One of the daily challenges of newspaper writing is thinking up headlines that will catch the reader’s eye. Occasionally you’ll come up with a zinger that makes you feel proud, but more often it’s simply the best you could manage under deadline pressure. While alliteration is a handy go-to, it helps even more to be a person who will readily stoop to the use of puns. Your humble correspondent slings them shamelessly, so it was with a sense of meeting a kindred spirit that I got to interview Kate Murray last week.
Murray just opened a storefront in downtown Saugerties to retail stationery from her long-running print shop, Quick Brown Fox Letterpress, and notecards employing puns are her primary stock in trade. “I just love terrible jokes,” she admits cheerfully. “I think puns are so funny, especially visual puns. I like to make people laugh.”
I could give you a few examples of the punning greetings on sale here, but that would spoil the surprise. Though you can see the full merchandise line on the Quick Brown Fox website at www.quickbrownfoxletterpress.com, you’ll get a more vivid impression of how the wordplay works with the art by visiting the shop in person. It’s located in the very heart of downtown: at 217 Main Street, in the same building as the Exchange Hotel, right at the corner of Partition.
This cozy space, a former hair salon, offers the perfect charming atmosphere to display Murray’s products, most of which are printed in a large garage at her Saugerties home. Besides greeting cards for every imaginable occasion — which include a collection of notecards featuring a cute cartoon fox, reflecting the company brand — Quick Brown Fox specializes in stationery, stickers, suncatchers, notepads, journals, wrapping paper, gift bags and calendars that Murray designs herself. All are printed on paper and envelopes made in the USA.
The shop also offers a winsome selection of art and craft supplies, washi tape, iron-on transfers, party banners, totebags, puzzles and handmade candles. This will definitely be a go-to destination for stocking-stuffers when Yuletide draws near, and Murray promises that paper ornaments for Halloween and Christmas will be available at the appropriate season. One wall near the front door is set aside for a monthly art show, currently featuring works by Murray’s partner, art photographer Jay Ballesteros.
Murray’s home-based studio/factory/warehouse space is also where she does the fulfillment for her mail order business, which stocks more than a thousand stores nationwide as well as locally. Barnes & Noble is her biggest customer. “I started this business ten years ago with the idea that we would always have a storefront. We finally did it,” she says.
Launched via a crowdfunding campaign, the new Quick Brown Fox shop had a soft opening on May 9 and its grand opening on the 16th. It’s currently open Thursday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Murray says that Wednesday hours are coming soon. Beginning in June, two evenings each month will be set aside for a craft night (Wednesday, June 18, 6 p.m., $35 includes materials and refreshments) and a community dinner (Friday, June 27, 6 p.m., $25 BYOB). Hands-on print workshops will be offered on some weekend mornings.
Sharing her love of old-school letterpress printing with the community has long been part of Murray’s game plan. “We couldn’t have workshops at home because of the insurance,” she explains. “I have taken some of the presses to events, though.”
Ah yes, those antique presses! They’re a significant part of Quick Brown Fox’s allure. A Virginia native, Murray studied printmaking at Pratt Institute and became a Brooklynite, then migrated to the Hudson Valley four years ago. During and after school, she worked in a series of letterpress shops that still cherished the old pre-digital technology. “This is all I know how to do,” she says.
Murray quickly fell in love with operating the vintage heavy metal machines and became a collector herself in 2015. She even gives them names: Jude, Brigid, Adelaide and Baby are all century-old printing presses that she has rehabilitated and put back to work to create her stationery lines. “We have a press rescue going on,” she jokes. The latest acquisition, a hand-cranked Poco proof press, now lives in the new storefront and will be used in workshops. “It has no name yet. We just finished restoring it.”
She’s also planning to teach the use of a more modern printing technology from Japan known as the Risograph, which looks like an ordinary office copier but does screenprinting, one color at a time, from a master stencil. It is known for its ability to create vibrant colors and interesting textures. The method is popular with young artists who make posters and zines, according to Murray.
What sort of business plan prompts an entrepreneur to invest in old-fashioned printing of greeting cards at a time when the very future of the US Postal Service seems to be in doubt? Seems counterintuitive, but Murray’s products are selling well nationally, and she says that “Millennials and Gen Z are sending more cards” (although these days they might be passed out by hand rather than snailmail). Journaling, scrapbooks and stickers also remain trendy among young people. It’s part of a resurgence of interest in handcrafts that has accompanied the sustainability movement of recent decades: “The letterpress community went through a revitalization in the late 1990s, early 2000s — largely women-led,” Murray notes. “Stationery is having a moment right now.”
Intrigued? Learn a new skill, get your hands on one of these wondrous old machines and make something you designed yourself, at a workshop at the new Quick Brown Fox Letterpress storefront. Coming up next are Lego printing ($35) at 11 a.m. on Sunday, June 1 and tabletop letterpress workshop ($75) at 11 a.m. on Saturday, June 14. Custom workshops can also be arranged, on- or off-site, for birthday parties, bridal showers and the like. “We’re trying to keep it as affordable as we can,” says Murray. “We’re trying to be a bit of a community space.”
For news of upcoming events and product lines, or to register for an event, visit www.quickbrownfoxthestore.com, www.facebook.com/quickbrownfoxletterpress or www.instagram.com/quickbrownfoxlp/#.
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