All of my life I've been surrounded by people doing various sorts of graphic arts. A few of them were doing "fine art," but most of them were doing more utilitarian stuff.

My father published a river running newsletter called the "Rio Grande Gurgle". So that explained the typewriter, leroy lettering set, and the spirit duplicator. My mother was a montessori teacher, she was always making laminated cards with letters, words, and pictures of things. So that explains the laminating presses, dry mounting equipment, and paper cutters.

One year, the family made all of Christmas wrapping paper. We hand cut designs into linoleum blocks, inked them with festive colors, and stamped them onto big rolls of paper. Another Christmas we made or version of luminarios. The snow would often turn the traditional paper bag versions into a soggy mess. We filled coffee can with water, left them outside overnight to freeze, and then punched decorative designs into the cans with a hammer and nail. A little sand in the bottom and a candle, and we had our Christmas lights for the yard.

My father and I frequented the surplus property sales part of the Los Alamos Laboratory. We were often the only folks interested in the graphics arts stuff. That led to a giant collection of equipment for binding, printing, stapling, laminating, paper cutting, and so on. Some of which I still have to this day.

My father and I also volunteered at the Museum of New Mexico's frontier letterpress printing exhibit, called the Palace Press. We restored antique printing presses and cleaned, sorted, and restored cases of lead type. I've set pages by hand and gone on to print them on the old presses. We even had a small press of our own at home.

My interest in graphic arts took a decidedly digital turn when I sold my software startup to Adobe system back in the later 1980's. I kept a typesetter's stick of lead type on my desk. Buy the typefaces I was using were all digital, and I was both learning and creating, the digital art tools that Adobe is known for. My presses were now laser printers.

Fast forward a few decades, and I was a member of an early maker space in the Bay Area called the TechShop. Suddenly "DIY" and "making" were all the rage. I've always been a creative hands on sort of person, and I was a bit uncomfortable with the new fad and being labeled a "maker." It wasn't new for me, it was just who I was. Maker spaces came with a good deal of baggage. Membership was pricey. Classes had to be taken before you could use the equipment. Equipment had to be reserved. There were lots of rules. And the equipment tended to be overly used and not always in the best of working order. The TechShop lurched through growth spurts, and bankruptcies. My lifetime membership ended their lifetime came to an end a decade or so ago.

Now I find myself with commercial space in San Carlos, running MapTools, with a few of the same machines you would find at the TechShop, and a motley collection of graphics arts tools and supplies. I'm in a position to provide a "maker space" to my friends. Hopefully without all the baggage associated with a more public maker space.

I'm looking forward to seeing you at an upcoming MapTools Maker Event.

John