Hamilton Wayzgoose 2010

I am still coming down from the amazing long weekend in Two Rivers, WI. First bit of news: A new wood typeface! Designed by Nick Sherman, named in honor of the Hamilton Wood Type Museum's resident typecutter extraordinaire, Norb Bryslki!

More to follow!

FROM THE HAMILTON WOOD TYPE MUSEUM DIRECTORS:

Help protect a Printing Treasure: Hamilton Urgently Needs Your Help.

Dear friends of wood type, Hamilton has an unprecedented opportunity to qualify for a dollar-for-dollar matching grant from the "Save America's Treasures" program which has a deadline of May 20th, 2010.

This gives Hamilton 30 days to raise enough money to apply for a $25,000 matching grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. We're excited to have already raised over $5000 for this vital program that will help us archive, preserve and digitally document our collection of over 2000 vintage advertising plates and our 1.5 million-piece type collection.
But we can’t do it without you.

What can you do? We have 3 ways for you to give:
1. Become a member of the Hamilton Wood Type Museum online today (http://www.woodtype.org/museum_information_membership.shtml). There are 4 levels to choose from with sweet incentives that let you take a little slice of Two Rivers back to your home or office wall. Your membership dollars go a long way toward helping the museum fulfill its mission of preserving this amazing piece of printing history. All new membership dollars generated between now and the grant deadline will go directly to our matching funds effort.

2. If you're already a member you can simply donate at a level that suits your budget! Our recommended donation base is $50 and every dollar you give goes to protecting this typographic gem. (http://www.woodtype.org/museum_information_membership.shtml)
3. Shop at our Etsy Store! All proceeds for the next 30 days go directly to Hamilton’s “Save America’s Treasures” efforts and we'll be adding more merchandise soon. (http://www.etsy.com/shop/HamiltonWoodType)

Finally, we ask that you pass this message along to at least 2 people you think might become friends of Hamilton. Time is of the essence. We'll be keeping you updated with our progress in the coming month. Thanks for supporting wood type.

Sincerely Jim and Bill Moran

Become a fan of Hamilton on Facebook to keep up with the effort: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=lf#!/pages/Two-Rivers-WI/Hamilton-Wood-Type-Printing-Museum/134980253287?ref=ts

Printing Workshops at Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum

Spring was about as a dozen designers, artists and printers gathered at the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in Two Rivers, WI, the first weekend in March to expose themselves to the new processes and techniques of letterpress printing in a one day workshop. Sometimes, on the weekends in the winter, the Museum gets a bit chilly. But once these workshoppers got started, their enthusiasm and creativity warmed up the print shop nicely!

I had the joy and privilege of assisting Jim Moran with this workshop. He is the Museum’s Director, Master Printer, Jack of All Trades, Living Tome of Sometimes Obscure Knowledge, and Dry Wit to Boot. He started the group off with a tour of the Museum, as many of the students had never been to the Museum before -- they’d only seen it at the movies. Seeing the vast collection and how it was made can familiarize you with the space and get ideas popping.

The tour included a stop at this month’s exhibit at the Museum of poster work from Mohawk Press at the Western New York Book Arts Center, where Jim had also put out a selection of Hatch Show Print posters. Excellent fodder for printmaking! Both sets of posters show its best to embrace color and get it on the paper and to consider every inch of paper-spread the ink out!
A brief but information-packed introduction to mechanics of working in the shop, that covered the best habits for pulling type, mixing ink, locking type quickly in sign press beds, inking blocks, layering blocks and color on the paper, cleanly running the presses . . . what else? Many details – take the workshop to find out more!

The group was amazing to watch in action. From song lyrics and poetry, to abstract forms created with layers of blocks and ink and abstractions of everyday language layered and technicolored, everyone pursued distinct ideas and aesthetics and did not hesitate (too much). That bears repeating as a bit of advice: when given the freedom to work with such a great set of materials, don’t hesitate (too much). Just go go go!

Though there was a great selection of cuts from the Globe Collection, these printers were characteristically oriented – lots of wood type, large (over a foot high) and small (less than ½” inch high), was used on paper and cloth. Jim offers a unique fabric printing technique that is both effective and fun.

Fueled mid-day by pizza and homemade brownies, the group kept going all afternoon, really getting a lot of good ink on the paper. Jim continued offering techniques to add yet more color and depth to the printers’ works, and I worked tandem: more ink is more than likely going to be better, especially with letterpress printing and especially when you are trying it for the first time. Then you can reflect on what you’ve done, and determine how to either move it around to be more effective, or even perhaps take a bit away, and go into your second print session that much more print-wise.

Since the workshop, I have heard that wood type has been procured by workshopper(s), there may be a few more people in the market for a sign press (or another press? Jim demonstrated the use of the C&P motorized platen press, which is quite an expression of coordination and timing that never fails to awe anyone; and I was sharing as many Vandercook tips and tools as I could) . . . find out where all the inspiration and excitement was born—get to a Hamilton workshop soon! For more information about upcoming workshops, or to create one for your own group, contact Jim Moran at the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum, jim.moran@woodtype.org.

More photos on flickr.

Rob Roy Kelly book to be re-issued!

Liber Apertus Press is re-issuing the Rob Roy Kelly book, American Wood Type: 1828-1900.

It will be an exact reprint. If you're interested, you can order it directly from Liber Apertus Press on their site.

Hatch Show Print at Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum

The words Hatch Show Print bring to mind a distinctive style of poster art: Weathered type and ornament, wrangled onto the press as if they were a bunch of rabble-rousing rockers annoyed to be awake so early in the day, coming together in an awesome ensemble just as the ink hits the paper.

A workshop with Jim Sherraden of Hatch is not for learning how to print a rock poster. Instead, Jim will endeavor to get you to let go and play, see what comes of it, and work some more to really make something that, well, rocks.

A great group of designers, printers and artistic types met up in snowy Two Rivers, Wisconsin, at the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in mid-December to get their hands inky and have some fun in the Museum’s print shop (which is a great shop, if you’re interested in renting time there – enough presses, ink, and wood type to keep you going for months, at least!) with the folks from Hatch Show Print and Hamilton’s Jim Moran. It was awesome! Everyone really printed with some amazing work.

We were also fortunate enough to be able to use a selection of blocks from both Hatch and Hamilton’s Globe Collection (see my write up on Hamilton’s Wayzgoose Weekend for more on this collection), a real treat.

This workshop is quite a printerly experience, and I think I got a lot out of it by not worrying about lock up and make ready. I did not use a press the entire weekend. I found that by letting go of the technical aspects of getting the ink onto the paper in a pre-measured spot, that portion of my brain was freed up to be re-focused, to really look at the paper and the ink going on it and the blocks being used to carry that out and worry less about the exactness of the end result and instead enjoy the building of layer upon layer of color and shape . . . . Yep, that’s a hard one. Don’t plan! Just go! And if you just go long enough, you can work with enough blocks and ink and paper to work out some tricks and methods that add dimension to your printing.

Of course, some of the other printers were using presses and making some beautiful stuff as well (which you can see at the Museum in a group show and on their flickr page). I am just a slow learner, so I try to stay focused.

All the while, Jim and his assistants – we were fortunate enough to have Mary Sullivan, Hatch’s production manager, and Katie Collins, a former intern – are there to encourage, talk you into leaping into the fray of ink and rollers and paper and blocks, and to help you see when something’s really working well. And there was quite a bit of that happening!

In addition to paper, printing on cloth, tee-shirts mainly though there was some beautifully colorful printing being done on canvas in this workshop, is covered with very specific and invaluable tips for inking, lining it up and pressing.

The techniques we learned? Blending . . . coloring . . . stenciling . . . puttin’ a damn border on it . . . . The stuff of kindergarten, it might seem, but to see how well it works, you really ought to get in on one of these workshops – and I hear there might be another one at the Hamilton Wood Type Museum sooner rather than later!

There's a group show of the posters created by the printers now on display at the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum. For more photos visit Hamilton's flickr page!