Hi, my name is Dani.
I live on Luja, a former BC Ferries lifeboat my husband and I turned into a liveaboard boat with an electric engine. You can learn more about her on Instagram.
As well as housing myself, my husband, and our dog Sparty, Luja doubles as my printmaking studio. I design, digitize, print, and package all of my letterpress prints right on board.
I grew up in an art studio.
My grandfather, E. Colin Williams ARCA, was a professional fine artist for his entire career. After graduating from the Royal College of Art in London, he lived, painted, and taught in multiple countries across three continents. Largely working in representational oils, his work has been collected around the world including in major corporate and private collections.
One quirk about Grampa was that he never let anyone in his studio. Except me.
From a young age we used to spend Friday nights together messing around on projects before making dinner (pancakes flipped in the pan without a spatula) and watching Home Improvement before going back to ‘work’. He taught me the basics of drawing, painting, print making, and more, and was always happy to help me build or make whatever I had in mind, whether for school, early entrepreneurial pursuits (someone had to design six-year-old me business cards for my hamster breeding business!), or just for fun.
Eventually, I went to university to study first graphic design (at the now shuttered York Sheriden BDes Program) and then cultural anthropology, and we both continued experimenting and working, still messing around together on a regular basis. As he moved deeper into retirement, he went back to one of his first artistic loves—lino printing—and I worked for nearly 20 years as a freelance graphic designer.
It’s a great regret of my creative life that he passed away shortly before I found my press. He would have absolutely loved it—how clever it is, how detailed it can be, how it just works (mostly!). How there are no lino blocks to carve—back breaking work at the best of times but especially at 87—and how straight up cool the whole process is.
I know that we would have seen it tucked away in a print shop, no longer being used, heard it was for sale, bought it on impulse, and then gone for coffee to debrief and giggle about our new toy before plotting how best to use it. I did most of that in his honour, instead.
One of the fun projects I’ve been playing with is converting his lino designs into printable polymer plates. 3 Sisters, shown at right, is a re production/digitization of one of his original lino prints. He would have called it cheating, and he also would have loved it very much.
Now,
you’ll find me living on a lifeboat, still doing a bit of graphic design, but mostly printing as much as possible. I’m inspired by the coast we live on (the traditional territories of the W̱SÁNEĆ people including the Tsartlip, Pauquachin, Tseycum, Tsawout, and Malahat First Nations), the international travels I’ve been lucky enough to take, and the cute, sweet moments that make everything *gestures wildly around* worth persevering through.
When I’m not printing, you can find me doing handstands at circus school, knitting, drawing, painting, reading, cooking, volunteering, or avoiding boat work. I also love to travel and, along with my husband, do as much of it as possible. I’m also in the midst of a Masters in Liberal Studies through Simon Fraser University. If you’re an adult who doesn’t feel done with school, let’s chat about GLS—it’s a life-changing program!
