August 2022: We did it!
Just two years after the terrible mega-fire that burned the MPP shop to the ground, Moving Parts Press is moving into its new home, a beautiful building first envisioned by my father over forty years ago. It is the realization of a dream that would have been out of reach without your help.
Thank you!
The incredible support of family, friends, fellow letterpress fanatics, artists, activists, book makers, writers, librarians, and book lovers has literally raised Moving Parts Press from the ashes. 800 individuals, institutions, and organizations heard my call and donated to the construction of a new studio right next to the Rice family home in Mendocino. I can’t thank each of you enough.
Here is a quick video tour, but I promise there will be a more substantial look soon. I will let you know about the upcoming press warming party on zoom, along with an in-person open house. And please plan to visit when you are in the area.
August 2021: Rising from the ashes…
Woohoo! In August 2021 after a byzantine bureaucratic nightmare, I finally got my permits from the county for a new studio. Due to the cost of building materials, construction was postponed to Spring ’22. I was able to continue raising funds throughout the permit and building process; if you would like to contribute to the ongoing resurrection of Moving Parts Press, please donate here. More info on the building project below.
For two years I printed in a tiny shed and toward the end in a shipping container, working hard on my new book, HEAVY LIFTING, a close collaboration with poet Theresa Whitehill. I made enough progress to share the work-in-progress at the CODEX International Book Fair in Richmond, April 10-13, 2022. The book is due out at the end of 2022.
October 2020: Broadsides for Santa Cruz Fire Recovery
Within the first months after the fire I printed three broadsides featuring poems by Santa Cruz poets to raise funds for recovery from the August 2020 wildfires for our communities in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Bookshop Santa Cruz collected the funds and the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County and Valley Churches United distributed them to our mountain neighbors.
August 2020: Fire and its aftermath…
On August 20, 2020 a massive fire storm hit the ridge where Moving Parts Press had stood for 25 years. Ignited by lightning strikes in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the CZU Lightning Complex Fire burned over 86,000 acres before it was contained over a month later. The Press, along with our home, was one of 925 residences destroyed by the fire.
On September 4, 2020 this powerful article was published on the KQED Arts and Culture site, After Wildfire a Family of Artists Faces the Cultural Loss of Climate Change. Over a year later, Nastia Koynovskaya wrote a follow up article, How Artist Felicia Rice Rebuilt Her Life After Losing Her Home in a Wildfire.
My story is included in this excellent video, “Lost & Found: Stories from the CZU August Lightning Complex Fires, August 2020” by Shmuel Thaler and Nikki Silva, along with that of other fire victims.
Help raise Moving Parts Press from the ashes!
In August 2020 I relocated permanently to my family home in the town of Mendocino, 226 miles north of Santa Cruz on the California coast. My shop first took shape in a small shed that had been my father Ray Rice‘s art studio for forty years, and later in a shipping container on the property.
Due to the generosity of 800 donors to this gofundme page, I was able to pivot from scrambling for the very survival of Moving Parts Press to the realization of the dream of thriving in a new building into which the Press can grow. The Someday Studio is the final home for Moving Parts Press and continued fundraising will make this possible.
In gratitude,
Felicia
______
Poem by Beau Beausoleil written in the wake of the fire:
Moving Parts
(for Felicia Rice)
The
clouding
sun
burns
at
your
lucid
memory
There
is
nothing
on the
radio
but fire
Nothing
in the
trees
but fire
To set
the first
poem
outside
of
yourself
You
will need
lead type
cooled
into a
single
letter
followed
by
another
and
another
And
a storm
tossed
ocean
nearby
to steady
you
Your
hands
day by
day
working
a text
from a
nebula
of ash
from August Postcards (Barley Books, 2020)