Aardvark Letterpress - Ed Ruscha's favor
Last weekend the Get Hubbied team met Ed Ruscha at Aardvark Letterpress to oversee the production of the favors Ed designed for the project. Aardvark has been nestled in the MacArthur Park neighborhood of Los Angeles since 1968. The press was founded by Luis Ocon and all of the letterpress printing is performed onsite by Luis, his sons Brooks and Cary, and their lead pressman, Oscar Gomez.
We were all sorts of rewarded to see the first finished favor come off the press after a two-step process that involved first di-cutting a couple of choice words into a thick piece of recycled paper. Bill Berkuta was our esteemed and masterful pressman in charge of this unique project. He's been in the business for 40 years (and counting) and was a pleasure to work with; he took great care with every single piece and due to the thickness and variance between each sheet, it took patience. The paper, and its hard to call it that due to its object meatiness, was handmade by Martha Starke from upstate NY. Bettina found her to work with after a long search, lots of digital ink back and forth and many samples sent and discussed. The second step was the letterpressing of a phrase below the die-cut. It just seems plain ole' wrong to describe this in any more detail - it just has to be seen to be appreciated, and I don't want to give it away, not unlike all of the other works the participating artists are making. Every couple/indivudual/family invited to the wedding will get one of these gems, and one of them will be in the exhibition opening the 2nd week of October (exact date to be announced soon). So, you'll just have to come and see the show.
Once again, Mr. Ruscha pulls through with a witty punch line, while at the same time giving us pause to think about the absurd reality and haunting reverberence of words.
People left and right are getting married, but we're certain here at HubbyCo, that the celebration we've concocted around the exchange of words is going to be the most special of the 5918 other ceremonies that are predicted to take place on the same day: September 25th. The whole journey is special, such as working with artists like Ed, but also getting to work with people like those at Aardvark and to be momentarily immersed into worlds otherwise off our radar - it fills us with immense pleasure, pride and anticipation to see the final culmination of everyone's efforts.