The net motif unifies the drawings, paintings, and collages that act as a counterbalance to the mentorship work done inside Oregon prisons.

for Le’Var
2021
gouche and gesso with collage on birch panel
12×12 inches

Made for Travis
2026
drawing with mixed media collage
5×7 inches

read Travis’s letter on www.theponyXpress.org

Made for Steven
2026
drawing and mixed media collage
5×7 inches

read Steven’s letter on www.theponyXpress.org

Made for Dustin
2026
drawing with mixed media collage
5×7 inches

read Dustin’s letter on www.theponyXpress.org

Made for Thomas
2026
drawing with mixed media collage
5×7 inches

read Thomas’s letter on www.theponyXpress.org

Made for Matt
2025
drawing and mixed media collage
5×7 inches

read Matt’s letter on www.theponyXpress.org

Made for Joseph
2026
drawing with mixed media collage
5×7 inches

read Joseph’s letter on www.theponyXpress.org

gouche on panel
2020
5×7 inches

gouche on panel
2020
5×7 inches

gouche on panel
2020
5×7 inches

fruit netting print on rice paper
artist proof
2020
9×12 inches

rope print on rice paper
artist proof
2020
12×9 inches

A COMPLETED CYCLE
For twelve years, four packets a year arrived to subscribers’ mailboxes around the world. Based on the concept of a farm share, each packet was filled with correspondence tools: valentines, thank you notes, birthday cards.

every fresh ink season started with the lunar new year. unfurl marked the first packet.

inspired by the poem by Amanda Gorman, portraits of women brave enough to face the political storms of the day, including Amanda Gorman, rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, activist Malala Yousafzai, activist Greta Thunberg, and vice-president Kamala Harris; a sew-in label was included to add to a jacket or sweater.

assorted greetings

time enough to print and hand sew masks
2020

12-person postcard set, part 1
ink on chipboard
5×7 inches

assembly and packaging

12-person postcard set
ink on chipboard
5×7 inches

12-person postcard set, part 2
ink on chipboard
5×7 inches

Twitter followers meet real-time moveable type in this Cumbersome Project. Tweets posted during public events, as well as from the Cumbersome Multiples studio. Using a portable press and wooden type, Cumbersome creates broadside. Images are snapped and uploaded. Tweets start conversations. Physical language is inserted into this virtual world. Does meaning change through typography?

We were awarded a Regional Arts & Culture Grant for 2014 to take John Henry to events in and around Portland, Oregon. We will be tweeting along as artists, writers and thinkers engage in public conversations. Join the conversation and follow @johnhenrytweets

Cumbersome worked with a street poet from LA during the DO lectures in Hopland, California.  We joked with him that every poet needs a printer, but truly we need poetry. This broadside was printed on a previously unfinished drawing by Daniel Duford.

The language of protest or how it is characterized by the media.  A Broadslides from the John Henry Manifesto.

JOHN HENRY TWEETS EXHIBITION (print set 1)
Museum of Contemporary Crafts, Portland, Oregon
Prints curated from talks given during 2014 into three thematic sets: 
The Built Environment (is killing us)
Private Lives in Public Spaces
Songs for Trail, Voice and Blankets

From the accompanying essay:
Each time we build (or rebuild) a society, we think:  This time we are going to get it right. We build out. We build up. We construct in concrete and metal, we plant acres of fields with a single crop, we dislocate entire populations of people and animals. Conventional wisdom maintains that nothing should disturb market forces. The building and the planting; the roads and the houses have more to do with capital than with human lives. Yet our artworks point to the importance of diversity. The human heart beats the machine every time. Epic poems warn against hubris and yet, we turn again and again to the shining silver toy that catches our eye. Each of the speakers we saw in their own way gave warnings and offered solutions.

JOHN HENRY TWEETS EXHIBITION (print set 2)
Museum of Contemporary Crafts, Portland, Oregon
Prints curated from talks given during 2014 into three thematic sets: 
The Built Environment (is killing us)
Private Lives in Public Spaces
Songs for Trail, Voice and Blankets

From the accompanying essay:
What is the affect of a single voice, one story told in the public square? Who listens and what action the listener takes with that knowledge is a hinge of democratic life. Oregon Humanities sponsored conversations that poked at these ideas through the eyes of a civil rights lawyer, a family studies historian, and a memoirist. The value we place on public trust (whether that public consists of traveling strangers, a massive corporation, or an occupying government) was woven these conversations. Who is following your footprints in the sand?

JOHN HENRY TWEETS EXHIBITION (print set 3)
Museum of Contemporary Crafts, Portland, Oregon
Prints curated from talks given during 2014 into three thematic sets: 
The Built Environment (is killing us)
Private Lives in Public Spaces
Songs for Trail, Voice and Blankets

From the accompanying essay:
Language is fluid. Ideas are most interesting when they rub into the nooks of other ideas; finding meaning or finding opposition. This is the very fiber of the John Henry impulse. When we choose an idea for a broadside, we begin with the speaker’s words. Between the space of the words and the concrete printing of the broadside is chance. The ideas manifest in that space. Unlike a keyboard, the type case of antique wooden letters often doesn’t contain all of the letters we need to make the word or the phrase. 

Cumbersome had great fun printing a Beta version of John Henry at the DO Lectures in Hopland, California. Conor Simpson, Creative Director at Easton Studio Labs created this terrific teaser that samples the spirit of the DO and employs the broadsides.

Poet Samiya Bashir performs “Coronagraphy” — a poem that was the 2012 finalist for the Pushcart Prize. Bashir is the author of Gospel and Where the Apple Falls. Tracy Schlapp listens and prints alongside the poet, adding broadsides as Bashir activates the space with her voice. January 2015 at Museum of Contemporary Crafts in Portland, Oregon.

photo: Mario Gallucci

Tree Dreams published this second volume book with Scout Books. Filled with inspiration and tree facts, the Field Guide accompanies tags and twine on city and natural adventures. Order a kit www.treedreams.net

"Before a tree dies, it sends its resources down into its root share with young trees."

Nurse log, Forest Park, Portland, Oregon

Cumbersome Multiples lead a group tagging during a residency at Camp Nor'wester on Johns Island, Washington.

The woods felt cool and quiet in the middle of a crazy hot day. The campers settled in and listened to the woods and shared memories of favorite trees.

One courageous camper traveled from China for a month at Camp Nor'wester in Washington's San Juan Islands. She brought her joy, her lovely laugh, and only a little bit of English. She made her Tree Dreams tag and translated to Cumbersome in Chinese.

Cumbersome Multiples set up the studio at Museum of Contemporary Crafts, Portland, Oregon for a week in the summer of 2013. Tree Dreams kits were made and tags were hung in the trees in front of the Museum — where they are weathering in the spring rains.

A record of fantastic meals hanging on the board in the Side Yard Farm Kitchen. Cumbersome Multiples works with farmer/ chef Stacey Givens to make hand-printed menus set in wooden type.

Bastille Dinner menu set in wooden type and hand-printed by Cumbersome Multiples. You are sorry you missed this meal — and in case you can't read it, dessert featured basil and chevre ice cream and salt and pepper shortbread.

Hand bills printed for chef Stacey Givens — the Nomadic Chef. Stacey took her project to Japan in February 2014. Cumbersome menus accompanied her. She composed menu from local farmer and fish markets throughout Japan.

Artist Daniel Duford collaborated with Stacey Givens to celebrate the Summer Solstice in conjunction with the Museum of Contemporary Craft. Daniel produced an entire set of bowls, goblets, pitchers and serving bowls that told the story of The Oak King and the Holly King. The Oak King defeats the Holly King on the Summer Solstice and the days become longer. Cumbersome Multiples printed the menu and placemats and Stacey delivered a mouth-watering meal. This meal was sponsored by Museum of Contemporary Craft's supper club.

Sheep's milk ricotta gnudi, marjoram, early garlic, borage greens, brown butter, grana padano. Yep.

Part of Museum of Contemporary Craft's Supper Club

Portland artist and teacher Ray Grimm’s legacy is explored in “Stirring Embers: A Workbook for a Life of Making”. Editors Tracy Schlapp and Daniel Duford designed a workbook that Grimm himself would have had on his shelf — a book intended to be dog-eared, notations written in the margins. Contemporary Oregon artists, former Grimm students, and local artisans contribute to the story. All share values Grimm held as an artist and a teacher:  the importance of material sensibility and resourcefulness, the studio as community, and the marriage of art and craft.

more about the project
www.raygrimmlegacy.org