gary's retirement party

Gary's retirement party was this afternoon! Gary Frost is the head conservator (well, former-head conservator now) at the university library and one of the leading thinkers on bookbinding and conservation in the field so it was pretty cool and sort of weird that I got to be at his retirement party. The party was at City Park and there were food and gifts—including a hand-made time capsule filled with memories from projects Gary's worked on (and our poster!)—and a good time was had by all. Gary said some pretty funny things, like when he went off about Harlequin endbands (when half the endband is one color and the second half is a different color) or when he read a line from the letter that the head librarian sent with her retierment gift to him that said he always sent her very detailed and thoughtful feedback. He just laughed and said, "And here I thought I was being a nuisance!"

But for me the best part was that Gary genuinely liked our poster! He made sure to tell us once in front of everyone when we got there and again while we were all milling around chatting that he was very impressed with our letterpressing. It felt so great to have him compliment us on our hard work. He could tell that we had based our design off of a vintage broadside and was impressed with how it turned out. We had about a million copies since the thing that takes the longest with letterpress is setting it up—the difference between printing 1 and 50 is about 5 minutes—so we handed them out to the party attendees and everyone seemed excited to get them. It was very self-affirming.

Gary with our poster!
(Click to enlarge.)

So, despite my stuffy head and runny noes (allergies?) today has been a good day.

broadside

Last week my friend (and co-worker) Jill and I were asked to make a poster of sorts for a retirement celebration on Thursday of this week. We decided to letterpress it, which seemed like a good idea at the time and, I would argue, really did stay a good idea, even 9 hours of work later.

After about an hour of work last night we came up with this mock-up in Illustrator:

And after about 8 straight hours of work this afternoon/evening we finished with this letterpressed broadside:

(Click to enlarge.)

I think we make a pretty good team.

The thing that the average person doesn't realize about true letterpress (I say true because there are ways to cheat this system but I think that's, as I've said, cheating) is how much work it actually is. Every single letter you see on that broadside is a separate piece of type. And all the spaces in between the letters? Also separate pieces. Sometimes, as is the case with the last two lines on this broadside, many pieces. And, if you print in more than one color (as we did) you have to ink the press, print all of one color first, then clean the press, take out the type from the first color and insert the type you want in the second color, re-ink the press, and print a second time. And you have to make sure things in the press bed haven't shifted around so you print that one word in that second color exactly where you want it to be, and not over the words that have already been printed. Sometimes you can't use the type you want because it is old wood type and it doesn't have any R's like you need or not enough E's. Then you have to figure out what does have the letters you need and you have to settle for that.

But often, as was the case here, it all works out in the end and you are pleased with the work you have done and have enjoyed the time it took to get to that point because of who you spent your time doing it with and the work you were able to complete together: a feat that would not have been possible alone.

my last day in purgatory

Today was my last day as an intern for the Purgatory Pie Press. It was a sad and sweltering day, though the sweltering wasn't unusual... I was sick Monday and Tuesday of this week (a strange sickness where I felt feverish but had a lower body temperature than is normal and I slept 18 straight hours) so I felt even more sluggish and foggy today than usual. Despite it all, however, it was a good last day.

I was able to "proof" (shop talk for print for the first time) my very own wooden block letters on Mothra (Dikko's Vandercook-4 letter press). I set up the type and everything all by myself: it was very satisfactory.

The press!

That's right, I set that up.
(Note: I actually didn't do it completely right, but it was my first time and I figured it out all on my own, so don't judge.)

The first printing! See how the L is far away from the T? It's because the letters are on rectangular blocks. Dikko offered to kern it (in letter press terms this means to actually cut the block down) for me, but since this is my only wooden type I was a little hesitant to let him do that. Usually you have a full alphabet and repeating letters so you would kern one but not any others.

This was my favorite printing that I did. I inked and printed it once (the darkest Cassi Elton) then turned it upside down and printed it again, then trimmed it down and printed it sideways both directions, each time without adding any more ink. A great way to help clean the press AND it looks pretty cool!

We also proofed some metal type I had that spelled thanks! Dikko printed it on some heavier paper for me so I could fold them into cards. I love them! I can't wait to start taking classes at the Center for the Book in Iowa so I can print as much stuff as I want!!!

As a last day present Dikko and Esther presented me with their most recent postcard subscription. These are my 4 favorite cards. The dice one is really amazing: I want to try printing with dominos when I get a chance. The Blue Velveeta one? It's fuzzy. Love it.

I am so glad that I had the opportunity to intern with Esther and Dikko. It was definitely a different experience than I had expected, but I learned a lot. I've already started to put a lot of what I've learned into practice in my own books, and can't wait when I'll have access to the types of tools they have in their studio when I get out to the Iowa Center for the Book. I love book making!