Jen Palacio, October Artist of the Month

Interview with Jen Palacio as told to Charan Devereaux

Jen Palacio is a printmaker, designer and owner of Tiny Turns Paperie, a stationery store and paper studio in Somerville’s Bow Market. As an artist, she creates large format work as well as greeting cards and custom stationery in her Charlestown studio, incorporating sustainability principles in her practice when possible. Jen is a board member at Union Square Main Streets, co-organizes several annual craft markets, and teaches at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (Mass Art) and the Harvard Extension School’s Sustainability Program. Jen holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Boston University and a Master’s in Sustainability and Environmental Management from Harvard.

What brought you to Somerville?

I graduated from Boston University in 2000 and worked in the corporate world directly out of school, always doing art on the side. I was living in Richmond, Virginia when I was recruited to come back to the Boston area and interview for a job at Fidelity Investments. While I was interviewing, I stayed with a friend in Somerville and discovered Somerville Open Studios—I loved it, and thought, “If I get this job, I want to live here.” So when I got a position in the Marlborough office in 2006, I moved to Somerville. I lasted a year of commuting to Marlborough and then I quit. I worked at Davis Squared [gift shop on Highland Ave.] for three or four years—that is how I started to get familiar with small business. I also painted murals, had teaching gigs and other part-time jobs.

In 2011, a friend strong-armed me into doing ArtBeat, so that is when I formally started my art business, Just Enough Nonsense. [Now in its 38th year, ArtBeat is the Somerville Art Council’s annual multicultural arts festival, drawing ten thousand visitors to Davis Square.] I focused on printmaking and handmade accessories, and participated in many local arts markets.

In 2019, I opened Tiny Turns Paperie in Bow Market. It was a wild ride with the pandemic, but we were able to pivot and grow. Today, over 50 percent of what we sell is made by local New England artists, and over 75 percent of our items come from independent (often one-person) businesses.

In your own creative work, you’re interested in combining traditional printmaking with new technologies. Can you talk about what you do?

I learned letterpress printmaking right around the time I started selling my work at art markets. I had access to Bow & Arrow Press at Harvard while in grad school, so I learned how to work with lead type. [Founded in 1978, Bow & Arrow Press is Harvard University’s letterpress printing studio.] I learned about processes for creating polymer plates, and how I could turn drawings into type forms through digital means and then print them old-school style on antique letter press machines. So, if I want to do a hand-lettered design or a hand-drawn image on a poster but I want to print it on a letterpress, there is a multi-step process that takes it from analog to digital to analog. Almost everything I do is a little more complicated than it needs to be, a problem to solve—that makes it interesting.

Through the printmaking community, I was able to acquire my letterpress machine from the Boston Paper Collective, and take over their Charlestown studio when they wound down operations. It’s where I do the bulk of my printmaking. More recently, I’ve been working with carved images – either on wood or linoleum blocks. I’m also experimenting with using paper cut images to create pressure print layers for the backgrounds of my prints.

In addition to printmaking, I create all kinds of 3D accessories. I went to grad school for sustainability and environmental management, which influences what I do with tactile and 3D materials, taking things that would be wasted or put in the trash to make something useful or beautiful. One of the forms I enjoy making is diorama ornaments—I find things that would be thrown away and use them to create holiday scenes. I make other ornaments from found objects. For example, I’ll take discards from dollar oyster nights and make ornaments or other fun festive things.

Can you talk about your teaching?

Currently, I’m teaching a class at Mass Art [Massachusetts College of Art and Design] on creative business. There’s a nice effort happening at Mass Art to help new creatives understand what it might take to make a living when they graduate. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity when I was asked if I would help teach in that program.

An interest in entrepreneurship underlies much of what I do. I like to experiment in many different ways, not only in terms of art and teaching, but in terms of understanding what gets people excited to engage with their community and their own creative thought processes. How do we help people understand the value of what creative projects bring to our community? How can that understanding impact their willingness to pay for something created or designed by a local artist?

In the store, some people ask, “Why does this [item] cost so much? I can get something cheaper someplace else.” Then we have a conversation, and I might ask, “What are you trying to support with your dollars? What kind of community do you want to live in?” For example, you’ve probably heard discussions about the idea of “free” shipping, and how it is not really free [because the seller needs to pay for it]. But free shipping has changed people’s expectations. It’s important to remember that there is a human being behind the product, and if you value their existence, you can vote with your dollar. There are things that need to happen on a larger scale, but at the base, you can value the human beings involved in the process. By shopping local, people can be face-to-face with artists and businesses and support their work. The best way to keep artists in Somerville is to pay artists that live in Somerville.

You are teaching at Mass Art, managing the store, and working in your studio in Charlestown. I hear you have even more projects coming up.

I’m participating in a project with a new print studio in East Somerville called New Impressions Studio. They are partnering with a team of printmakers from Baltimore called Big Ink to produce a massive printmaking event in April 2025. They’ll bring up their massive relief press called Big Tuna. It will require me to carve a giant 24”x36” wood block – at a minimum—and it takes multiple people to ink the block. I’m doing it to remind myself that not every piece of art has to be sold to have value. I’m participating mostly for myself in honor of a few artists I knew who sadly passed, who would have been so excited about the spectacle of printmaking as almost performance art.

We are rolling into the holiday season, so I’m also working to support artists in this critical time for retail sales. My neighbor Blue Bandana Relics and I co-curate the artists for the Somerville Arts Council’s annual Monster Mash festival [October 20, 2024], and we will fill the street with local artists and businesses. I’m also working to highlight Somerville artists and businesses for Bow Market’s Annual Small Business Saturday [November 30, 2024].

There are other ideas I’m thinking about. Starting back in 2009, I was part of a monthly meet-up of small crafty business owners to support our accountability. We would write our newsletters together while we ate noodles. We found ways to partner that helped all of us, we’d say “Let’s go in on a group buy for a photographer,” or other businesses that might be a good fit for our products. It fell apart a bit during the pandemic. It was a great, fun resource to have, and it started before I came to Bow Market. Now I can just walk to other business owners [at Bow} and say, “How are things going for you?” But it would be nice if there was a way to rejuvenate that kind of group.

Are there events coming up at Tiny Turns Paperie?

Tiny Turns is partnering with Remnant Brewing in Bow Market to produce a free Craft Night every Sunday evening from 6pm to 8pm. People can bring their own craft projects to Remnant or use the provided supplies from our shop. Often, we bring an idea and some materials for folks to work on, and they can use any of the pens we sell in the store. My staff is getting into it, so we’re starting to have theme nights including collage nights, journaling nights, seasonal crafts and in the winter months, we will have fiber-themed weeks where people can knit and be cozy. We always have blank paper, blank greeting cards and all the tester pens from the shop.

Other than Tiny Turns, what are some of the places you love in Somerville?

Besides Bow Market, I love All She Wrote Books on Washington Street in East Somerville – everything from their selection to the events they host. I really love all the restaurants in Somerville! There are so many great ones. I live in Winter Hill, and Sarma is over by us, which I love in terms of the variety and vibe. I love Trina’s Starlite Lounge on Beacon Street. I head to East Somerville when I need a taco fix, Taco Loco is our most frequent stop. Ebi Sushi is my sushi spot, for soba I head to Sugidama in Davis Square. My go-tos for a quick break and a treat in Union Square are Vinal General for soft serve or Maprang Bakery & Cafe. I really love June Bug – great for pizza – and Bronwyn’s Oktoberfest is top notch. The cream of wheat from the Neighborhood Restaurant & Bakery is not to be missed!