WEB SITE UPDATE

Between getting the new website up and running, and the rush season being upon us, there hasn't been much time to add new posts here.

Probably in the next week or so, we'll have our discussion forum up and running again. We will require, as do others, a one-time registration to insure that the spammers have a harder time mucking things up on the site.

As many of you know, we have taken on the shipping of product for our friends at Stones Crayons. It made sense to move their shipping to a central location, and there's nothing quite like Chicago for being centrally located. This has presented some logistical challenges, but we've been up to those challenges.

In each and every rush season, one area will stand out as the "hot" area of printmaking for that season. This year it appears that lithography is taking the early lead, but each of the other areas are strongly pushing for that honor. This year has proven to be interesting if nothing else. I thought that I was used to long hours, but this year has tested all of us, just to try to keep up with the volume of orders that we have received. Most of our vendors have had rather substantial price increases - especially those providing us with plastic, zinc and copper plates. They have coupled higher prices with spot shortages reminiscent of the '70's.

We recently had a customer who was purchasing his plates elsewhere, and was unable to get delivery from his regular source. A colleague ordered from Graphic and had delivery in two days! Part of me would like to point out the obvious error in the thought process, but my mother always said if you can't say something nice....well, you know how that ends.

I expect to introduce - sometime in the very near future - another in the Caligo line of Safe Wash Inks. This time there will be oil based relief inks that will wash with soap and water. While I was unable to attend the MAPC conference in Athens, OH this week, I was told by the Graphic reps that were there that the Caligo inks were very popular once again.

Our next project is, not surprisingly, getting the 2007 edition of the Printmakers Materials Catalog printed and mailed.