|
(g) (clockwise from
top left): Ben, Primm, John,
Crispina, Lily, Felicitas, and
Sofia.
|
|
![]()
Text by Tony DiMartino
More than 30 years ago, John and Primm ffrench (two lowercase F’s equaled one
uppercase letter among the Normans who came to Ireland in the 15th century) were
wondering what to give their friends for Christmas.
“We’re artists, so we
wanted to make something together,” recalls John in his musical Irish brogue.
They decided on handmade calendars, and their first effort combined watercolors,
silk-screening, and other media. “It was so much work that we could only make
12,” says Primm, who met John when both were studying in Italy during the 1950s.
“By the time we were through, we were hardly speaking to each other!”
The
calendars were such a hit that the ffrenches have been making them ever since,
settling on silk-screening as the most efficient method. As the years went by,
their three daughters began pitching in. “They were always drawing, anyway,”
John says.Today, they produce about 900 calendars a year at the Dolphin
Studio in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Every detail is still attended to by hand.
But now three generations participate, including grandchildren Ben Paley and
Lily Rose Hughes.
(a) Primm’s contribution to a past calendar captures the
frosty
exuberance of winter. (b) Bold graphics by John (inspired by an ad he saw
from a bus window in
Havana) and Primm from the ’06 calendar (c). John’s April ’01
page (d) shows
his affinity for nature. “I love to garden.”(e) Wielding an X-acto® knife, Primm
meticulously hand-cuts stencils, a
time-consuming labor of love. “Each stencil
can take two or
three days,
depending upon how detailed the design is,” she
says. (f) The ffrenches’ workshop is upstairs in their
Stockbridge,
Massachusetts, home. Here, John places a print on the
drying rack.
“I do 300 prints in each batch.”
the Family Plan page
1 |
2 |
3
 Stumble It!
archive »
|
