issue no. 01 — slow work, honest tools, and the people who refuse to hurry
smudge*
everything worth making, printed in two inks.
in this issue —
featured · studio visits · no. 001
fourteen hours to cone ten
Ruth Calloway fires her two-chamber kiln four times a year, weather permitting and sometimes not. We stayed for the whole of firing ninety-one.
by june okabe — 12 jun 2026 · 5 min read
peel one off —
flip the zine over —
from the pink plate
second pass · flip the sheet · second pass · flip the sheet · second pass · flip the sheet · second pass · flip the sheet ·
fresh off the press
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fourteen hours to cone ten
Ruth Calloway fires her two-chamber kiln four times a year, weather permitting and sometimes not. We stayed for the whole of firing…
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using the good chisel
Nine chisels in a canvas roll, nine years in a drawer, and the stuck door that ended it.
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osaka sharpens everything
One morning between the kitchen-tool arcade and the dye alleys of Nakazakicho, where the whetstones sing and the day’s indigo dries overhead.
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a year for every inch
A kiln dries oak in three weeks. At a two-person yard outside Hereford, they’d rather take a decade and let the weather…
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thirty-six hours, mostly waiting
A Bristol bakery let us shadow one batch of sourdough from starter feed to cooling rack. The recipe, it turns out, is…
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in praise of pencil stubs
On the marmalade jar at the smudge desk, and the moral superiority of the last inch.
print club — member no. ____
join the print club
one email a month. two inks. new stories, studio dates, and whatever silas is sharpening. zero spam — we would rather be reprinting.
we mail it before the ink dries.
marginalia
short notes from the desk, printed in the margins
