#impractical labor

[dudeldopp]

My kingdom for some skillz

Earlier this month I got to take part in this year’s festival to plead for skills. The setting: Pickwick Independent Press. The task: get this old AB Dick 360 offset printer up and running.

When in its zone it can crank out hundreds of copies in no time. Combined with the kind of plates it uses, it could be great for comics.

Pilar was in charge of getting the machine working / pleading for the skills of someone more knowledgable and experienced in such a task. I worked on a sample plate in case she succeeded.

…Unfortunately, I can’t say we ended up with lots of sleeping Alice prints by the end of the day. Or any.

But a good time and an inordinate amount of cookies were had by all. The following is an apt summary of my experience. (I didn’t see Pilar’s, but it might be NSFW.)

One of these days, AB Dick 360. One of these days…

[halfletterpress]

Back in stock!

39 Kinds of Work by Impractical Labor ($3.00)

The third installment of Impractical Labor’s letterpress and hand-stamped pamphlet series is the most exciting yet. Following “What is Craft and Why Does It Matter?” and “The DIY Ethic & The Craft of Developing Self” comes “39 Kinds of Work.” Here Impractical Labor lists and discusses everyday living and work in relation to the 39 Melachot – the 39 categories of work employed thousands of years ago in constructing the Tabernacle that are also the activities forbidden to perform on Shabbat – “a family tree of human activity.”

[halfletterpress]

New in our webstore! Here's the first interior spread from

Impractical Labor's 4th Annual Festival To Plead For Skills ($5.00)

Another beautifully crafted publication by our friends at ILSSA. The labor that went into this booklet may be impractical but it sure paid off in terms of aesthetics! Here's more about this group and the event that this publication was produced for, quoted from atlengthmag.com:

"The Festival to Plead for Skills is ILSSA’s key event. Rather than pleading, ILSSA members spend July 7 in practice. A celebration of the generative and meditative experience of slow work (ILSSA’s coda is the enthusiastic cry: “As Many Hours As It Takes!!!”), some of the activities from ILSSA members on July 7, 2012, are documented here. These are windows into workshops identified by a local (area code) and shop name. These are views of “impractical” practice: the peculiar act of practicing under the midsummer sky.–Elaine Bleakney"