Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. A little more than 550 years ago, a metal-smith, a gem cutter and the owner of a paper mill collaborated on an invention that changed the world. The Gutenberg Press ushered in a paradigm shift in sharing information – mass produced printed material. Within 50 years, the mass-printing …
Letterpress
Block Cutting at GCAE
Writing is my craft, but block cutting is becoming a creative outlet. It is the art that set this ship sailing – a quiet, solitary process. A little physical, a little analytical, and a lot of faith. Last Fall I took a Block Cutting and Spoon Printing class at Genesee Center for the Arts and …
A Letterpress Vision
My last Letterpress project did not turn out as I had hoped. My Alphabet set in Onyx, plus numbers and symbols, was, I decided, about as exciting as an eye test. My classmates’ Alphabets are a funky arrangement of large wood type in “Condensed Gothic,” a clever poem in “Valiant,” and a sweet little play …
Now I know my A, B, C’s…Letterpress Week 6
My mother was once told by a school evaluator that her kindergartner had a “slight fine-motor disability;” I have never been able to color inside the lines, I am not to be trusted with dispensing superglue, and it takes me a few tries to put my house key in the lock. I suspect this generalized …
Letterpress, giving, pinecones, and fractals (keep up)
This week in Letterpress class, I finally printed a real project. It is a bookmark to commemorate a mission at my church, the Giving Tree. You might know the Shel Silverstein children’s book of the same name, about giving, pretty much until it hurts, out of love. The Giving Tree at church has collected hygiene …
Letterpress, giving, pinecones, and fractals (keep up)Read More
Give me some space: Letterpress Week 4
Mechanical Precision My left hand is numb. I am not used to gripping a composing stick for three hours. My kid-sized hand does not curl around it comfortably, so the metal edge digs into the webbing where my thumb meets my hand. But this is how it’s done – you hold the type in place …
Just my type: Letterpress Week 3
I had this strange dream where everything was both upside down and backwards, but somehow I still knew what was going on even if I couldn’t begin to explain it. Wait a minute…that wasn’t a dream, that was Letterpress class last week! Put it into words In the computer world, any good word processing program …
A word, please; New Adventures in Letterpress
How big is your font? There is something kind of Freudian about Letterpress. So says Mitch the instructor at my first Lovin’ Letterpress class at GCAE. Is it the hulking machinery, the type that comes in all shapes and sizes, or the fragrances of solvents and oil-based inks? We “unleash the beast” (a giant paper …
