Chance Press

One big change around Chance Press HQ that we haven’t made much of a big deal about yet – it is no longer located in Oakland, CA.  In mid-June, Justine and I packed everything up and moved north to El Cerrito, a small East Bay enclave near Berkeley, massively expanding our available space (TWO bedrooms – how’s that for a luxuriant lifestyle?), while also giving us the opportunity to move Chance Press HQ out of our living room and into its own studio.  So far the change has been great – now, we can set up the room how a studio should be set up, rather than trying to fit paper cutters, paper storage, rolls of bookcloth, printers, and everything else required for making books in between our furniture, bookcases, etc.
Here’s the tour:

^ The door, with two inspirational broadsides about running a small press printed by the Whittington Press in England.

^ Bookshelf with storage for printer paper, book board, weights, xyron, and other press materials; storage cabinet with our new (and hopefully trusty) laser printer; hideous green desk (that I stained myself) with paper cutter, book press and inkjet printer.

^ Main work table, with storage rack next to it – each drawer holds materials for a project in progress.

^ Bookshelf with all of our inventory, mailing supplies, mockups, and paper scraps, as well as our storage closet, where we keep bookcloth rolls and large sheets of paper.

Also, make sure you look through the pictures and take note of the wolf rug I bought almost 10 years ago from a shady guy in Hollywood, as well as my excellent collection of other Whittington Press broadsides.  Looking at this room, doesn’t it just make you want to start up your own small press?