Julia Garrison – in the studio
This time of year the studio doesn’t keep hours. The shop doesn’t open until Memorial Day weekend. Like many of the brave locals I love the solitude of Cape Ann in the off-season. In addition to conjuring up new block print designs, I take the quiet time to rearrange the shop and make the work space more efficient. It is a retail space on the weekends from Memorial Day to Columbus Day then November though New Years’. I spend a lot of time thinking about my displays and how easily I can transform them into work areas when I want to. If I could make it work I’d have secret panels that could swing around and the studio would be a store with the press of a button like something out of a James Bond movie. I’m constantly amazed by my predecessor’s ability to make due. Sarah Elizabeth and Isabel Natti spent more than 30 years together in my space with customers, designing, printing and selling 5 days a week. 
They really didn’t sell much that couldn’t be flattened into a box or needed to be assembled with a machine except aprons, which were hard to get. That is what gave the shop the appearance of being frozen in time. Both the appearance and prices seemed unchanged over that period of time like a Third World country. Each person who crossed the threshold relishing the fantasy that they were perhaps the first person who had discovered it’s coolness. When I finally took apart the plywood shelves that had been there for so many years last winter, I found newspapers from 1974 under the counter. As a shocking contrast, I’ve changed the displays about three times in the last two years, settling in like a dog who circles his bed about twenty times before he decides to take his rest. I’m sure it’s just part of making it my own, like they did, and when it’s reached the peak of it’s aesthetic-functional balance in my mind, it will stop.
As much as I’d like to do all my work in one space, I can’t. It measures out at about 200 square feet. The 500 pound antique Acorn press takes up about 8′ x 4′ of that and that isn’t moving anytime soon. So the shop is for printing, preparing pieces to print, and some minimal sewing. Any designing or drawing I usually do at home. Carving is usually done anywhere and everywhere.
Julia Garrison – Rope Runner
At the end of last year, I finished a 11″x 17″ block print design called “Rope” with which I am looking forward to printing tablecloths in addition to runners and place mats. I would love to see it used as drapes! I will have to do some design testing in my own house- which is pretty sunny and mod. People who shopped at the store during Christmas were able to see it, but it’s a very bold print that I think is most fitting for the summer re-dec…as, of course we do.
Julia Garrison – new products
I’ve happily discovered ways to preserve designs from the archive using laser cutting, so as the years go on the old blocks of Isabel’s and Sarah Elizabeth’s won’t be lost to the ages but will be available to be printed using metal plate. It has saved me from having to re-carve in linoleum old standards from the Sarah Elizabeth Shop collection that people have grown to love and cherish. It has also saved me from having to re-carve some of my own blocks that were previously too small for place mats and tea towels. I am happy to say that I will now be able to print place mats and tea towels with some of my older designs like “Persephone”, “Pinwheel” and “Damask” using laser cut reproductions of my smaller scale linoleum blocks. Aside from the streamlining of some of the existing products and designs, I am revealing a new fish design this year that will hopefully take the place of the old fish pattern in people’s hearts. It will be one color, not three and therefore easier to get a good print of. I envision this design looking equally nice as kitchen curtains as table linens or throw pillows. I will publish photos of it when it is closer to completion. Until then, I’ve included some pictures of the design in progress.
Hope you enjoy! Can’t wait to see everyone in June!
