BANANA & PICKLE's Super-Tricks

This is the scanned entirety of a new flip book made this week. A few other ideas with this wave-block-loop are in the works. Check back... 

PRINCEprints

11/22/13
partyin' like it's '99
@PRINCEprints show
@CPP

SURFERGIFS

t.m.o.a wave.(part2)

surf this!

six step loop. linoleum-cut

the making of a wave (part I)

!bAnAnA$!

COLOR BOX SERIES ISSUE#5

the orange issue: A MAZE ZINE

#5

BRAND NEW COLOR: the Brown issue.

The latest Color Box Series zine is out (& about!). It contains faces made from letters and numbers. It is brown. It represents a town. It is made of newsprint and chip board and printed primarily from wood type at the University of Utah's letterpress studio in its main library, the Marriott. It was also made at the Copper Palate Press, where these photos were taken.

This is the hardest one to color, by far, of the CBS.
The introductory remarks are given by a Woodtown citizen, a spider, named Simon.

C. B. S. #5 will be the ORANGE issue. Look for it in May!

Happy Spring everybody. 

PALM OIL & ORANGUTANS

the orangutan here is thinking:

"...but WHY? ...such senselessness?? My people are wandering lost in a landscape that has changed from lush green to ashen grey. The burnt forests are all becoming guarded plantations. They'll shoot me if they catch me eating these oil-palm fruits, but crop-raiding is my only chance at survival in these hungry times... & Why do they kill mothers to steal their babies? & Why do they prefer farms to forests? & Why do they choose violence over peace? The naked apes make no sense to me! "

I'm sure there are many orangutans out there in the wild that wonder what the hell is going on??!! with their forest worlds. They see them collapsing, burning,  and being converted to palm-oil farms far and wide throughout Borneo and Sumatra. The problem for Indonesia's ( & Malaysia's...) booming industry in palm oil lies not only in its shortsightedness in replacing complex ecosystems for unsustainable monocrops in already poor tropical soil that requires genetic engineering and/or massive chemical treatments;  but in its abohorrent lack of respect for the wonder and diversity of biological life that those tropical forests foster. The industry also continues the reign of multinational corporate giants that accelerate wealth disparity,  do little for worker-rights, and leave poor, indigineous peoples little choice but seeking employment for survival from the forces that displace them. Meanwhile forest-giant trees are falling, exported as exotic tropical hardwood for the posh urban elite. It is sad that the demand is global and growing. 

The truly frightening part is that we are funding the entire process. If you are not a label-reader at the grocery, and you buy mainstream food-products, cosmetics, soap, baked goods, biofuel, cleaning products (the list could go on very long...) then you are spending money that ends up in corporations whose agenda is to make food cheaply and maximize profit (for the few) without much regard for sustainable practices or earth-conscientiousness (until it is proved economically viable...). Heard of Cargill? or Monsanto? They don't exactly have the little guys in mind.

We must also pay attention to the wood we buy, that it is not from tropical regions, and that the amount of paper products we are using is not in excess. 

Its going to be a challenging fight to overcome such giants as uncaring greed-driven corporations, or distracted ignorant consumer masses, or developing governments eager for economic boosts, but if we want rainforests (& orangutans!) and their incredible diversity and vibrance of life to flourish again in the coming centuries, it is a fight we must be conscious of and engage ourselves in fully. 

[To quote the Jane Goodall Institute:]

Every individual matters.

Every individual has a role to play.

Every individual makes a difference.

I, for one, am reading my labels and making purchases accordingly!

(thank you for reading)

they came from the forest

A page from the plant issue (cbs3) recently printed via photopolymer plate/ digital letterpress @ CPP.
They make very decent cover designs for blank journal/notebooks. newsprint stapled-signatures pva-bound to chipboard covers, except for the green pamphlet stitched one pictured here... 

I want to explore more binding techniques soon...

The Coloring Box Series

Around the time of the eve of the new year which is now three-months old, I decided to start a project of making a zine-per-month, basic black-and-white xerox style. The name of the project is the Color Box Series, as each issue has a new color cover and a theme related to the color. They will in the end amount to a big box of coloring potential, as they are easily interpreted as coloring books and I have been encouraging people to color them if they are so inclined.  This is essentially an exercise in keeping up continual deadlines, staying artistically active/productive, learning and becoming comfortable with book design and collating, and trying something new every month. And on that measure, I can be happy with the series so far, three issues deep, with number four due out April 4th. 

Here are some sample pictures: 1. Cover shots: [1:YELLOW, Animals 2:BLUE, water 3:GREEN, plants] 2. YELLOW center spread, turtle graveyard 3. YELLOW snakes 4. BLUE center spread,  storm 5.BLUE winter water 6. GREEN center spread, plant orb 7. GREEN entrance to the jungle. 

These zines are available in person at the Copper Palate Press, downtown SLC. or you can email me: jda1984@hotmail.com.  I've been selling them for five bucks. 
GOD SPEED THE BOOK! 

and without saying too much here are some pics of #4 in production, (no Kinko's this issue, I have access to a Vandercook and wood type!):