A Visit to Fred Mullett's Studio

My dear friend Bee Shay and I were privileged to be invited to visit Fred Mullett's studio. Bee and Fred are both members of the Nature Printing Society. All of Fred's amazing rubber stamp designs are taken from prints he has made, which makes his product not only beautiful, but unique. (I used his shrimp, small octapus and seaweed stamps on my ArtFest ATC for the 2009 ATC Fatbook, hosted by none other than Bee.) Fred let us play with his big box of paper. He uses inks with resists of various sorts to create some amazingly beautiful paper and we tried out hand at creating our own paper using his techniues. Once we had something we liked, we cut out a section and adhered it to a card blank---which I can't find to show you! Trust me, it was fun and it was very, very effective.

Fred is one of those most special people who are not only intelligent but hilariously funny. He knows movies, books, music and art and shares what he knows in a gentle way. I learned a lot from my day at his studio and I had a great time, too.

Lunch in Bell Town at The Noodle Palace wasn't bad, either!

Fred's studio is located in the SoDo district of Seattle on the third floor of an old building. It's a very cool old building, full of uirky spaces, worn painted floorboards that are beautiful in a wabi sabi sort of way and a freight elevator that's perfectly ancient for the space. The building has settled unevenly so the floors are canted. The floorboards creak when you walk on them. The stairway has risers that are not all the same height. I could have spent the day just photographing that wonderful old place! Thanks for the play date, Fred! I hope I can visit you again.