Intent to humble us once again, Nature flexed her whim, yawned out a record-breaking hurricane, and wrecked a tiny spot in the universe last week. This post is dedicated to resilient Houston and her ever-tough humans. Harvey be damned.
Besides being home to my most favorite brother and his family, it is also one great cities to find art in. (Brother factoid: One cannot technically be a vegetarian in Houston because its high level of air borne meat particulate.)
Say what you will New York and Denton, circa the Good/Bad years, Glasstire knows what I know – Houston has treasures of its own. Give me an hour in the Rothko Chapel, an afternoon in the Museum District, or an evening at the Houston Symphony, any time. There’s so much going on.
One past spring break, my brother and I were looking for last minute activities for stir crazy kiddos. Houston is packed with cool stuff for kids to do. Free zine making workshop? Yes, thank you. At The Houston Printing Museum? There’s a Printing Museum?? Excellent!
We arrived to a very unassuming little building and entered into a sanctuary of papery, printing bliss. Or at least I did. The kids raced past me and found the zine-making workshop where they were quickly engrossed in cutting, folding, pasting, and copying.
You really must make a zine. So easy. It takes only one piece of paper, one cut, and whatever you feel like filling in the space with. Here’s a fun instructional video by the Crafty Chica, Kathy Cano-Murillo. Great activity for those recurring 100 degree days we get out here in Texas.
Keeping hands busy for the first half hour made focusing through the rest of our visit a little easier. What a wonderful display of humankind’s incessant need to communicate en masse. From the moment we realized we had something to say and that our thumbs could help us say it, we’ve invented one way after another to get the word out. Imagine what ol’Johannes would make of the Indigo Digital press? Or what Ottomar would think of texting!
On display are Mesopotamian cylinder seals (c. 3000-1000 BCE) (pictured above) and ancient papyrus fragments (c. 300-350 BCE) as well as illuminated manuscripts. Thousands of years old and still here to talk to us. Mind blowing. And this silly little exercise I call a blog? Literally doesn’t exist.
Working the presses, straining in some instances, really created a new understanding in the kids of the effort it used to take to communicate. Not just thumbs and fingers, but arms and shoulders, legs and feet. And the planning! No delete button. Once on paper, a mistake could take days to fix.
We had the privilege of meeting Charles Criner, artist-in-residence at the Houston Printing Museum. Criner is a steady gentleman who patiently lead us through all of our activities. While we explored his studio, he talked about his work. He described Juneteenth and why we celebrate it. He addressed slavery in a direct way and it was received with appropriate appall. And in his straightforward manner, sans shaming or rage, easily taught the kids several lessons that day.
Thank you, Houston, for housing greatness. No matter how long it takes to recover, there is no question that you will be stronger, smarter, and better prepared for Nature’s next mood swing.