Another day....

Today was a typical Wednesday. I gathered the few order and made my post office run. I also had to clean the museum and gallery area, in preparation for the New Year's event. Several of the presses were getting dusty during construction, and a few of the framed works for the auction had fingerprints on the glass. Once that was all sorted, I folded some new letterpress cards and put them into plastic sleeves for the shop. My last task was to copy information from the 2010 petty cash receipts into an Excel spreadsheet, so it could be used for the year end accounts.

Window Display Stage 2

Today we added Christmas lights to the display. More lights will be going up in the window displays soon.

I also prepared several post office orders and made the usual run down. I also arranged books and priced prints for the shop, in preparation for the Holiday sale and the New Years event. With the Beyond In exhibit gone, and the gallery walls are hanging pieces donated for the New Year's silent auction. I helped to hang some of the donated images.
My other task for the day was working on the Spring workshop series. I compiled a list of details for each workshop including the instructor, date, cost, and description. This list will be used to add the information to the website via Dreamweaver. I also created the registration form using Google Docs.

Window Display Stage 1

More books to come...

Workshop and New Exhibit

Today started with a workshop in the print studio. There was a group of high school seniors in for a field trip, and they were making prints using 5 different presses and various printing techniques. I helped demonstrate how to use the presses and ink the plates using different brayers.
My next task was to help check and log the condition of books for the next exhibit, MIMB: Monumental Ideas in Miniature books. There was 140+ books to check. During this process we also sorted out the damaged books and the books we didn't like enough to display. It was fun to see all the different books for the show.

Altered Book Window Display

Today at WNYBAC consisted of the usual, post office run, mopping the floors (the salt was making them nasty) and pricing some items for the shop. I also rearranged the books on our shop display table, and tacked some book bags on the wall by another shelving area. People haven't really been looking in the second shelving area because it's so close to the elevator construction. Hopefully hanging the bags will help draw people back in that direction... and sell a few bags!
I spent most of the day folding books. It's funny because when I was working on my little folded books for the exhibition, I suggested doing a window display to Jessica. But the Beyond In exhibit had just gone up, meaning nothing would move for a while, and I forgot all about it. Well, the exhibit is coming down now so Chris and Amy (independently) decided to do an altered book window display. Imagine my surprise when I came in and Chris asked if I would fold books! So I folded a few diamonds and a couple other different types, trying to add some diversity. They are planning to run cord through the books to help spread out the pages. I'm interested to see how that comes out. I always tried to use the best folding style for the spine thickness, so I'm not sure what the end result will look like with cord. I'll be sure to post some pictures.

Alone with the Press

After taking last week off for feasting, I was back at WNYBAC today and therefore am back online.
It started out with the usual, getting some online orders ready to ship. I did not have to do the post office run today because one of the outgoing packages was 40+ pounds of leads and slugs. Needless to say that would be difficult to walk with (in addition to other packages), so Rick brought them down in the car.
While he was away, I got to play... but not for very long. For those of you who don't know, Buffalo has it's own ball drop for New Year's at the electric tower. The electric tower is only a block away from WNYBAC, so the upstairs Literary Center has an excellent and exclusive view. Capitalizing on this, WNYBAC hosts a New Year's Party as a fundraiser. Providing those who buy tickets with food, drinks, music and a nice, WARM view of the ball drop. Rich letterpress prints the invitations to the event. He purchased special stamps of the electric tower and some fireworks to use for the cover and to make posters with. There is a lot of work to be done on these, and while he was out I was manning the letterpress machine alone (!!!) to put down the first plate (blue fireworks). I will say that the stamp was already in place and the machine inked when I took over. But still... I printed at least 50 sheets.
Then I worked on a list of consignment sales. WNYBAC does some consignment in the shop (my books are there!), and pays out on sales quarterly. Being a not-for-profit, WNYBAC needs to keep a record over all money they bring in. Jessica does this using an Excel spreadsheet, which records the date, item sold, price and consignment number when applicable. I used this spreadsheet to compile a list of sales for each consignment number, which Jessica will then use to calculate the money owed and send out checks. In doing this I noticed that we sell Amos Kennedy's prints on consignment. That is pretty cool.
The rest of the day was spent helping to clean up in the studio for a school tour tomorrow, filing invoices, and teaching Jessica how to long stitch. A good day I think.