Smoke Farm recently reclaimed and remodeled the old tractor shed adjacent to the Milking Parlor, using materials salvaged from other collapsing outbuildings. Poet-Carpenter Arne Pihl oversaw the construction crew and personally pounded over 1,000 bent nails. No one really knows how the skylight got up there. The result? A fully-equipped letterpress print shop: The Abactors’ Hideout. The studio will be available for community use starting in the fall of 2009. Kate Fernandez, Studio Manager, will schedule studio time for experienced printers at a reasonable cost. We plan on holding letterpress printing workshops and establishing a fund, Permanent Press, to support letterpress projects and teaching residencies. Abactors’ Hideout will produce broadsides, Festival performance relics, and all kines of rustlers’ artifacts.

Let’s make this a PERMANENT PRESS. Donor benefits and levels of recognition range from RAYON to POLYESTER to ACETATE to SILKANA. Donors at the LIFEPRESS level will have their names painted on the studio wall and receive a custom-printed, unnatural polyfiber object by midnight courier. For questions, contact Linden Ontjes at linden at smokefarm dot org.

* Abactor: a person who steals cattle in large numbers.