Come and visit us this Saturday,  September 19th from 12-5pm at the Roadworks: Steamroller Printing Street Fair. (Located on Rhode Island Street between 16th and 17th Streets)

This event is just terrific! It’s physical. It’s noisy. It’s a fun celebration where new prints are born! Bring your four year old who loves watching machines. Bring your crafty seven year old to make art of her own at the kids tables. Shop for unique, artistic gifts (some made by yours truly!) at the vendor tables. Meet the artists. Hang with the printers. Enjoy a day outside!

Roadworks was begun five years ago by the San Francisco Center for the Book. Each year, select artists are invited to carve a 3 foot by 3 foot linoleum block. The blocks are then brought to a street near the Center, where the star attraction is driving a steamroller over the blocks to pull the oversized linoleum prints. This year’s featured artists include Megan Adie, John Hersey, Rik Olson, Jenny Robinson, Michael Wertz, and Rigo 23. Using the steamroller as a printing press, three prints are pulled from each block. The artist keeps one, the Center archives one, and the last is auctioned to benefit the Center for the Book. This year’s auction is at the Center on October 3rd from 7-9pm.

There are also small 1 foot by 1 foot blocks, called “Little Linos,” carved by many other community artists, including our printer, Bettina Pauly. These are printed by the steamroller at the Roadworks event as well, and a copy of each “Little Lino” is later auctioned off to benefit the Pacific Center for the Book Arts.

This year, we will be among the vendors selling handmade books, broadsides, cards prints, and other related items. In past years, we’ve had the opportunity to carve linoleum blocks for this event, and assist in the printing. In 2004, Painted Tongue owner, Kim Vanderheiden, had a blast creating the test block that was used to try out the process before the first event. Vanderheiden was thrilled to be among the artists included in the main event the following year, and last year participated by carving a “Little Lino” as well.

Follow this link to see pictures from last year’s Roadworks: http://www.sfcb.org/html/roadworks.html#masrp

The street fair is free and open to the public. Please come and join the party! Stay tuned for pictures on our Flickr pages.