“Literatura de Cordel” comes from northeastern Brazil: little books that artists and poets create to hang on a string. Always about local events, people or legends, every town has a cordel shop…and the “cordelistas” often read their stories in public markets.
Here in my neighborhood, ten of us got together to make cordels at my studio. For the covers, we carved linoleum blocks and printed them on my press, then at Jimmy and Allison Abraham’s we printed the titles using their letter press. We each wrote a story about the Wells Park/Sawmill neighborhood. I wrote mine about Mountain Road. You can see all of our cordels at the Coffee Shop on Mountain and 8th St. It was fun sharing my printmaking skills with neighbors!
