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"I make lunches" © Ashly Stohl from her project, "What do you do all day?"

“What do you do all day?”

I am a stay at home mom of three kids, two of whom have special needs, and yes, someone said this to me. 

And what made me even more angry is that I couldn’t answer the question. I know what I do is important. I know I wake up at 6am and fall asleep around 10pm, and I’m always tired, but I have no idea what I do in the day.

Women in the U.S. around the world perform on average, 4.5 hours of unpaid labor a day, almost twice that of men.  You can read about the statistics here, but what can't be represented in a bar graph is how those hours are valued by our society.  All that unpaid labor, the labor of raising our children, keeping our homes, doing the things that nobody wants to do, is considered "women's work," and it's not meant as a compliment.

So today, on International Women's Day, let's celebrate the true meaning of Women's Work - unpaid labor, traditionally done by women, that is now done by women, men, and people of all gender identities.  It's work that is hard, unforgiving, rarely celebrated. and not appreciated nearly enough.  It's work that requires selflessness, patience and love, and if you look in the right places, it's work that returns more love than any paying job ever could.  

So today (and every other day,) please extend some love and appreciation to any person who is brave enough and strong enough to do Women's Work.

Thanks to everyone who came out to David Carol's NO PLAN B reception and book signing! The show is open until March 31, 2017 at the Leica Store in Soho. 

Show information | Buy the book

A few of our closest friends came.

Team NO PLAN B: Jason Eskenazi, and Peanut Press co-founders Ashly Stohl and David Carol

Laurent Girard and Kevin Downs. Laurent printed so many of the prints in this show, including the gorgeous 30"x45" gelatin silver prints.

Mark Peterson, Ben Lowy and David Carol (and Paris Visone)

Susan Rosenberg Jones won't let crutches keep her from a good party

Two Davids; Godlis and Carol

David Carol signs a book for photographer Mike Lee

Susan and Chuck Fishman

Hi everyone,

For so many reasons, last year sucked.  Not just in the US, but around the world, extremism became the norm, and so many people live with hardship and fear.  Great artistic voices were silenced - voices that had something important to say, and have been inspiration to us here at Peanut Press.  Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen, and so many more.  Princess Leia!  You can imagine how Charth Vader feels about that.

And in the middle of all the fear, sadness, and uncertainty of last year, I've never felt so supported.  We made three books last year, and people bought them!  Then they told their friends about our books and our audience grew!  People, many of whom I didn't know, spent their hard earned money on our books.  I was grateful for every single order.

The support last year wasn't just financial.  Our books were written about, blogged about and on lists - good lists!  The kind you want to be on!  Not to mention, several teenage boys liked my peanut press hoodie and asked how they could get one.

So our message for 2017 is (somewhat unexpectedly) one of gratitude for the past year.  Thank you to everyone that gave us support and encouragement in 2016.  We will spend this year paying it forward, having fun, making books, and taking pictures.

In 2017 David Carol and I are going to continue to publish the work of artists we believe in. There is work out there that deserves to be seen, and it's an honor to help bring this work in to the world.  We are going to continue to make great books, right here in the U.S., with Meridian Printing.  We are also scheming and planning some secret stuff that we will announce later.

Thank you for your support - it was the best part of 2016.

Wishing you all the best in 2017,

Ashly Stohl

1. Quirk Hotel decided I was the 1,000,000 member of their loyalty club, and left me a cake, a bottle of champagne, flowers, and...a copy of Gordon's book!!!  Welcome to Richmond, Virginia.

2. I ate fried chicken for every meal except for the one where I ate fried pork.

3. Candela Gallery is an amazing space run by some pretty awesome people.  Gordon Stettinius is not just a gallery owner, and book publisher, but he's also one of us - a photographer.  He has a million great ideas, and is a really funny guy.

4. LISA ELMALEH & MEG GRIFFITHS

5. Eliott Dudik and Jared Ragland working really, really hard while we sat around.

6. Eliott Dudik's John Snow hair.

7. The real grownup at Candela is Ashby Nickerson.  She is half my age, but for the moment has twice the white hair.  By choice.

8. Seeing people light up from looking at Charth Vader prints warmed my cold and icy heart.  Until now, I haven't shown him much, and I forgot how good it feels to watch people enjoy your work.  Not sure I've shown anything that prompted such good feelings in people.  It made me happy.

9. The Charth Vader book was acquired by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where it will be added to their Special Collections.  Thank you, Lee Viverette!!

Peanut Press is taking it's show on the road!

Our friend and colleague, Gordon Stettinius is hosting the Indie PhotoBook Showcase at his Candela Gallery in Richmond, Virginia.  Six Charth Vader prints will be featured in the gallery, and we will be selling limited editions, and the last few trade editions of the (sold out!)  Charth Vader book!!!  

from Candela:

Read more about the event here.

Events:

Come on over and say hi!

Why did we print Charth Vader at Meridian Printing in Rhode Island?  They have printed some amazing books for our favorite photographers.  If it's good enough for Lee Friedlander, Richard Avedon, Robert Adams and Irving Penn, it's good enough for us.

We arrived in the morning and the first sheet was already printed.

Thanks to Joe Chanin's many rounds of proofs, and the skill of the guys running the press, it looked amazing.  But there was still work to be done.  Registration needs to be checked, and ink levels changed to adjust the tones of the image.  How do you do that?

First you get a group of people to stand around and look at the sheet.

Then you wave your hands over it.

Throw it in the trash.

And ask the giant press for a new one.

While the press is working on your new sheets, there is time to kill. You can immerse yourself in Meridian's a library of amazing photo books,

and get some important work done.

Then we recheck the press proofs

and the whole process starts again.  It's exhausting.

But by the end of the day, we had something that we all could agree looked amazing.

Ashly gave the final ok

and the pages were printed...

Joe was blown away by the quailty of the printing at Meridian.

Now the sheets will be cut and bound, and turned into a book.  Pre-order yours today!

 http://peanutpressbooks.com/collections/charth-vader

Keep an eye out for Susan Burnstine's fabulous feature about Charth Vader in this month's Black+White magazine.  Do you subscribe?  You should...

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