times. So we thought how awesome would it be to keep working together. But what could we do? The idea of letterpress was born.
Robbi had studied letterpress, and they had done a few letterpress pieces for Idiots’Books subscribers.
My dad was a commercial printer and my mom was a typesetter/plate maker. It’s how they met. Printing is literally why I exist.
We had to do this.
So we started looking and found an auction where we won the 1921 Chandler & Price 10X15 printer I use today. A few months later, it arrived and we began printing under the name Haywire Letterpress (you’ll notice there are Haywire items in the Blue Canary shop). Mostly we did cards and novelties. We also did wedding invitations, baby announcements, and custom print jobs.
Flash forward to fall of 2015. Robbi & Matthew’s book career is skyrocketing, and I was ready to plunge more into the letterpress business. We made the decision that I would move forward under my own banner with the letterpress. I will always cheer them on in their success and be grateful for all I learned from them. They are great people and you should buy their books!
But going it alone wasn’t in the cards either. I knew right away who I wanted to ask. Sherrie von Sternberg. She and I had worked together through our affiliations with a local arts organization. I was familiar with Sherrie’s talent, and we had discussed her hope to someday open her own photography shop. I talked to her just before Christmas and by the beginning of January we had a space.
Being a visionary, and looking at what we had to work with, Sherrie immediately recognized that we could add more to the space than just photography and letterpress. And so, she set out to find artists to present work on our walls. The space would be called Art on High, because we’re on High Street. We’d find emerging talent and give them a great space to show their work. In the middle of it all is my press. Sherrie’s photography studio is in the back.
None of this would be possible without the help and support of my husband and parents. Gregg has supported me every step of the way. My parents have helped in so many ways, from watching our kids, to my dad deconstructing and reconstructing the press for the move. I wouldn’t be here without them.
I hope you’ll stop by! Watch me run the press in our beautiful space. Look at the art! Buy some art! Hire me to make your wedding invitations, business cards, or stationery. Hire Sherrie to do your family portraits or wedding photography or head shots. Or just stop by for no reason. We’d love to see you!
Here she is now. My press in her new space. What a great place to get to work everyday!
