Letterpress reaches far and wide!

Letterpress is alive and well across the world.

Take a look at Typoretum's amazing print shop in this video: https://vimeo.com/63348604. They are located in rural Coggeshall of Essex.

In Belgium there is a wealth of printing museums and collections that one can tour around (maybe even pull a print?): http://typeand.press/museums/

And specifically in Antwerp there is Kastaar Press, which opened recently. They have been saving letterpress equipment from salvage yards! Here is a little write up about them: https://www.we-heart.com/2016/04/20/kastaar-press-antwerp-interview/


I really am head over heels about all this stuff, it's becoming a bit of an obsession.

-Christa

Discovering amazing things at the print shop all the time, look at these beauties!

Metal type/ornaments from the hell roarin' gulch print shop

"The Hand That Keeps the World Informed" from a linotype specimen book in the print shop

-Christa

Lights & inside the Orphan Girl Mine

The lights in the Hell Roarin' Gulch Print Shop are really aesthetically pleasing, so I thought I'd show them some love on this blog.



I got to go on the Underground Tour at the Museum the other day. It was mind blowing! Looking at so many halftone photos of miners from the collection in the print shop makes me feel like I understand the background of Butte a little more than I used to. But going underground added a level of appreciation to all those men whose faces I have been staring at and printing.

These cages carried down people and others the ore

Being underground is unnerving and so foreign for me. I peered down the shaft that the miners would be raised and lowered into and got swept by an overwhelming feeling of how brave they all were. I think I better understand the saying that the people of Butte are "Butte Tough", because you really had to be as a miner. You put your life in danger everyday. So many miners lost their lives in those mines.

Ceiling is covered in wire mesh because rocks still crumble from time to time. And yeah, I was happy to be wearing a hard hat!

The 'Honey Pot" AKA, a toilet mine car.

Mushroom growing out of the wooden frame

Some other type of fungus, I know it looks like frost but it wasn't

There is also some really amazing signage in the tunnels. A lot of them remind miners not to smoke. Fire was definitely a huge concern, just read about the Granite Mountain Mine Disaster of 1917.

Manicules are essential for grabbing my attention

That bell still works! And it's loud as hell.

-Christa

World Museum of Mining Poster

I offered to the Director of the museum to lock-up some type for the purpose of a commercial that was being filmed on April 7th to promote the World Museum of Mining. I don't know if this will make the final 30 second cut of the advertisement, but nonetheless I had fun designing this.

"The World Museum of Mining: where history tells a story"

Iconic headframe 

Some of the great metal type ornaments from the print shop

Locked-up in a 8"x12" C&P chase

In fact I will definitely be printing an edition of these that you will be able to purchase at the gift shop later this spring/summer.

-Christa

Teaching people to print + I bought some really beat up wood type

So at the IBRC we have been doing an open studio night on Wednesdays from 7-9pm called "Wayzgoose Wednesday".

A Wayzgoose as defined by Edmund C. Arnold's book Ink On Paper 2 is a: "sentimental gathering of printers or other graphic arts people."

This is a time where members of the community can come work on independent projects alongside other printmakers (like myself). I've done a few crash courses in letterpress and Buttecians seem to be totally loving it, I am too!

Here are Rob and Colin working on the line-o-scribe

Here is their version of the poster, really excellent color choices

And this is the version that I printed later, with a loud rainbow roll

I recently scoured eBay and bought this really beat up wood type. You can see that most of the type is caked in dried ink and that the counters of the type are horrific. I'm hoping with some serious TLC and probably some stinky chemicals that I can salvage these letters. PRESERVATION THROUGH PRODUCTION. That's the motto here at the Hell Roarin' Residency.

I'll post before and after pictures once I've tackled this project.

-Christa