Handmade Nation

Handmade Nation featured maker Jill Bliss made it into the New York Times Magazine this past weekend in an article written by the consumed columnist Rob Walker (Walker is also responsible for bringing attention to the indie craft community in an article last spring called "Craft Work" featuring Heidi Kenny of My Paper Crane as well as an article called "Carry Art" featuring Poketo).

"The Cult of Gocco", NY Times, October 21, 2007 is a great overview of the current status of on of my favorite tools, the Gocco.

Don't know what a Gocco is? This is the definition from wikipedia:

"Gocco is a self-contained compact color printing system invented in 1977 by Noboru Hayama. Using flash bulbs similar to those found in old cameras, an original image is thermally imprinted on a master screen.

The name "print gocco" is derived from the Japanese word and concept "gocco", loosely translated as a type of make-believe play used to learn common rules and knowledge.

In December 2005, Gocco’s parent company, Riso Kagaku Corporation, announced it would end production of the Gocco system due to low sales in Japan. An Internet campaign was started to find a new home for the product."

Here is a photo from my flickr account showing the Gocco in action in my studio:


Also check out the flickr Gocco pool HERE and the www.savegocco.com page that Jill set up.

From the Save Gocco site:
although our own signature collection here at savegocco has ended, you can still help save gocco! we suggest sending a gocco'd postcard to the president of the company, explaining why you feel they should continue and expand worldwide production of gocco:
Akira Hayama
President & CEO
Riso Corporation
5-34-7 Shiba,
Minato-ku,
Tokyo 108-8385,
Japan

Want to check out stuff for sale that was printed on a Gocco? Go to etsy.com and use "gocco" as a tag in the search engine and just see what comes up!