Dispatch No. 001: A Strange Little Beginning

On the places that stay with us, the stories hiding in the woods, and making things by hand.

I've always been drawn to places that feel a little different. Places with their own stories, their own rhythms, and the sense that there's something just beyond what you can see.

For me, that feeling has always been tied to the outdoors.

Some of my earliest and most formative connections to that world came from my time in California's Sierra Nevada, working at Camp Chawanakee on the shores of Shaver Lake. There's something about spending time in the mountains, surrounded by towering trees and dark water, that changes the way you look at things. The days feel different. The nights feel bigger. And the line between the ordinary and the extraordinary seems a little thinner.

Beyond the camp was a strange little town, the kind of place that feels like it has a thousand stories tucked behind its storefronts and around its back roads. Places like that stick with you. They make you wonder about the people who came before, the things that happened when nobody was looking, and the stories that never quite made it into the history books.

Later, I found myself drawn to other landscapes that carried that same feeling. Estes Park, tucked into the Colorado Rockies, with its mountain air, winding roads, and the immense presence of the surrounding wilderness. Backpacking through Desolation Wilderness, where the landscape strips everything back to rock, water, sky, and the sound of your own footsteps. Canoeing through the Ozarks, moving quietly through waterways and wooded stretches that seem to belong to another time.

Different places, different landscapes, but a familiar feeling.

I've always loved national parks and the strange energy they seem to attract. Maybe it's the isolation. Maybe it's the history, the folklore, the unexplained sightings, or the sheer scale of the natural world. Maybe it's the fact that millions of people can visit a place and still leave with the feeling that they only saw a fraction of it.

National parks have a way of making you feel both very small and intensely curious. They're places where the landscape is real, the history is complicated, and the stories can get wonderfully strange. They're full of old roads, forgotten structures, unusual encounters, and stretches of wilderness that invite the imagination to run a little wild.

I've always liked that space between what we know and what we imagine.

Learning to look closer

My love of photography began with my father. He inspired me to look at the world through a different lens — to pay attention to light, composition, and the little details that can turn an ordinary moment into something worth keeping.

Photography taught me to slow down and really look. To notice the way light slips between the trees, how fog changes a familiar landscape, or how an otherwise ordinary object can feel mysterious when you see it from the right angle.

That way of looking has stayed with me, even as my creative interests have changed. I still find myself drawn to the details at the edges of things: strange silhouettes, overlooked objects, crooked branches, forgotten places, and the little imperfections that make something feel real.

I think that's part of why I love folklore and cryptids, too. They're born from that same impulse to look twice, to ask questions, and to wonder whether the world might be a little stranger than we give it credit for.

From the woods to the printing block

Somewhere along the way, all these interests started finding their way into my art.

The mysterious worlds of Gravity Falls and Over the Garden Wall helped put a visual language to feelings I'd carried for years. They captured the strange beauty of wooded places, the humor in the unsettling, and the idea that a seemingly ordinary patch of forest might have a whole world of its own.

Then there's punk zine culture: the handmade, independent, slightly rebellious belief that you don't need permission to make something. You don't need a perfect studio, expensive equipment, or a polished plan. You just need an idea, a few materials, and the willingness to see what happens.

That spirit feels right at home with printmaking.

With Strange Little Press, I carve linoleum, roll out ink, pull prints by hand, and turn curious little ideas into physical objects. Woodland wanderers, strange creatures, oddities, and images that might look as though they've been pulled from the pages of an old field journal all find their way onto the block.

Some prints come together exactly as I imagined. Others take a few wrong turns. Sometimes the ink behaves strangely, a carving goes sideways, or a test print reveals something I didn't expect.

I love that part, too.

Handmade work carries evidence of its own making. The uneven edges, the marks left by a tool, the variations between prints — these aren't things I want to erase. They're reminders that the work passed through someone's hands and that the process mattered as much as the finished piece.

In a world full of polished, mass-produced everything, I want to make things that feel personal, curious, and a little imperfect.

An unofficial field journal

Strange Little Press is my home for all of it: handmade prints, pocket-sized cryptids, curious objects, experiments, and the stories that inspire them.

This blog, which I'm calling The Strange Dispatch, will be an ongoing field journal of the things that catch my attention. I'll share new work, behind-the-scenes printmaking, failed experiments, folklore, strange histories, outdoor inspirations, and whatever else I find myself chasing down a rabbit hole.

Some dispatches might begin with a creature from an old legend. Others might start with a photograph, a memory from the mountains, or a curious little object that deserves a closer look.

I want this to be a place for people who love the outdoors but also love the strange things that gather around its edges. For people who collect oddities, read about unexplained encounters, appreciate handmade art, or simply enjoy the feeling that there's always more to discover.

You don't have to believe in every strange story. You just have to be willing to hear it.

There are plenty of things in this world worth looking at twice. My father taught me to look closer through a camera. The mountains, forests, and waterways I've spent time in taught me to keep wondering. And making art has given me a way to share some of what I've found along the way.

Welcome to Strange Little Press.

Keep your eyes open out there. You never know what you'll find.

— Chris Wortham
Artist & Founder, Strange Little Press