so we snuck in this weekend. the ninth ward is still closed off, but we told the nice man with the big automatic assault rifle that we were checking on a barge in the industrial canal- AND showed him a photocopy of a letter that my uncle had procured that said we worked for a nearby construction company. i don't think he believed us, but he eventually let us through. everything is crusty and dead, and smells a lot like grand isle on a bad day. everything in our warehouse is gone. you can see for yourself at www.hotironpress.com. the water was lower than we originally feared, but higher than we were later led to believe. the water line on the building was taller than me by several inches, and there wasn't much in the shop that was ever taller than me since i was a main user. the only really salvageable thing was my compound miter saw, which i was glad to keep. somehow the table that it floated atop didn't crash over, but slowly came to rest on our front porch bench. all seven presses are totaled, including our pride and joy Vandercook Universal I seen here before and after krazy katrina.
just about all of the neighborhood cars were still around, which really worries us.
helicopters kept flying overhead, and after a while one lowered towards us and just hung there in the air- someone hanging out the open door staring us down. we hid, and a few minutes later a hummer full of guys comes barreling down our street to check on us. we just smiled and waved (as i'm cramming a printer from upstairs into the truck) and they kept going. another privilege that the color of our skin afforded us. so what now? we WERE really homesick, but now... we just don't know. we did manage to get some MRE's, and i'll be damned if they aren't quite tasty. there should be a way for civilians to come by these in non-catastrophic-natural-event times. some even come with peanut butter m&m's!
josh [email] said at 1:07 PM 09-20-2005: yikes. thanks for posting this. i'm glad you guys are okay, and i'm sorry that you lost the press. what are your plans? move to baltimore!
craig [email] said at 1:09 PM 09-20-2005: That sucks. I'm really sorry to hear that you guys lost all of your equipment. I know that all of those presses must have been hard to come by, not to mention expensive! I hope you guys are able to get back up and running soon!
On a seperate note, I think you can get MRE's at certain army surplus stores and maybe even the internet. Some people stockpile them in the even of an impending armegeddon or in the event of certain types of anarchy.
jennyjams said at 4:10 PM 09-20-2005: you're right. it took us over six years and a lot of scraping by to accumulate all that type, the presses, the cuts, and the paper. our artists' book collection and zine library were wiped out as well. i doubt we will ever be able to replace all of this stuff even if we wanted to. i guess that's the problem with working with art objects and antiquated machinery. i saw a universal I on ebay the other day that sold for $5200, and that was just one piece of equipment (and not including shipping). also, i'm dreading having to rehire a bobcat crew to remove these heavy things.
and yeah, maybe you can get mre's online, but you SHOULD be able to get them from circle-k and winn dixie because they are dope!
kara [email] said at 1:13 PM 09-20-2005: Wow.. I'm glad you guys are okay, I'm sorry to hear about all the damage.
Good luck on your new beginning!
(yeah, move to bmore)
brad [email] said at 1:57 PM 09-20-2005: I'm really sorry for you both. But it's good to hear your recovery effort, even though not so fruitful, went smoothly.
jennyjams said at 4:41 PM 09-20-2005: true. we were not able to get immunizations. mad props to "zesty orange flavored AIRBORNE FORMULA" which we popped like fiends during the entire trip to fight the dirty dirties in the noxious poo soup that we were sorting through. i got a sore throat on sunday from exposure to spilled solvents and mold in the printshop, and by monday, AIRBORNE had done its magic. i highly recommend the stuff. as kyle learned this weekend, it also kills a hangover. kudos to that resourceful school teacher that saved me and mine from hep, malaria, tb, and any number of other awful contagion that might otherwise have befallen us. also, if you think new orleans in the summer is hot, you should try it in a plastic space suit in an un-airconditioned waste-filled metal building. i will never complain again.
we were very lucky to get out smoothly as you say.
jennyjams said at 9:05 AM 09-21-2005: for the time being we are both art faculty at the university of north texas. it's hard to say if i could or would want to remain an artist though when everything i've ever made, and whatever i used to make it with- woodworking tools, wheel and kiln, paint and brushes, presses and ink- are all gone. the only proof that i was an artist at all is in the slides i took with me when we evacuated and one piece that narrowly escaped destrucion at the new orleans museum of art. but then again, i've been studying to be a career artist since the seventh grade. what else is there? it's amazing and crazy and sad and fantastic and weird and foreign and terrible all at the same time. it's almost crippling to think about. our studio was everything we had ever done, ever wanted, and our future all wrapped up into one. this feels like a death, and i don't know- teaching has enabled us to focus elsewhere. we've been living largely in denial about it... but last weekend was shocking. i don't know what we'll do. our lives are destroyed and even this small pity party seems decadent in light of the suffering of everyone- everyone-everyone there. new orleans is FUCKED!
also, we were able to tour around a bit, so if anyone is curious about a certain area, let me know. we checked out nowe miasto, andy, it's not good. i'm so so sorry. that whole area is just devastated. i hope brice had insurance. your neighbors in that apartment building in front of yours may have fared even worse as bulldozers have actually pushed cars into their building. if there is a bright side, there is a clean up effort going on in your neighborhood, which is more than i can say for the no man's land of the ninth ward. and poor st. bernard. i shudder to think.
but thanks for the well wishes guys. i'll put em in my pocket until decision making time. please continue to support the gulf south in whatever way you can. residents do not yet fathom the scope of what they will encounter upon returning to their homes in the next few months. the mourning will be great.
loren [email] said at 1:53 PM 09-21-2005: Wow this is depressing. Ugh. Really sorry you've lost so much precious stuff. I hope you guys end up rebuilding your business, you put out some inspiring stuff to say the least. Is your equipment covered by insurance at all?
Good luck, let me/us know if there's anything we can do.
lusterkaboom said at 10:40 PM 09-21-2005: gosh. im sorry. i really hope you guys keep going with your art, the stuff you guys have done is really awesome. are there things you guys collect for printing stuff like those little metal alphabet letters? we could totally keep an eye out for stuff like that if you plan on rebuilding your studio.
jennyjams said at 10:53 PM 09-22-2005: yeah- we use those little metal alphabet leters. in the pictures, all of those cabinets with the short and wide drawers are type cabinets. each drawer is a set of one font in one point size. if the type doesn't suffer too much corrosion, we may be able to clean and use it (but ack. that would take years by itself). the drawers were all swollen shut though, and so we couldn't check. the cabinets themselves are all mildewy and trashed. if we can salvage the type, we'll need all new drawers and cabinets and we had five full type cabinets. a lot of our cuts were spilled out on the floor and already corroded or rusty where the nails had secured them to the wood backing. we took many cuts (little engraved metal pictures)to baton rouge and tried to disinfect and lubricate them. we left them there, so i don't know how they are faring. we started a fund to raise money for all of the independent projects and artists in the city. Talice had the very good idea that we should, in addition to raising money, publish a list of needs of all of these people so that everyone can be on the lookout for much needed equipment in their own neck of the woods. i don't want to ask you to search out type for us yet because we really aren't sure we'll continue to pursue the letterpress thing. BUT, please check www.hotironpress.com now and then because we do want to implement Talice's idea, and we will post the needs of folk there. thanks thanks
LaLaLaLaura said at 12:21 AM 09-24-2005: Thanks for your post and the link Jenny. If you ask me the contemporary art world is ready for some serious mad crazy great delerious art from Louisiana by now!
