Boys School For Printing

Today was one of those days. The flowers were heavy with rain, the air was crisp, the sky remained dark. One of those days to stay inside with a pile of books and some comfort food. It's time to become a hermit again. Oh wait I'm always a hermit...

Looking for inspiration in a British graphic design catalog from 1965, I came across this fascinating article about a typesetting school in Jerusalem.

The Hadassah Apprentice School of Printing was founded in 1946 and trained boys ages 14 to 18 in typesetting and printing. (Girls had to go to school for cooking, arts and crafts, and nursing. Bummer.) The school was a four year program that allowed students to work on real print jobs from commercial clients four days a week. Boys who participated in the school were granted a postponement of their mandatory military service at age 17 1/2. If they completed the training, they were offered a journeyman's certificate, which allowed them the option to return to printing after their military term was served.



Students collaborated with instructors with the design work but for the most part they were encouraged to do their own layouts. Most of the composing was done in Hebrew, one-third of it in English, and there was additional training in Greek, Russian, and Arabic. Advanced students were trained in setting Hebrew and English in linotype. The jobs included the usual print work - wedding announcements, invitations, letterhead, forms, books etc. Somehow the clients were willing to entrust apprentices with their business.



As someone who can work with a 26 letter alphabet, I am totally amazed at the thought of setting type in Hebrew -- a case contains 400 different signs!



The article was written by Henri Friedlaender, who designed the first modern Hebrew typeface, "Hebrew Hadassah" which is now a part of Dartmouth's Graphic Arts collection of type.

Random Visits to the Public Library

Our downtown public library has the most amazing marble staircase with etched detailing, but it's absolutely dizzying trying to make it all the way up to where the art books are. I'm not a smoker (mostly), I'm happy on my bike or the cross trainer, but there's something about those stairs that leaves me light-headed by the time I get to the room with the art books.

I like to visit the library randomly. Most people find what they want online at home and have things reserved, but I never know when my path will lead me to the library. Growing up I was conditioned to bring a list of titles and scribble down call numbers with an itty bitty pencil but since they got rid of the card catalog the process isn't as fun. I know where my kind of books are shelved and I like to see what's there.

My last visit to the library I found these two lovely books:


The Cutting Edge Of Modernity: Linocuts of the Grosvenor School 769.922S193c2002



It's a thin paperback of linocuts. Nice large illustrations. Book was published in the UK, about a 20th century British school of art, that also included Australian artists, and is compared to the Futurist movement. A briefly popular movement that unfortunately lost demand after WWII, for obvious reasons I guess. I am completely ignorant of any linocut movement and since it's one of my favorite mediums, I was of course thrilled to come across this book.

The goal of the founding member of the school was to produce pieces of original art that could be purchased for the price of a pint of beer. You get a sense of brightness and optimism from this collection of prints. I guess that's what I like so much about this medium. So simple and direct and genuine.







Art of the Japanese Postcard 741.683M986a2004



It's important for an art book to have lots of quality color illustrations. This book has over 360 of them, but it's an exhibition catalog published by the MFA in Boston, so I guess that's not surprising. Their city must have people with money who actually care about art. Anyways the book is hardcover and weighs about 3 lbs, so it sits flat on the table and opens very nicely. There are lots of enlarged detail illustrations, which is really great for getting a sense of the printing process and quality of the postcards.

The text is a series of essays by several different authors, who provide a brief bio of each artist as well as details on their printing methods, and explanations of the imagery.



I was mostly excited about the printing information. They often combined traditional and commercial techniques. The most common processes were lithography, collotype, and woodblock, and later photographic transfer/halftone screens. The postcards that were considered to be of higher quality were those that were produced with woodblocks and hand-colored on fine paper. Ooooh I hope to one day see the collection with my own eyes, if it's possible. The collection was on exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. You can take a virtual tour here.

Sumimasen!

My apologies.

I've neglected my blog.

It's shameful, I know. I bet my 5 faithful readers have abandoned ship, and I don't blame them. I'll cross my fingers that we can move on from this experience and I'll try my best to recap some highlights from the past month as best I can remember, but it may take several posts.

I finally acquired my very own letterpress. After years of working with shared community presses I finally have this big beast, the Craftsmen Monarch. Here it is with my linoleum block carving of some swifts:



The first disappointment came when I realized the beautifully custom-made feed board wasn't going to work --- it was too big and my little arm couldn't reach the lever with it on. The feed board is a little shelf that allows you to keep your prints in order. So we removed the feed board and the two metal arms that extended out to hold it in place --- only to discover one of the arms holds the spring for the grippers that allows them to move forward from the platen. Are you still with me here? I made a little diagram for some help. Ok so we had to put the metal arm back on. Now I have to keep myself from walking into the extended metal arm and injuring my torso every two seconds. This is a minor problem as we think we can fabricate something out of wood to take its place and connect the spring to the press and keep the grippers in tact and functional. Phew!

However, the major set back is that I don't have a proper chase. The chase is crucial, it's a metal frame that holds the stuff you're printing all neat and tidy with quoins and furniture so that the rollers can easily pass over it all and you can be a happy printer. The chase I'm currently borrowing is a Chandler & Price 8x12" sized chase and it's just a wee bit too wide. I was able to print, however it's murder trying to get the thing in and out of the press. I think maybe a machinist could sand down the sides and make it fit, but for now I stare at my press with sad puppy dog eyes. We're so close...

Speaking of letterpress, I have an upcoming show with my fellow printing friend Carye Bye of Red Bat Press at the Independent Publishing Resource Center, the place that we call home for printing. Please find details to the right --- more info coming!