Mobile Press is happening this weekend in Bloomington, Indiana at the Farmer’s Market! Below is one of the prints we will be giving away totally free of charge:

We’ve got several artists from the collective making unique prints just for this event. Around 10 a.m. we’ll be setting up around the Farmer’s Market with our Kelsey 6×10 letterpress, demonstrating the printing process as we give away free art!

Our goals are to connect directly with the public, demystify the printing process and to make original artwork available to people of any means. Thanks to the grant from Love Factory, we’re able to make this a reality! Look for us on Saturday, but if you can’t make it we’ll have plenty of photos from the event.

Last time we spoke, the press was still located in Nicole‘s storage unit. Happily, we lugged it over to Art Hospital where it is now sitting in our temporary print shop, ready to roll. We need one little part for the press, some gripper bars, which we can procure in Indianapolis, and then the press is ready to go.

Luke purchased 5 linoleum blocks and after keeping one for himself gave one to Nicole, Sally, Dani and Jamie. Right now we’re all busy designing our images for the prints we will soon distribute all over Bloomington!

We’ll return with some pictures from our trip to the letterpress warehouse and blocks in progress very soon!

So, here is the 6″ x 10″ Kelsey tabletop printing press.

Just out of sight is a chase (a metal frame used to hold the type or printing blocks in place) and some brand new rollers.

Kelseys were initially made to be a “portable press,” allowing people for the first time to economically print their own publications. This was waaaayyy before zines, kids. Clocking in at about 100 pounds, it might not sound very convenient now, but we think it’ll still be pretty handy once it’s safely installed in the van.

What we need now is ink, paper, some linoleum blocks to cut, and gasoline!

Lucas Woodaman of Art Hospital

Love Factory Soup Stock #1 is all wrapped up and we are proud to announce that our first micro-grant went to the Art Hospital for their Mobile Press proposal.  With 33 votes cast and even more guests in attendance we were able to raise $206 towards the realization of the project.  Since I first heard of the Sunday Soup events coordinated by InCUBATE in Chicago I have been inspired to start up a series in my own community.  It was a very special opportunity to be able to do this at the Fuller Projects in Bloomington, IN and Riva and I are looking forward to this week’s Soup Stock here in Ann Arbor, MI.

In a variation that I have not see in any other Soup Grant yet, we will be featuring all of our grant winners as contributors to our blog.  They will be posting the progress and results of their project here for your viewing.  If you have comments or suggestions regarding the Mobile Press project please post them in the comments here.

In our eyes, the first event was a huge success and in no small part due to help of the following groups and individuals: The Collaboration Room, Fuller Projects, Anna Simon, Phil Haralam, Matthew Searle, Matisse Giddings, Lesya Godfrey, Erin Drake, Vincent Edwards, Andrew Maxson, Abbey Friedman, and many more!  Thank you so much!

We hope to see you all out for Soup Stock #2 this Saturday, March 13th at Hathaway’s Hideaway here in Ann Arbor.