OVERCUP BLOG — the tall trees of paris

This Sunday is May 29th.  So, Happy Mother’s Day! Wait, before panic and doubt set in, and you begin to question if you did indeed buy that bouquet of flowers and card and make that phone call a couple of weeks ago (because you did remember, right?*). Détends-toi! For in France this special holiday is celebrated on the last Sunday in May, (historically, unless Pentecost/Whit Sunday happens to fall on that day, in which case the holiday shifts to the first Sunday in June.) So take a deep breath, grant yourself some repose and perhaps take a peek at our...

Break out the bubbly, because it’s our birthday! May 17, 2010 marked the day Overcup became an official press! And what better way to celebrate than to take a look back on where Overcup began with the press’s key players. I asked founder/editor Patrick McDonald, co-founder Rachel Bell, and marketing associate Poppy Milliken some questions about what it takes to keep Overcup ticking. Rachel and Pat show off their books at Wordstock 2015 (photo credit Liz Crain) How did you guys first get into publishing? PAT: It was an extension of the work I did at Ooligan Press at PSU,...

At the recent launch party for Matt Wagner’s Tall Trees of Paris at Gigantic Brewing (a great success, by the way!) we were honored by not one but TWO of Portland’s premier champagne sabreurs: Michael Ecker and Christopher Graham. Champagne sabering, or sabrage, is a delightfully ostentatious technique for opening a bottle of champagne with—you guessed it—a saber! Sabering dates back to Napoleonic times, but artisans like Michael and Christopher are carrying on the legacy with panache. You can see a snippet of Michael in action here.Michael embarked on the path to mastery at his wedding, where an official champagne...

Part of being an artist means knowing places in your city where you can go for inspiration. These are the spots most mentioned by the artists in The Tall Trees of Paris: 42 Independent Artists Share Their City and Their Work by Matt Wagner. 1. Palais de Tokyo (established in 2002) is located on the banks of the Seine in an enormous shell of a palace created for the 1937 International Exhibition of Arts and Technology. This self-named “anti-museum” features an ever-changing array of art on the frontlines of contemporary creativity. Besides housing art that can’t be seen anywhere else,...

Sunlight streamed through the open garage door of Portland, Oregon's Gigantic Brewing Company’s Tap Room and Champagne Lounge last Saturday, illuminating gorgeous stacks of books, delicious hors d’oeuvres, and a multitude of prints from several artists featured in Matt Wagner’s newest book, The Tall Trees of Paris. Gigantic Brewing is a true gem, off the beaten path but well worth the trip, and familiar faces as well as new friends came to celebrate contemporary French art with us. Some of our readers who already own Wagner's The Tall Trees of Portland and The Tall Trees of Tokyo came to complete their set, while others...