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It kind of caught me by surprise that SLURM has managed to do a Provo Shuffle twice exactly a year apart (I did miss one of them), so we figured why not keep it going! This is not only quite relaxed fun (well, depending on how much you stress over the Amtrak tracker and arrival projections) but is a great introduction to long-distance Amtrak for people who have thought about it but have never been on one. For the low price of ~$15, you get the whole long-distance coach seat (50" seat pitch!!! [1]) and experience with the booking/train being late/boarding process. It really opens up to the next step of taking an overnight out to the Bay or Denver. (What's the step after that? No clue. As far as Amtrak is concerned, Salt Lake is the middle of nowhere. Not that they're wrong. I want the Pioneer back nonetheless.)
Myself and some friends have done, as a non-SLURM event, the bike ride all the way down to Provo + Amtrak back once. This did entail locking up the bikes at UTA's Provo station and coming back for them (several bikes to a person) the next day. Amtrak does take bikes, but space is very limited and is a flat $20 per leg. (Folding bikes, however, are free in lieu of a piece of baggage.)
Anyways, to the invite:
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"(Anti) Love Letter to your Senator" was the sixth SLURM invite we've produced by letterpress (previously we did purely digital distribution; this has been a huge ramp-up!). It's also the last produced by (and this is an oversimplification) running a giant rolling pin over each copy. The rolling pin process was amazing for getting me into letterpress, learning how to compose the type, and knowing a few things to do vs. not to do. However, it doesn't produce enough pressure to print on dry paper (though you can supply the pressure with a DIY proof-style press like this or thi s which actually clamps the roller to the back-board), and it is fully manually inked with a 4" Speedball brayer.
Feeling somewhat frustrated with how the process was holding my art and production goals back, and with growing support from SLURM's physical mailing list, I finally hunted down an antique cast iron Kelsey 8x5 printing press. A very kind eBay seller packed all 68 pounds [2] of it up for me in a wood crate, and I got it set up (and bolted down) a couple weeks ago. As with most presses, the ink rollers and a couple small parts didn't survive, so I outfitted it at NA Graphics, a full-fledged supply house in Silverton, Colorado.
The press clamped to my workbench. The chase is 8x5" (per the name) on the inside and the platen is 9x6".
To go with the to-be-significantly-faster printing process, and inspired by Alex's button artwork from last year, I made this into the most ambitious SLURM invite yet.
... to be continued
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