original short: Lunalux from mn original on Vimeo.

Clear your calendars, pop some popcorn, and get ready to watch some letterpress action on your TV tonight. Twin Cities Public Television launched a new program last week called MN Original, which highlights the diverse arts community of our fair state. Tonight’s episode will include a segment about Lunalux! We spent a few hours filming with Mark Fischer and Chuck Olsen back in January, when the show was still just a glimmer in the production staff’s eye. So we’re excited to see what they’ve put together for broadcast. To whet your appetite, they’ve created this video short in which the sounds of our Heidelberg Windmill mingle with the music of Savage Aural Hotbed. The show airs at 7:30 p.m. tonight (that’s Thursday, April 29) on TPT, and there are a few rebroadcasts scheduled throughout the coming week. The full episode will also be posted on the show’s website, mnoriginal.org

It feels a little weird– wrong, even – to blog about something so personal and sad. But I think it would feel even more weird to skip over this monumental project like it never happened. So here it is. And now we’re moving on to other things.

As the Minnesota Newspaper Museum celebrates the functional aspects of letterpress printing, a new exhibit at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts in downtown Minneapolis explores the cultural significance of letterforms. Face the Nation: How National Identity Shaped Modern Typeface Design, 1900-1960 explores how the desire to reinforce, redefine or transcend national identities influenced typeface design around the world. There’s a small proof press in the gallery, and guests are invited to try their hand at printing – the picture to the left shows both a flyer for the exhibit and the print I made.

The exhibit includes type specimen books, exquisite prints, and artifacts from type design and manufacturing. Of particular interest is the signage, which explains how cultural issues have influenced type design in various countries and cultures. This exhibit is interesting and informative, and highly recommended! While you’re visiting MCBA, be sure to dart across Washington Avenue to visit the new location for CorAzoN, a great shop full of jewelry, clothes, home accessories, original artwork, and paper goods (including Lunalux cards, of course)

The Minnesota Newspaper Museum is located on the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in St. Paul. The museum will be open from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., August 21-September 1, 2008. Face the Nation is on display through September 21, 2008. MCBA is located in the Open Book center at 1011 Washington Avenue South.

Click on the thumbnail image to the right to see the full story. And this is just the tip of the ice berg for us, media attention wise. You can read about more about the press we’ve been getting in our blog archive.

Markus Wuollet is a young man who worked as a server at Cafe Lurcat (one of the three restaurants on our block). At the age of 24, he was diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer, and has been battling the disease for over a year. He planned a party in November to celebrate with his friends and family (and a fundraiser, to help cover his scary medical bills) and asked us to create inexpensive invitations. Though I didn’t know Markus personally, I was very touched by his story, which made me think of Lunalux founder Tim Gartmen, who lost his life to cancer at a very young age. So I was happy to help Markus on his quest to cram lots of goodness into his days. One of his friends developed a nice graphic logo, which we incorporated into a contemporary design. The invitations were letterpress-printed in chocolate and red inks on florescent white Lettra cotton cover, and paired with bright red envelopes.

We also created invitations in October for the opening reception of an art show, Dispelling Fear through Creativity. Documentary photographer Michael J. Allen spearheaded this multi-media exhibit, which shed light on the complicated issue of homelessness. With an artists’ budget, he asked us to design and print invitations for this special event. In the next breath, he also invited me to contribute original artwork to the exhibit. I said yes to both requests. Because the the show included panhandlers’ cardboard signs, we used chipboard to reference that raw material. The simple text for the invitation was letterpress-printed in red and black on 3.875×9.25 buckslip cards, and paired with red envelopes.

Which brings us to the question of… “Jenni, what did you contribute to the art exhibit?” Well, here’s a picture – me with the wood-type poster that I printed on our Vandercook proof press, inspired by a sign created by William, a homeless man who used to work on Nicollet. You can read more about this art project at Michael Allen’s website.

A Red Cross website calculates that my 16 donated pints may have helped save as many as 48 lives. I can’t think of many other ways to have such a positive, real impact on the lives of others. Plus I get bling out of the deal!

Some people are astonished that I can bear the needles involved in blood donation. I do not enjoy the process, but I tolerate it because it’s important to do this good deed. I can’t afford many financial donations to causes that are dear to me, and I’m too busy running my business and playing roller derby with MNRG to give much time. So donating blood is the way I have found to give of myself. Wearing my pin and bragging about it might be bad juju; it’s probably more dignified and selfless to do good works quietly. But I hope that by talking about my commitment to donating blood, I can inspire others to high-tail it to the nearest blood donation center and give something from yourself. Also, anyone who wants to race me to the ten-gallon point, drop me a line.