It takes a minute for me to find Bruce Paulson. I’m parked on his street in NE Portland, trying to find his house, talking with him on my cell. I hear his voice up above me but can’t see him through the branches. Finally we catch sight of each other and he comes down to street level. He’s a lean, handsome man in a plaid shirt and a cap, with a solid handshake and a ready smile.
A graduate
of the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Paulson started his business, Fortress Letterpress, three years ago. Initially he worked out of a shared
warehouse, which, he says, was fun both for the camaraderie he developed with
other artists and for the half-pipe against one of the walls. Now he works
in the garage beneath his building, a compact wood-walled space with
just enough room for his press, his paper cutter, a flat file and a small
table. He and partner Rachel Demy put out elegant and arresting business
cards, invitations, and art prints; though not all of their work is designed in-house, the pieces that are tend to be geometric and somewhat spare--again the word elegant comes to mind. Everything is hand-made, the paints are hand-mixed, and the press is treadle-powered,
as in powered by foot. Light pours in through the open garage door, and the
occasional chipmunk runs through. Paulson has obvious enthusiasm for his
craft, and was kind enough to give me and my pal Aimee a tour.
Where are
you from, originally?
I grew up in a very rural town in Wisconsin called Clear Lake.
The population was around 900 and there weren't any stoplights or fast food restaurants.
The town was comprised of very modest homes, a trailer park, tons of churches
and just as many bars. It was very sheltered. Very calm.
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| One in a four part series produced for an event at the Ace Hotel in Portland |
I was always drawn to the visual arts. My grandmother had an
extensive collection of National Geographics and I would spend hours copying
images from the magazines. I had a strong interest in Egyptian and Mayan art.
I’m not sure what it was that resonated with me then, but I still feel a pull
to the iconography of those cultures.
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| Print for a group show called at Giant Robot in NYC |
Nice.
Are there any artists who’ve particularly inspired you?
Richard Serra, Joseph Boise, Agnes Martin, Mark Rothko, Banks
Violette. To name a few.
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| Richard Serra |
You
got your BFA at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, right? What was your work
like as an undergrad?
I
did a lot of work with intaglio. My final project was on five huge sheets of
copper. Two feet by three feet. I did a huge sheet of paper that was just one long
print. It was about the process, etching and scraping and burning a ton, and
using a ton of spray paint instead of resin. It was a big experiment. I still
have all of it. And I have all of the copper… it’s all oxidized and getting all
black and weird. It’s nice.
Was that
abstract as well?
Yeah,
the surface was really worked a lot. So there’re a lot of soft areas and sharp
areas and dark places. The last panels were just black.
What are you
working on right now?
There are a
couple of bids out with clients, but I haven’t been working on any of my own
work recently. I’ve been feeling a bit of a creative slump; I have some
drawings I’ve been working on, but as far as printing, there’s nothing coming
from me right now.
So mostly
commissioned projects?
Yeah.
Most of the stuff we do is business cards, some of which is exciting, and some
of which is, you know, work.
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| Business card for Una, a store in Portland, OR |
I have a lot of friends who are designers here in Portland, and they send things my way, and I like their aesthetic, which is great; I know the work is going to print well because of how it's designed. Sometimes
clients come and their expectations are really huge—like they want full
color…. And I say, ‘maybe you
should just get that offset printed.’ Letterpress is really good at
representing line work, and simple two or three color designs.
When you say
we, you mean, you and your girlfriend?
Yeah.
Rachel just joined on... and it’s been awesome. Her job is actually managing
bands: she’s a tour manager, she’s on tour right now with St. Vincent and The
Shins. So she’s busy doing that and then helps me juggle mostly logistical stuff like client correspondence. She’s a very good writer and she’s got
that touch that I kind of lack.
She’s also my print apprentice, so I get to teach her and that’s really fun too, and she gets to help out. It’s really good.
I love that
hand business card for the Worn Path.
Yeah!
That’s my friend Niles’ store and it just opened up. It’s kind of like general
store swap meet stuff. So there’s affordable stuff and then there’s expensive
things too.
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| Photo Credit: Aimee Sonrisa Swallow |
Some
camping stuff, [identification] books for Pacific Northwest, and skateboards
and surfboards. If you have time, go to North Mississippi and Shaver. He’s a
rad dude.
I also
really like your logo design, the way the colors overlap.
I
really like that too. Most of the inks are laid down so thin that they’re all
pretty transparent except for black. So you’re able to make more colors without
actually having the colors. From the design standpoint you just have to think
ahead a few steps.
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| Art Print of the Fortress logo |
In terms of
your recent drawings, what are you playing around with, or what do you find
yourself drawing most often?
Recently
my work has been an extension of some kind of meditation for me. It’s more the
process right now than about the image. So I’ve been just making dot drawings,
tiny little, super small dot drawings, sitting down and making dots. That’s
about it. It’s really good for me to be present in the moment making dots.
That’s what I’m drawn to right now. Black and white.
Sometimes
they almost look like constellations or galaxies or something... the white dots on black fields. I just love the
way that things just start coming out of it. It just starts forming these
patterns, and there’s a lot of depth.
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| Photo credit: Aimee Sonrisa Swallow |
There really
is! It’s a cool effect, in this white-on-black piece especially. Why the circle
in the middle?
I
had this idea of void and black holes. And I was thinking of outer space when I
did this, and a place where light can’t exist. With the other pieces, the black
on white, I just started making dots. Obviously I bring something to it, but I
was trying to just be as objective as I could. Like, I’m just doing this right
now for this amount of time, and trying not to be influenced by anything…
Trying not
to layer it with meaning.
Yeah.
Though, you know it probably reflects how much coffee I had that day or what I
ate for breakfast.
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| Starscape T-Shirt |
How do you
think your outer space fascination came about?
I think it started as a youth. I spent lots of time camping out
under the stars. Me and my close friend or friends would sleep out on his half
pipe during the summer months and just stare up into the sky. The whole
experience opened up my mind to existential and ineffable ideas
at a young age.
Have you
thought about translating the galaxy pieces into letterpress?
I’ve
thought about it, yeah.
What do you
think changes when you go from drawing to letterpress?
I
really love the idea of making multiples. I can make an edition of something,
and then all my friends get something, everyone can get one. And it’s affordable.
The whole DIY part is really important to me.
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| Orb Death, an art print based on a painting by Shon Mahoney |
Yeah, that’s
rad. And you seem to be really committed to being environmentally responsible.
Yeah.
We don’t use any electricity besides the lights. The press is treadle powered. It’s
really nice. [Operating it] is kind of like riding a bike; it gives you
feedback, so you know what the machine is doing. You can have a conversation
almost, back and forth. And it’s a whole other meditative process for me too; I
can really get in the zone with the sounds that it makes and the vibrations.
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| Photo credit: Aimee Sonrisa Swallow |
So you can
probably almost troubleshoot by ear…
Yeah,
besides the visual part, like, ‘this needs to move,’ you can hear when, say, it
needs some oil. It’s like a car, or yeah, a bicycle.
A
lot of larger print shops have motorized and electric machines because their
production is so huge. If you need to make 10,000 whatevers, you’d probably
want to have that kind of machine.
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| Flower of Life Greeting Card |
Or have a
team of people helping you out.
Or
just get one leg really big. I’m always switching back and forth between my
legs [on the treadle].
It seems
like you really have to be attentive while working, to keep the machine going
at the right pace.
Yeah.
And there’s some physical danger involved too. If you put a piece of paper in,
and see oh, it’s mis-registered, and go to grab it, that’s when accidents
happen, because it closes and if you reach in, it can smash your fingers off.
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| Back of a business card for Esservesper, a jeweler based in Portland, OR |
That adds a
certain element of excitement. Damn. How did you learn the machine?
I never went to any classes, I just did a lot of reading and
research. That’s my jam, I love just finding out about things and nerding out
and just learning.
