A difficult day

Last Tuesday, December 4th, 2012, we had a difficult day at our studio. It started like any other day: making plates, shipping orders, printing. But at around 1:30 in the afternoon our workday was cut short. The sound of sirens drew us out from our workspace. We saw firefighters racing around to put out a fire that had started next door, but quickly spread to the roof of our building. We watched from across the street as a river of water flowed down the side of the building. At the time, we had no idea how deeply we would be impacted by what seemed to be a small, not so serious fire. 

KTVU coverage of the two-alarm fire

When we were finally allowed back in the building we discovered much of what we had been creating over the last six years was now drenched in smoky water. We lost our entire collection of greeting cards, holiday cards, and shelves of stored paper. 

Our beautiful, perfect card wall before ...

and after.

We have been walking around in shock and disbelief for a few days, but now we are determined to pick ourselves up and get back to work as soon as we can. We will need to leave our lovely light-filled studio while it's being renovated for a period of time and so now we are figuring out a temporary solution.  Thankfully we were able to salvage many things: some product, our presses and most importantly, Mara and I, along with the other tenants and owners of our building, are safe. We want to take this moment to express to you how grateful we are for your support over the years. We feel so fortunate to have been able to do this work that we love and we plan to continue on for years to come.

We have been walking around in shock and disbelief for a few days, but now we are determined to pick ourselves up and get back to work as soon as we can. We will need to leave our lovely light-filled studio while it's being renovated for a period of time and so now we are figuring out a temporary solution. 

Thankfully we were able to salvage many things: some product, our presses and most importantly, Mara and I, along with the other tenants and owners of our building, are safe. We want to take this moment to express to you how grateful we are for your support over the years. We feel so fortunate to have been able to do this work that we love and we plan to continue on for years to come.