It's started

All but the final few packages from workshops have arrived now, and officially the  Grand Sort has started.  Not the actual filling of boxes for printmakers and studios, not for a good while yet - first everything has to be checked. 

What sort of things?  Well, that all the boxes have arrived; that we have the right number of printmakers from each organisation; that each of them has provided the correct number of prints (we don't stress if they've given us too many!); that all the prints are labelled with all the information required, and sorted from 1 to 25 (it really does make a difference); that every print is DRY.  Anything that isn't right needs to be corrected, if it possibly can be.  That way, the actual sorting should run more smoothly.

One of Roma's rabbits on the left, and the starting point for everything - packages from the studios - on the right.

Many hundreds of boxes have to be printed - this year we've included a rabbit designed by the enormously talented Roma Auskanlyte. Then we have to work out which workshops will twin with which - not as straightforward as it might sound - and create an enormous sorting area, with hundreds of neat piles of prints (taking out any tissue as we go), all arranged so that the sorters can make their way round easily.  In another area we build more neat piles - this time of the boxes, ready to be filled with prints.   Meanwhile, we make sure we have a record of each and every printmaker's work to load up to our flickr site - again, with all the matching details - which, even allowing for those studios that provide us with perfect images, is still a lot of scanning.   And lists, there are lots and lots and lots of lists.  All of this takes a great deal longer than you might think!

Only then shall  we start to fill boxes.  First the workshop ones - twinned and random - and at long last the individual printmakers' boxes, but more of that another day.  We'll keep you posted.