R. Hoe & Co No. 5703 at the Center for Book Arts with its new tympan and frisket. The HVAC duct doubles as the frisket stop.
Richard Minsky: “Restoring and Adjusting Two Iron Handpresses” ¶ Amelia Fontanel: “One Press to Rule Them All: The Kelmscott/Goudy Legacy at the RIT Cary Collection”
3 pm saturday, october 24 ⋅ track 2
After two solid days of all things hand press (and beyond), it would have been hard to imagine a more a propos final session than Richard Minsky and Amelia Fontanel’s talks on the restoration of three iron hand presses. [Read more]
Johnson lifts the frisket to show the inner packing and gauge pins on the tympan. (Jill Cypher)
Chad Johnson: “Quality Assurances for Printing on the Hand Press”
9AM-Noon thursday, october 22
Dating to the 1820s, the Albion iron hand press we practiced on was once used by American wood engraver John DePol. Presenting from the perspective of a journeyman printer, Chad Johnson explained that “the right impression is what the client wants.” Noting that Richard-Gabriel Rummonds’ Printing on the Iron Handpress is the reference, Chad described the dressing of the frisket using Linson paper and suggested that from a production standpoint it would be ideal to have multiple frisket frames. [Read more]
For our afternoon workshop session, we went to the Rochester Arts Center for a wonderful hands-on letterpress experience based on the work of H.N. Werkman. Werkman was a printer in the Dutch province of Groningen. His biography is a sad one of losing almost all of his work in a bombing raid and being executed by the Gestapo a mere three days before Groningen was liberated. [Read more]
Conference speaker Todd Samuelson uses the pantograph to trace a pattern, at right, this defines the path of the router bit over the wood block, at left. (Ray Nichols)
Geri McCormick & Matt Rieck: “Making Wood Type Today: Using the Same Methods from Yesteryear”
9 am-noon thursday, october 22
Geri McCormick & Matt Rieck hosted a hands-on morning making wood type at Virgin Wood Type. The garage-sized workspace for the beginning stages of the production process was packed with boxes of wood ready for surfacing with shellac, shellaced-wood ready for cutting, and boxes of patterns. [Read more]
“Aurea Moguntia” – Golden Mainz. Hand-colored woodcut by Franz Behem, 1565. (Courtesy Mainz Stadtarchiv)
Gutenberg’s World: How Printing Arose in 15th Century Mainz
6 pm friday, october 23
Before explaining how she came to write the historical novel Gutenberg’s Apprentice, Alix Christie won the audience by divulging her background as a letterpress printer. This lends authority to her book wherein she imagines the circumstances that produced the 42-line Bible through the eyes of Peter Schoeffer, the young scribe-turned-printer in Johann Gutenberg’s workshop. With this the stage is set for a reexamination of the myth of the mistreated genius Gutenberg and his rapacious financier Johann Fust who foreclosed on the enterprise. Christie, a journalist, spoke eloquently about the inspiration for choosing the invention of printing as a topic for fiction: a theory posited by Paul Needham and Blaise Agüera y Arcas in 2001, that elemental punches and temporary matrices were used to cast the type for the 42-line Bible. Christie’s book assigns the development of both whole-letter punches and metal matrices to Schoeffer. She reminded us that Schoeffer, who was essentially the first master of the trade, was also responsible for inventing the title page, printing or publishing 300 books, and co-founding the Frankfurt Book Fair. These are accomplishments obscured by the popular, heroic version of the invention of printing.
John Fass in his room at the Bronx YMCA, ca. 1955. Right: The Hammer Creek Press Type Specimen Book, 1954.
In many of my conversations with my friend John De Pol, he reminisced about a man who was one of the earliest supporters of his efforts to engrave on wood. Working as a production assistant learning the printing trade at Lewis White’s shop in New York in 1950, he met John Stroble Fass during a visit to the office. Fass offered him a few of his small printed items, De Pol offered to make some wood engravings for future efforts, and an enduring friendship was begun. One has only to look at their collaborations to understand what a sympathetic relationship it was. Although I was exposed to John De Pol’s memories, I wasn’t exposed to any of Fass’ printing until the very end of De Pol’s life, when bookseller Aveve Cohen made me a gift of a Fass booklet with De Pol’s engravings, and a print made by Fass from two chestnut leaves. Armed with those two items, and a copy of the book that Mrs. Cohen put together as a tribute, I began my own search for the work of John S. Fass. [Read more]
I am just starting to support the usage of an 1873 Peerless letter press for the local Jackson Ella Sharp Museum. First item to be address is that previous operators failed to file the print type after use. My question is: Where can I locate a table relating the “nick” in the type body to its intended font? I have searched on the ‘net for three days w/ no luck. Thanks for your help. Paul Mc
The 40th annual American History Association Conference at Rochester Institute of Technology is just days away. It’s certain to be a thrilling weekend of presentations, workshops, tours and camaraderie. See the revised program.
The American Printing History Association is pleased to presents the 2015 J. Ben Lieberman Lecture “The WunderCabinet* The Curious Worlds of Barbara Hodgson & Claudia Cohen” to be delivered by Barbara Hodgson. The lecture is at 6pm, Tuesday, November 10, 2015 at UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library Main Conference Room. Free and open to the public. Reception to follow. Please RSVP by November 6. Hosted by UCLA Library Special Collections. Directions and parking. [Read more]
APHA is developing a history of printing timeline and would like your help to improve it. In accord with our mission, it includes all related arts and crafts: calligraphy, typefounding, typography, papermaking, bookbinding, illustration, and publishing. It also notes digital publishing, plus relevant laws and labor events. There are no plans to add graphics or manage external links. Please review and let us know what we left out or should cut. The editor welcomes all comments and suggestions.
