Our first fundraiser for the Ben Paley Scholarship was AWESOME! Thank you to everyone who supported the effort by purchasing our Limited Edition Golden Cover 2025 Calendar. With your help we are able to donate $8976 to the fund!
AND
Direct donations during the month of August added $1150 to that so in total, you guys help add $10,126 to Ben’s Scholarship fund. This is INCREDIBLE! We are so grateful and excited to build the fund.
Now, part of the fun in the FUNdraiser was the fact that each Limited Edition Golden Cover 2025 Calendar purchased put the purchaser’s name ‘in the hat’ to win additional calendars for gifting. Three customers where chosen randomly on Sunday September 1, 2024.
Our first place winner is Eileen Prime in Manville Rhode Island - she won three calendars - Go Eileen!
Second place winner is Lynne Herndon of Wilmington North Carolina who gets 2 additional 2025 Dolphin Studio Calendars for her winnings.
Third Place goes to John Squarok who divides his time between Fort Lauderdale Florida and Cape Cod Massachusetts. John won an additional 2025 calendar.
It turns out that Eileen and I (Crispina here) met at Maine Fiber College back in 2018. That serendipitous meeting led us to realize many commonalities and have kept us connected since.
Lynne was so excited to share that her good friend Peg participated in my Snow Farm Potholder Rug retreat during which our winners were selected.
John is a new Dolphin Studio customer. Welcome to The Dolphin Studio Calendar family - John. We hope you become one of our clan of long term Dolphin Studio Calendar peeps who are customers/ friends/supporters.
This whole endeavor was super fun for us. - Really meaningful to have your help building Ben’s legacy. You can read more about him in this recent blog post.
AND
Keep your eyes peeled for what promises to be an annual fundraiser to support the Ben Paley Scholarship coming in July 2025 ~ Together we can build the scholarship to pay full tuition for a music student in our region with exemplary skill and financial need - in perpetuity.
AND, as Ben would say, Treat yourself lovingly.
When September comes here in the Berkshires, it is a time of transitions for many folks. School starts. Weather changes. There is a chill in the air, and daylight starts to dwindle. For those of us who want to stay healthy, we look for natural remedies to these transitions.
The image for September was originally designed by our sister, Felicitas, in 2004. As many of you know, Felicitas was diagnosed with MS in 1985 while living in California and attending UC Berkeley. Felicitas moved back to the Berkshires many years ago - due to the progression of her disease - and has been residing in a local nursing home for the past 19 years. While this may sound devastating, Felicitas is living her life in an establishment where the CNA’s and RN’s are used to having clients living in there for only a few years at the most. As a result of her prolonged stay, Felicitas has formed some very nice bonds with the staff, and many truly love her... AND when you ask her, Felicitas will tell you she is having the BEST year of her life!
The September print on the right is the one we printed for 2024 and the one on the left is from 2004!
When looking through past calendars to pick the vintage print to recreate for Felicitas, we found one of our favorites: the lemon and ginger print. I love the simplicity of this image, and know that both ginger and lemon are boosters for our immune system, in addition to many other health benefits! One especially palatable way to combine the two superfoods is in the form of a tea, which, in addition to boosting immunity, includes other benefits like: weight loss, heart health, pain relief, liver health, nasal decongestion, and indigestion relief. The list goes on and on!
Here is a simple recipe to follow to make some of this delicious tea:
Soothing Lemon Ginger Tea
Ingredients for 2 servings
4 cups water
1 lemon
1 pc of ginger, 2-3 inches
2 teaspoons honey or preferred sweetener
Preparation
3. Steep for 5-10 minutes
4. Strain and pour tea into mug
5. Add honey, stir and serve
6. Enjoy!
https://tasty.co/recipe/soothing-lemon-ginger-tea
When looking at the current calendar image, our dedicated fans who may have received a 2004 calendar might notice a slight change in the image. We added a lemon!
Here’s to staying healthy and strong in September and beyond!
Felicitas was all smiles when I last stopped in for a visit!
The Dolphin Studio is a family business - if you have been around a while, you probably already know that.
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You might even have known Ben Paley, my son (Crispna here) and John and Primm’s eldest grandchild.
August has arrived with the wonderful blackberry image designed by our late father/ founder of The Dolphin Studio John ffrench is featured as this month's Dolphin Studio Calendar image.
The original print was part of the 1981 calendar. When we combed through past calendars searching for the perfect image to re-print, the blackberries jumped out at us. The design in 1981 was made on a pinky red paper and printed in blue and yellow (shown below). After this unusually hot July here in the Berkshires, I am sure that the blackberry harvest will be plentiful this August.
1981 vs. 2023
I have some blackberry fun facts for you…did you know that ~ Blackberries have the highest antioxidant content per serving of any food?
Did you know that the Blackberry, is in fact, not a berry but a fruit with each section being its own fruit?
Did you know that the Blackberry represents abundance and prosperity as they are plentiful and bountiful when in season?
And last but not least, Blackberries are a symbol of resilience and strength as they are known for their ability to grow and thrive in harsh conditions.
After all this information I thought you might like to make some Small Batch Blackberry jam! Here is a recipe for you to try out! Let us know how your jam comes out!
Small Batch Blackberry Jam
INGREDIENTS
1lb blackberry (around 3 cups)
1 1⁄4cups sugar
The Year of the Dragon
The Dolphin Studio Calendar image for July 2024 was drawn back in 1999 or maybe 2000 by Ben, my son and John and Primm’s eldest grandchild.
Ben was such a momentous focus of my life that it is hard for me to imagine that anyone out there could possibly not know that he died. July has been especially hard for me for what will be 5 years on the 30th..
Benjamin Lucas Paley died on July 30th 2019 having lived his life with restrictive Cardiomyopathy. He was added to the Heart/Lung transplant list the day before he died.
The other day I was hanging out with my friend who knew that my sweet boy Ben had died but didn’t know him and asked what had happened to him. It was a pleasure to tell his story The intensity of heartbreak that comes with watching the suffering and struggle of a person you love more than life itself, never dissipates.
Ouuh
That heartbreak makes me know that his leaving this realm allows him well-deserved relaxed comfort. I guess because of his precarious health, we were super close. I went to every Dr.’s appt with him and might have been the only person who knew that the most common symptom of his heart condition was sudden death. We had deep conversations and took in a lot of music together. Finally got him to a Dead show at Fenway in 2018.
Ben was funny as hell, politically vehement, determined and motivated. He graduated from Berklee School of Music and was a notable guitarist and bandleader in Boston, MA. playing regularly with The Silver Bullet Band. The Lost Collective, and Starship to Pluto were his most notable musical endeavors - I spent many an evening attending shows dancing my face off…
Since 2020 we have hosted a scholarship fund in Ben’s name and annually award a highschool senior from our region who plans to study music, leaning toward applicants navigating physical illness.
Later this month The Dolphin Studio will be kicking off a fundraiser to support the Ben Paley Scholarship. My dream is to build the fund to a place where it supports a 4-year music-focused education for someone with determined motivation and without financial means - in perpetuity.
Ben was way into dragons, and swords, and martial arts as a kid. I think he drew this picture when he was 8 or 9 and I think he was just about that age in the middle picture above. You can see the mischief on his face - which was ummm - Ben’s nature…
On the left is the image of me and Ben at The Bookstore in Lenox - Summer 2018. I keep this picture as a screensaver on my phone - so I can see him everyday.
Over here in our little woodland studio we have kicked off the 2024 summer season with a couple additions to our Print Team.
Today I’d like to introduce you to the first summer printer to rejoin our team this season, Malina Jackson.
We welcome Malina back for her second summer printing with The Dolphin Studio. She is a quick and eager learner. The knowledge and experience she gained in the last 12 months both in the studio with us, and at her first year in college where she dove into silkscreen printing in a different setting is a great asset to have in the mix this summer.
Malina is a dab hand at all tech related aspects of our process. She is helping
bring us up to date sharing her extensive knowledge of the platforms we use to get our drawings from paper to silkscreen.
She is an adventurer - loves to travel and loves kids, dogs, musicals and learning. We first met Malina when she came to the studio as an intern with the Horizons program at Miss Hall’s School in Pittsfield Ma.
Malina has just finished her first year at Tufts University where she is working on a degree in fine art, leaning toward book-making… which involves print-making - no surprise there!
As you can see, Malina is a great fit around here for so many reasons. Welcome back to the Dolphin Studio print shop family Malina. We are so glad to have you with us this summer.
(Top image shows Malina working on our November 2025 transparency. Bottom image is Malina, Lily and Kerry sporting our new uniforms!)
All of us at The Dolphin Studio want to take this opportunity to thank a very important person who has become an integral part of our print shop family.
Johnny Ringer, one of our star printers has been with us for nearly 7 years - since he was a highschool senior. See, Johnny met Julia and they have fallen in love. Julia is a teacher, a three-hour drive north, in New Hampshire... so Johnny has cut loose and moved north to be with his sweetheart.
We are super excited for Johnny but also super sad to see him go. He has grown up with us in so many ways.
With his help we have developed new processes in our printing methods for creating transparencies and expanded our web presence. He has become an expert screenprinter and with his contribution The Dolphin Studio has grown to produce over 3000 annual calendars.
We will miss hearing about his coast-to-coast skatepark adventures, and his latest guitar riffs. We will continue to be astounded by the pleasure he finds sitting in his car, tunes cranked with the windows up on even the hottest summer days. He attributes this to his Cambodian heritage..?
Thank you for all the years Johnny Ringer! We hope you have the BEST time up there in New Hampshire and that Julia knows what a gem you are. You will always be a treasured part of The Dolphin Studio family.
Hi everyone! My name is Lily, and I am part of the Dolphin Studio family. I am the granddaughter of John and Primm ffrench and the daughter of Sofia and Pat Hughes. I have been designing calendar months for as long as I can remember, and I've been screen printing for about ten years. My favorite role at the Dolphin Studio is mixing the colors for each month, because it is challenging and rewarding to find the right color my family members are thinking of and bringing their visions to life.
Happy June everyone! We hope that it is a month filled with warmth and good health. This year I designed June as well as printed it. Personally, I always struggle to come up with what to design each year and this year was no different, as I went through several designs before choosing to stick with a tennis racket in the end.The design process was pretty easy once I knew what I was going to select and it ended up only taking me a day or so to finish.
I came up with this design because my boyfriend Tom and I were in a tennis phase and were playing everyday after work. Additionally, I thought a racket would be a good design because no one has done a tennis racket before and because June is a good month to play tennis.
Here is a photo of Tom and me playing pickleball, which I know is not the same as tennis, but I still thought it was cute to add.
Hope you all have a great month!
Love,
Lily Hughes
Today, March 8 is International Womens’ Day. What better way to honor the day than to celebrate our co-founder Primm ffrench, our mom and grandma. She would have turned 95 on March 9, 2024 - Let's celebrate her birth, can-do outlook and the self reliant, woman who inspired us and so many others to be more like her.
We're spreading Primm's gifts around by offering 25% off the products in our shop that she designed - read to the bottom for details.
Primm taught high-school art for over 40 years throughout her career and helped hundreds of students find worth in their dreams of becoming creative professionals, (myself included). She actually filled out my college application - truth!
Primm was born in Richmond Virginia in 1929 to James Albert Turner and Doris Jane Bryant Turner. Her dad was born in the rural Virginia hills of Wythe County. Primm’s mom was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa, was college educated, an accomplished concert pianist and she taught piano from her livingroom.
Due to her dad’s career, selling sheetrock, the newest, coolest building material of the time, to the building industry; the family moved a lot. Primm attended a different school every year growing up.
Because of all her moving around and her academic aptitude, Primm managed to graduate high school at the tender age of 16.
She went right on to The University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA where she became life-long friends with her three roommates, Betsy, Connie, and Nora.
FUN FACT:
Betsy, Connie, Nora and Primm stayed in close touch throughout their long lives gathering annually for weeklong rendezvous after retirement. With their husbands in tow, they partied it up, cooked together and laughed their asses off reminiscing about days gone by. Those southern accents would come into full bloom aided by the company and cocktails.
Stories were shared about that first job, how the ‘lunchroom’ was actually the bench-lined halls where she could not sit because the law said that if she, as a white person, sat on a bench, all the black people on that shared bench, had to stand.
She brought in a chair to keep the comfort.
At Christmas-time we bake the most DELICIOUS Gingerbread Cookies from a recipe given to Primm aka Miss Turner, from one of her students at that first teaching job,… a boy named Dickie Vass. I think the recipe makes 10 dozen!
After her experience teaching in the segregated south, Primm embarked on a summer program in Florence Italy to further her Art History education and see the world. She made the journey on a freighter that took ten days to cross the Atlantic.
It was in Florence where she met her future husband, John ffrench and a whole slew artists who turned out to be additions to her collection of life-long friends. She learned to speak Italian and returned to Florence for longer stints in the following years. Her community of friends there lived at a place called Villa Fabbricotti. Each room was home to an artist from diverse backgrounds around the world. My dad took me there when I was traveling on business with him in 1995. It was remarkably similar to what he had in his memory… Lovely, airy, balconies on an open courtyard, quiet, when we were there in the middle of the day, but signs of continued art making were evident.
Wild stories of adventures in Florence, other parts of Italy and travels around Europe filled our childhood. Primm's foxy race-car-driving boyfriend, hitch hiiking to Switzerland with her girlfriend, and diving into mosaic-making, developing her notable painting style, collaborating with her housemates and the recognition that comes with commitment to ones art...
She showed us the way by experience, traveling solo without fear, stories of the lovely people she met on the way and how the collection of 'aunts' and 'uncles' we were brought up knowing, fit into her history, and became part of ours.
Somewhere along the line, Primm’s parents retired to Stockbridge MA to take advantage of the culturally rich environs of The Berkshires. Doris’ attention was focused on Tanglewood, the summer home of The Boston Symphony Orchestra where she spent summers ushering and taking in the gloriousness of setting and music she loved so.
Primm joined her parents in Stockbridge and was hired to teach high school art at Williams High School right in town. She taught there for two years, 1961-1963 before marrying John in the summer of 1963, and settling in Ireland where he led a notable design team at Arklow Pottery in Co. Wicklow.
My sisters, Felicitas and Sofia, and I were all born in Ireland. Primm maintained her connection to Stockbridge and her Berkshire community with a regular column about her life in Ireland as a newly-wed, new mom, and then mom of three, in The Berkshire Eagle.
In 1968, she jumped at the job offer she got from the new Berkshire Hills Regional School District to run the 6-school art department. Her with the only concession being that the district hire her husband, to teach in the Art Department, as part of the deal. John ffrench, Irish ceramist and lead designer at Arklow Pottery, was a welcome addition to the soon to be Monument Mountain Regional High School art department.
Primm and John spent the rest of their working lives teaching in that district. My sisters and I all had them for teachers when we took art in high school.
If you haven't figured it out by now, Primm was John's 'boss'. I remember people asking me as a kid about that and wondering why. She was humble, organized and articulate, focused on providing excellent art education and showing, by example, that women are limitless and have what it takes to do anything they want.
Primm headed up the Art Dept, designing curriculum, teaching classes, going to meetings, and supporting all of her students, adding many of them to that growing list of lifelong friends. She expertly hand-cut all the stencils used to make our calendars before we switched to our current photo emulsion process. She ran the business aspect of The Dolphin Studio with her Dome Book full of all the numbers that all balanced perfectly. She designed and mailed our pre-internet marketing mailers, and shipped orders all while parenting 3 daughters born in three years. She encouraged her kids' creative endeavors and supported her husband's commitment to his art-making while relinguishing, without resentment, her own art practice for lack of time. Often thought to be 'quiet' or 'shy', she was not. She was married to a gregarious man who loved people, told stories, garnered the attention in a room. Primm's eyes twinkled with mischief and good humor that on occasion was matched with a hearty, full-belly laugh and an unmatched warmth.
The Dolphin Studio would certainly not be here today without the groundwork laid by Primm. I wouldn't have EVER gotten that college application done! Things in Stockbridge Massachusetts and in the lives of so many artists would just be a whole lot different without Primm's steadfast creative encouragement. So today, we honor, and give huge thanks for the long legacy to Primm Turner ffrench. We miss you and will toast the day to all the gifts you have left for us.
We're spreading Primm's gifts around by offering 25% off the products in our shop that she designed - through midnight March 10, 2024.
To get your 25% off enter PRIMMS DAY at checkout - Don't miss out! The sale ends at midnight Sunday March 10, 2024
The Dolphin Studio Calendar's March 2024 calendar image was designed by me, Crispina ffrench, on the left in the photo above, taken by our friend Jane Feldman.
(Pre-order your 2025 calendar here.)
My sister Sofia Hughes (on the right) and I run The Dolphin Studio, our family-run silkscreen printing company founded by our parents John and Primm ffrench in 1970. Our company truly is a family business. The Dolphin Studio calendar, our signature product, is a collection of thirteen 12”x24” prints (12 months and a cover/envelope). Each page is designed and printed by family members with three generations represented..
Sofia and I, and each of our kids design a month, we include a design for our sister Felicitas and one for my son Ben. Vintage prints, designed by John and Primm are added to the mix and help carry forward the ffrench family tradition. We absolutely LOVE that our family tradition is shared by the most awesome global community of customers and has become a tradition for so many families.
Back in July 2023, Violet, my youngest at age 16, decided that she wanted to take a break from designing a month for our 2024 edition. I jumped at the chance to add an image as I love designing calendar months.
Here’s hoping that Violet is willing to share her gifts in the form of artwork in the 2025 edition… I’m not holding my breath, but we are in negotiations (and I am not kidding).
My March 2024 image is a pet portrait of Sadie Thee GoldenDoodle (kinda like Megan Thee Stallion) who joined our fam when Lucy and Violet were toddlers. She accompanied me on morning runs, demanded that I get my ass out the door when it was hard to get motivated, and was quite a looker, half sheep and half polar bear stuffy. She adored us all but I was her human and I miss her. Right around the time that Violet asked to ‘please be excused’ from her calendar design duties, this cute picture popped up in ‘My Memories’ and inspired me to make it a calendar design, an ode to my sweet Sadie who passed into the next realm to join Ben and the ancestors in October 2021.
Hope you like it.
Sofia, my sister, and partner in The Dolphin Studio (and crime) designed our February image. If you are new around here, we are second generation ffrench family members running The Dolphin Studio. (That is me on the left and Sofia on the right in the image above)
Sofia followed in our parents’ public school teaching footsteps. She is a kindergarten teacher with 27 years of experience under her belt. She is creative and funny and we have been the closest of sisters since the beginning of time.
Sofia’s happy place is at the beach, specifically in Eastham on Cape Cod.. that long arm shaped peninsula on the Massachusetts coast. Our family has shared a cottage there since we were small so we get to spend time at the beach each year, wallowing around in
the salty sunshine.
The anchor and hearts image Sofia created for February 2024 was inspired by the Cape Cod vibe with a whimsical nod to sailors, pirates, tattoos, love and longing. Her fun aesthetic and color choice speaks to countless hours soaking up sunshine on warm sandy beaches paired with evening strolls taking in the sights of Provincetown and all its colorful, over-the-top, creative expression.
Now, if you know the two of us, Sofia and me, you will agree that Sofie is the more scheduled, organized and logical one, while my entrepreneurial spirit is full of dreamy ideas and limitless possibilities….
We balance each other well.
I’m sharing all of that with you because, as our childhood friend, Jonathan Trumbull, noticed, we made a mistake on our first print run of February this year!
See Jonathon’s birthday is on February 18th and well, that first run did not have an 18!!
OMG!
Over here at The Dolphin Studio we have a process that we thought was pretty bulletproof. See, each design is handled by several people before it gets to the point of pushing ink through the screen, making prints on paper.
At The Dolphin Studio each person who handles a print/image looks at what they are making, checking for quality and errors….
AND
Somehow, with all of our checks and balances the errant February print slipped through and out the door in several hundred calendars before we knew of our mistake.
We had printed 1500 February calendar pages before we became aware of the missing 18.
Stop the PRESSES!
Ha!
We did just that, we stopped.
We stopped collating.
We stopped shipping.
We stopped packing, boxing and prepping.
We pulled the big beautiful stack of fresh February prints from our collating line and we recreated the image.
Sofia re-drew the artwork,
Johnny re-created color separations and re-printed transparencies.
Kerry re-shot screens.
Lily, removed Februarys from collated 2024 calendars and prepped shipments.
I stayed calm and thought about how handmade mistakes add a level of human connection, vulnerability, and beauty to our daily lives
Sofia had a heart attack (not really) but if you know her, you know that she is sensitive and feels terribly when something she has done creates havoc for anyone around her.
We were super pleasantly surprised when we shared these February shenanigans with a few friends and loyal customers. They WANTED one of the first run Februarys. They saw, what we thought of as an error, as a sought after collector’s item.
Ha! We certainly do LOVE our customers!!
This is what we did.
We made lemonade!
Sofia had the brilliant idea to use the February misprints to make what has turned into, our annual calendar-customer Valentine’s Day card.
We overprinted the errant Februarys with sparkly gold lace. (The lace image was created with an actual piece of handmade lace from my husband’s grandmother.) The richly layered and GORGEOUS overprints were cut to fit a standard envelope and a fun and heartfelt message of appreciation was added.
Not only are gorgeous cards heading out to each person who purchased calendars this year, we have kept what we thought might be garbage from the landfill, possibly created a new product collection, and had a whole bunch of jijinx making something from trash that far surpassed our expectations.
Kinda like that refreshing, thirst quenching delight on a hot summer day made from lemons, sugar and cold water….
So, if you are a calendar customer and reading this in late January 2024, keep your eyes on your mailbox.
Let us know in the comments if you love our overprint cards as much as I do. We might just be making a whole collection of them with our strike prints and studio proofs….
AND
If February 18th is a super special day for you, and you got a collector’s version of the 2024 Dolphin Studio calendar, let us know by sending us an email. We might just have an extra February 2024 with an 18 kicking around that we can send your way.
