Boxcar Talk With Chris Torres

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Rebecca Miller

In a delightful conversation with Boxcar Press, Chris Torres of Farmwood Press saunters us through the moment of letterpress love (it involved four letterpress beauties), reveals the new plans for his family’s twin passion of photography & printing, and explains why getting dirty while printing is still oh-so-satisfying.

UP CLOSE WITH CHRIS TORRES We are a husband and wife photography team in the Atlanta area. We wanted to diversify our services, our craft, and have always loved letterpress. We thought this would be the perfect way to explore a new medium while meeting the needs of our clients.

INSPIRED BY FRIENDS Some of our close friends were letterpress printers and we adored the craft. We would go to their studio to see the process. They decided to sell their company for personal reasons and we decided to buy it from them. They taught us how to print using the machines they sold us. However, the process was perfected through help from veterans in the letterpress industry. It also helps that I come from a large-scale commercial printing background. So much of the logical aspects to printing and managing client expectations came natural to me. I have loved having a medium where I can “get dirty” again.

PRINTING IN THE PEACH STATE Our studio is currently in our garage that is a simple, small two-car garage. We have used every inch of available space to safely print. Of course, it will soon be in our new home and have a space of it’s own. We now have a New Style Chandler & Price (Omer), Vandercook Universal III (Norma), two Heidelberg Windmills (Helga and one unnamed) and a Champion 305 cutter. We love to incorporate vintage furniture from factories that is functional yet beautiful.

We have old sewing tables from a zipper factory in Pennsylvania and two old heart of pine tables that we use. We cannot wait to settle into our new space and truly make it an experience to print in. We will update you all once we are settled in!

PRINTING MENTORS Greg Carpenter, a letterpress printer in Chickmauga, Georgia who has seen it all! He has grown from a letterpress apprentice when he was a teenager and has been printing ever since. Whenever I travel up to see him for a day, I leave with so many questions answered and yet feel like a new world has been opened up before me. Also, Bob Schmidt, a local Atlanta printing repair man that has seen about everything from within the presses and the people who work them.

DAILY GRIND When we design, we do so with the clients in mind. Our desire is the create a piece that they will carry with them for a lifetime telling their future generations through these pieces. Our joy is that this may be part of their legacy. We don’t print full time, yet. We’d love to very soon, but right now, our work load is more part time. So far it’s been the perfect balance for us with our photography company that requires travel.

FOCUSED ON PRINTING We personally do some basic designing, but mostly we are just printers. We do have one designer on staff that does wonderful custom work and represents Farmwood Press when we design in-house.

BOXCAR’S ROLE We started out using exclusively copper plates. We love their history and crisp feel to the printing. However, it was cost prohibitive and we could not keep using them as it left our profit margins razor thin. We turned to Boxcar Press for their photopolymer plates and were extremely impressed. Their quality and crispness met the standards we had with copper plates. Also to add that the durability has been a surprise as well. Their turn around time and customer services has been crucial to some tight turn times we’ve had with our jobs. They have aided in ensuring that we prepare the perfect files for plating so that we can take care of foreseeable problems. We have loved working with them!

PRESS HISTORY Well, we happened on our first presses as a collection from our friends that were selling due to family changes in their life. We acquired two Chandler and Prices, one New Style one Old Style, affectionately named Omer and Maude. Also a Heidelberg Windmill, Helga and a Poco Proof Press who now lives creating pieces at an Australian print school. We have since sold Maude, our Old Style and our Poco and last year adopted a Vandercook Universal III which we named Norma, which means “pattern” or “rule”. She was cared for by another letterpress shop who loved every turn of her cylinder. Our presses are more than just tools for us to use but rather our family members.

SHOP TIPS Build your reputation organically. We thrive on personal relationships with our clients to find out their needs and working with them to provide that. Whether they are a business, designer, or a bride we take steps to meet them on a personal level. We do not do advertising but rather network with those that can bring us the work. Once they experience our quality craftsmanship and connection with Farmwood Press, we find that they come back for the experience.

WHAT’S NEXT We are especially excited about 2012! We are building a new home that will be finished in a few months. We will have a finished basement that will house both of our companies. We are extremely excited about this. We need space for our employees as we kept bumping into each other! This new space will allow us a few extra hundred square feet from the garage we were printing in, and we’ll have two dedicated areas each. It will be nice to have the additional elbow room. Commercial space has not been the wisest option for us as we work from home and have a family. This is a great way for us to keep the businesses separate yet still being at home.

A huge round of thanks to Chris for letting us get the full scoop on Farmwood Press!

Boxcar Talk With Elizabeth Munger

Posted on June 5, 2012 by Rebecca Miller

The way Iowa native Elizabeth Munger of The Paper Nest speaks of letterpress, you find her exhilarated, curious, and earnest. Her voice on the relationship of paper choice and printing is crisp, bright, and even. And for good reason—after exploring the University of Iowa Center for the Book program, serendipity chanced upon her when a good friend teamed up with her to form The Paper Nest (a shop that shows lots of love to quality paper and printing). Elizabeth sat down with us to discuss the new future of letterpress, shop tips, and the heaping mounds of press fun that go with it.

UP CLOSE WITH ELIZABETH MUNGER I am an Iowa native who’s been making art as long as I can remember. It started with my obsession for drawing horses. I am a maker by nature and my hands are usually busy with some form of crafting.I have been printing for about 14 years and running the Paper Nest for three. Printing is definitely one of the things I enjoy most. I am process- oriented and love problem solving on the press.

When I’m not on the press, I’m usually sewing, drawing, and doing collage/ assemblage work. If I have access, I love to make paper. When I’m not engaged in some form of art, my favorite thing to do is pal around with my dog, Mr. Pants.

INK IN THE BLOOD My first love was Intaglio. Then, a few years later, I was introduced to letterpress while enrolled in the University of Iowa’s Center for the Book. During my time there, I discovered paper and relief printing which had never made much of an impression on me before. Learning to use a Vandercook was a revelation in printing for me. I went from hand wiping plates to using a self- inking machine. It totally changed the way I thought about printmaking and I felt like I could literally print a million!

My main focus was making artist books. I spent a lot of time thinking about images & materials and how they worked together. Since I was set on editioning, I was constantly ordering paper online. I had a friend who was doing the same thing, and one day, she and I were talking about how convenient & great it would be to buy paper locally. The idea eventually worked its way into the Paper Nest and because paper & printing go so well together, it seemed only natural to make it a paper and letterpress shop.

INKING UP IN IOWA The Paper Nest is a combination letterpress and paper store. I sell printing and bookbinding papers and tools and custom letterpress printing. I ran it out of my home the first year. The Vandercook was in my home studio and my paper inventory was on a second floor studio that I rented. My first inventory order was 450 lb. and I pretty much knew then and there that I needed to find a location that was ground level. I sort of lucked out a year later when I ran into a friend of mine, who runs a bead store, Beadology, here in Iowa City. She had a space in the back that she was interested in renting to another small business. This became the home of the Paper Nest.

Now I have a downtown location that has an alley entrance and is big enough to house me, my dog, Mr. Pants, a C&P craftsman, a huge guillotine, paper cutter and all my paper. We have been here going on 2 years now, and I am constantly humbled with how lucky I’ve been to be surrounded by such a great printing, bookbinding, & crafty community.

PRINTING LEGACIES Virginia Myers was my first printmaking instructor at the University of Iowa, and was a huge influence on my intaglio and foil printing. She is an amazing person, & without her I would have never discovered printmaking.

My other mentors would probably be the ladies I took my first letterpress class with. I had never been part of a group that was constantly doing such great work. This really encouraged me to push myself & make the best work I could.

THE DAILY GRIND As much as possible, I like to collaborate with whomever I’m working with/ for. I try to start by getting as much of an idea of what they want. Sometimes this means we work backwards from what they don’t like to get to what they really like. For example, we might start with something as vague as colors or tone to more concrete ideas such as image.

I really enjoy researching to play on historically correct images, font, and materials. I tend to draw everything by hand and then combine it with text. I try to use the computer as a tool, not as my main substrate.

PRINTER’S PARADISE I am both [a printer and designer], although I feel like I relate more into an artist/ printer category then designer. My goal is to definitely have one job: printing and talking about paper.

PRINTING FEATS Opening up this business is probably one of my biggest accomplishments. I have to learn all sorts of things that I never thought I would. My latest accomplishment, which I am very excited about, is that I was accepted into the MFA program at the University of Iowa Center for the Book and will be starting this fall.

BOXCAR’S ROLE Boxcar has been awesome! It is nice not worrying about making plates. It’s so convenient to be able to send out a digital file and get plates back that are so clean. If it weren’t for Boxcar, I would have more steps and be spending more time making them myself.

It’s such an advantage to be able to call Boxcar and get advice on how to make a file better for plates. I also think their printing videos are great. I feel like they really walked me through a number of printing issues.

PRESS HISTORY Well, I was getting ready to graduate from the University of Iowa’s Center for the Book and was starting to feel anxious about not having access to a press. I started looking around and put the word out. An instructor at the Center mentioned that she had a Vandercook Universal I and I was welcome to come by and give it a look. So I went and checked it out, and that was pretty much it. I had to do some work on it before I moved it (lots of sanding rust, new rollers, etc.)

This was pretty great because it allowed me to really get to know the press and it made it seem more like mine. The other interesting thing is that she bought the press, along with the rest of a print shop, from someone who had been storing it for years, in a garage in Sioux City, Iowa. Coincidentally, I grew up in this city, so we were in the same place at the same time but never met. It took us both moving to Iowa City to meet!

SHOP TIPS My best piece of business advice is to take advantage of your local resources. If you don’t know how to do something there is usually some one in your community who is happy to help and vice a versa. This also helps to build a community. I also think being open to new possibilities and taking action is what ends up making me feel the most successful.

WHAT’S NEXT Well I’m lucky enough to have my sister, Katie Munger, back in Iowa. She has similar interests and recently decided to come back here and help me with the Paper Nest. I’m also really looking forward to getting a better handle on the business end of things and expanding. I’m hoping to offer more preprinted products as well as custom work and binding workshops. Eventually, I’d like to be able to offer equipment rental and printing workshops.

Big round of thanks to Elizabeth for letting us get the full scoop on The Paper Nest!

Boxcar Talk With Laura Bentley

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Rebecca Miller

After dipping her toes into the world of letterpress at the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle, all it took was a few choice experiences to get Laura Bentley of Pinwheel Press hooked on printing—a Vandercook here, a jaunt with typesetting there, plus one unforgettable brush with Gordon Franklin press that made her passion a full-frontal phenomenon. But as Boxcar Press sat down to discover, Laura is more than the sum of her letterpress loving parts.

UP CLOSE WITH LAURA BENTLEY When I was young I enjoyed doing artsy things, but in college I went a different direction and got a Computer Science and Accounting degree. By day I’m a computer consultant mostly for a dance studio that teaches social dance—ballroom, salsa, and swing. I run their website, set up their sales system, and do their bookkeeping. So, I’m a hobby letterpress printer, and try to squeeze in time to print when I can. I also volunteer as a teaching assistant for the letterpress classes at SVC (School of Visual Concepts) in Seattle.

INK IN THE BLOOD I first took a class at SVC in Seattle. I was hooked right away. Exploring the school shop felt like a treasure hunt. With my first printing projects I tried to include as wide a variety of type and ornaments as possible, and enjoyed the challenge of typesetting them in crazy but-still-safe-to-print ways. I love typesetting and using the vintage equipment. I was thrilled to find an art form where I could use my attention to detail and logistics to produce results.

EXCEPTIONAL IN THE EVERGREEN STATE My print shop is in the basement of my house. The walls are unfinished, but colorful with printed work. I have an 1863 Gordon platen press, a tabletop No. 0 Vandercook proofing press, and a very cute sign press that I use for proofing type. I have two cabinets of type, and I’m always trying to be creative with how to fit in more. I also have a 16” Challenge paper cutter that I fixed up real pretty. My favorite thing about it is the old vintage equipment— I like to think about all the work they printed over their lifetimes.

PRINTING LEGACIES I feel blessed to be part of a printing community that is filled with talented printers who are very generous with their knowledge and time. Two of my favorite mentors are Jenny Wilkson and David Black. Jenny is the manager of the SVC shop and has a talent for developing students to do their best work no matter what style of printing—dainty and detailed invitations to raw and chunky posters with wood type. She always has suggestions for projects that take them to the next level.

David Black is a fellow teaching assistant and a print artist. I personally consider him a mechanical genius as he can fix almost anything, and has a real gift for explaining how things work. But what inspires me most is that he makes time to print most every day. He once printed a little card that had a tiny ornament of a car and the text said “Tiny car”; only black ink on white paper. It was a great reminder to me that you don’t always have to be printing big extravagant projects, but can print quick fun things, and you’ll learn something with each new thing you print.

PRINTER’S PARADISE I design what I print. But that’s probably expected for a hobby printer; I don’t do job work.

PRINTING FEATS Our printing community just finished up a project where we partnered with a non-profit group of writers that works with patients in Children’s Hospital to help them write poetry. Sixteen printers each printed a broadside of a poem, to create an edition of poems that are bound in a portfolio.

It’s always a challenge to design something to catch the spirit of someone else’s words and imagery. Also the edition size was 100, which with five print passes was a huge printing project for me. I had never printed an edition of that size before.

BOXCAR’S ROLE Boxcar Press has helped me with the above broadside project, and others, by producing quality photopolymer plates. I love handset type for hobby work, but for more flexibility and efficiency, it’s hard to beat photopolymer.

PRESS HISTORY A gentleman named Carl Montford, the self-nicknamed “press matchmaker,” matched me up with an 1863 Gordon Franklin press. It was in the basement of a local artist that wasn’t using it anymore. It’s a great match for me, because it’s a smaller platen press (chase about 7 x 11) and we needed to get it down into my basement. The press would be a little wonky for production work, but it suits a hobby printer like me just fine.

SHOP TIPS Listen to your press. Listen to it when it’s printing well—learn the pattern of sounds it makes. Then someday when it makes a noise that’s new and unfamiliar you’ll notice it and be able to tend to it before things go awry.

WHAT’S NEXT Need to fix some inking issues with my platen press, and print more!

Big thanks out to Laura for letting us take a look at the wonderful whirl at Pinwheel Press!

Letterpress Art Sales to Benefit Baby’s Medical Procedures

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Cathy

Today we’ve got details about a worthy event that will help a young boy’s medical expenses and provide you with a chance to obtain some limited edition fine art prints for your walls! Prints for Platelets is helping raise funds for Nico Bond, the 17-month-old son of Arizona Master Printer Brent Bond of Santo Press and artist Veronica Villanueva.

Since November of 2011, Nico has undergone 2 bone marrow biopsies, over a dozen transfusions and is still undiagnosed with a blood disorder that leaves him with very low platelet counts. Prints for Platelets will give you a 20% discount off all Santo Press Prints with 100% of the proceeds going to Nico’s medical expenses through the month of May.

Santo Press Prints offers high quality relief prints, monoprints and monotypes from 16 regionally and nationally recognized artists. Shown above is a photopolymer and reduction linocut from Veronica called Nicolas’ Odyssey. Veronica tells us this about the creation of this print.

Getting pregnant wasn’t easy and the pregnancy was a high risk one. I made this print when I was pregnant with Nicolás. It seemed that even before birth Nico has gone through a whole odyssey. And it seems that his odyssey continues… The key image was created digitally and relief printed from a Boxcar polymer plate, colors were developed via a reduction linocut. The print was from an edition of 50 which was donated to Mesa Contemporary Arts at Mesa Arts Center for their annual fine art print calender fund raiser.

Click here to go to the Santo Press website and choose one or more signed, numbered, and titled prints from the artists and receive the 20% discount through the month of May. The prices are very competitive and with an additional 20% off, it’s an easy but meaningful way to help this little boy and his parents while supporting fine art printmaking.

Letterpressing the Issue On Immigration

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Rebecca Miller

The visual collaboration groups CultureStrike and Justseeds Artist Cooperative are utilizing the striking beauty of letterpress to display compelling views on the immigration issue. Favianna Rodriguez has been working with Patrick Cruzan – a California-based letterpress printer – to shed light on the issue through an art print portfolio series. This ongoing project is an effort to raise social awareness of immigration laws and their immediate effects. Click here to get the full story.

Photography courtesy of Patrick Cruzan

April Showers Free Vector Set

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Rebecca Miller

It seems like spring has finally settled in and what a better way to celebrate the sunny spring season, letterpress lovers, with a spiritedly Spring vector set! The festive set includes two Mother’s Day Greetings, a beautiful engraving of a lop-eared rabbit, an adorable pair of puddle splashing children, a clever note card header, and a delectable set of strawberries & raspberries for the gardener within us all. All are free for use and in both EPS and PDF format. Enjoy!

Rob LoMascolo Featured on Fortnight Journal

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Cathy

Letterpress artist Rob LoMascolo of Upstate New York talks about the traditional craft of letterpress printing in a recent collaborative effort known as Fortnight. Fortnight is an online multi-media and documentary project that’s been put together by a group of 20-somethings to recognize different disciplines that honor the past while defining the path of the future.

LoMascolo is one of Fortnight’s fourteen contributors, and he talks about the traditional craft of printing that has exploded again in the digital age. He is featured with his Challenge Proof Press in this instructional video as he provides a lesson in Letterpress 101.

Fortnight Journal traveled to the Finger Lakes in New York to interview and film Rob in his studio. We are pleased that not only is Rob showcased for his printing prowess but he’s a neighbor of ours and prints right down the highway from Syracuse.

To find out more about this project, visit fortnightjournal.com/about.

How to Easily Outline Fonts into Vector Shapes

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Rebecca Miller

One of easiest ways to ensure smooth sailing from file to plate is to outline your fonts into vector shapes if you are using either Adobe Illustrator or InDesign. Outlining text into shapes frees you of the troublesome worry of whether you need to send along your fonts or embed them with your file. It also lets you add strokes to thinner fonts with ease – since the text becomes a vector shape, you’ll have more control over how each character looks.

Here’s the scoop in three simple steps:

•   Select the text with your black arrow tool in either Illustrator or InDesign. The black arrow tool is your default selection tool.
•   Select TYPE>Create Outlines.
•   Click anywhere that is blank on your art board and voila! Your text is now converted into fully editable vector shapes!

If the text looks a little thicker than usual, don’t panic! Simply deselect your text or click anywhere on your art board to deselect it and you’ll find that your text looks completely normal.

Boxcar Talk With Elizabeth Rittmeyer & Kelsie ZImmerman

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Cathy

Is there anything Elizabeth Rittmeyer and Kelsie Zimmerman can’t do? The energetic Elizabeth finally sat down with us to spill the details on just how ambrosial letterpress life at Sugarcube Press can be.

SUGAR, SPICE & EVERYTHING PRECISE I’m a 95%-self-taught letterpress printer, been doing it for 16 years. I’m a Portland, Maine transplant to SoCal via Seattle (I gloat profusely about living in the coolest places). The entire family is back in Maine so my husband and daughter go for 2 months and I get one before the printshop needs me back. I’m over 21, vegetarian 19 years, have a rational and hyper-creative husband who independently designs bags and i-gear for other companies like NAU and Apolis and he does production in Vietnam 4 months of the year (thus I become uber-super-mom). Our 11 year-old daughter is also so creative that she gets up at 6:30 a.m. to write stories before school. I love squirrels, pre-1900 books, tiny cut glass s&p shakers, ‘50’s odds-n-ends for my 1951 house with round livingroom, thrift stores and side-of-the-road finds, my proudest being a fire-orange Danish chair with swooped teak arms.

INK IN THE BLOOD In 1995 I moved from Portland, Maine with my husband to a little rural island off of Seattle; he got a sweet job in K2 Snowboards. Well, after one trip on the ferry (after I missed the first two), through Seattle traffic, I decided there was just no way I could commute to Microsoft every day. What’s a girl to do on a wooded island with one blinking red light? Be the coffee-girl at a café. Lucky for me Jennifer and Ron Rich of Oblation remembered me from a book fair and asked if I wanted to be their paper-maker, which I did until I learned to print (enough) to be their printer for 2 years. With their success they left for Stumptown and I stayed on my island and did online weddings only. Looks like I was hooked.

CALIFORNIA DREAMING We recently moved to a new space in our sweet little Ojai downtown, a 6-minute walk from my house. We have 800 square feet with softly glowing buttercream walls, two all-windowed garage doors facing directly East with view of the mountains and with the doors fully-open we’re virtually “outside”.

Kelsie has a design-center, we have a processing + shipping area, and a near-half is the print shop. I am the second owner of my 1956 8×10 C&P named Dwight (she’s a girl), and 10X15 Heidelberg named The Butterfly that was bought from Frank Boross of Toxic Coyote Press (he had her for 25 years). Jack, my leggy Chihuahua mutt pound-dog, guards it all.

PRINTING LEGACIES I love Bonnie Thompson Norman of The Windowpane Press in Seattle. Her books are letterpress and lino-cuts; I adore Madeleine Zygarewicz of Panorama Press, she’s a doll; and I get really happy looking at 9SpotMonk, I gravitate to overlays and splash. Though I am amazed at people who achieve tight-registration and I totally bow to them, I prefer “movement” with overlays and juxtapositions that create new colors.

DAILY GRIND “Design” happens every day; it’s inspiration and whimsy from a thrift-store goody or a conversation with a pal. My humor tends towards sarcasm and irony, so our cards are pretty funny. I like the one-offs and tongue-in-cheek play with words we English grads live for. These days I do quick pencil sketches and collaborate with my partner and designer-guru extraordinaire Kelsie Zimmerman; she uses our sketches and ideas and gets them plate-makin’ ready to send to Boxcar.

DESIGNED FOR PRINT I’ve always been a “designer” in the sense I draw, collage, carve, arrange and conceive. Up until I met Kelsie in 2007, I was the solo-business owner and designer. Our collaboration allows me to concentrate on Sugarcube’s printing; I print every single thing that comes out of the shop to supply over 400 stores.

FULL TIME FUN I work full-time for Sugarcube Press and thankfully, finally, for no one else! Every-other year I’d panic and go get a desk job. But this past year was sweet to permanently be at my cast-iron “desk” all day; now I stand at the C&P for a solid 5 hours before it gets too tiring, then it’s off to other necessities: packaging, shipping, calling on invoices, and brainstorming.

PRINTER’S PARADISE In general, being a printer of good caliber; I print every single card and ephemera from Sugarcube Press on the C&P. Sugarcube has grown exponentially thanks to my go-getter-never-say-I-can’t partner, Kelsie. She rocks! We are both really proud of our growth over the years.

BOXCAR’S ROLE Our first NSS in 2008 found us paying thousands of dollars for wood-mounted metal that due to a changed formula (later discovered) was crumbling away as I printed. I was freaking out! We met with Boxcar at that show and decided to make the change to polymer plates: lightness in shipping, less cost in ganging–up images, less hazardous waste in it’s making, and polymer doesn’t smash (whoops) like magnesium.

PRESS HISTORY I found my first press, named Big ol’ Pearl, a 10×15 1890’s C&P, in the Printer’s newspaper, in 1997-ish, in PDX. Drove down from the island in a huge Ford truck and extra-long Uhaul. Really spendy ferry ticket. My driver, backing it up in a rain-sodden field, became mired in the mud 500 feet from my studio door. One guy suggested we dump the press in the muck and drag it! The other guy (hello, Einstein) pointed out the press, being in a trailer, was already on wheels, we just needed a come-along, and a few hours of cranking got her inside with nary a drop of rain on her.

SHOP TIPS If you want to grow, get a partner! Kelsie and I both do different jobs and our expertise is necessary for our success. She designs and does all of the layout and haggling to get our catalogs done, online pop-up sales, keeps reps happy and trade shows looking sweet. I’ve mostly got the printing and stock under control; ya gotta make it to sell it!

WHAT’S NEXT Making more of everything and tripling growth.

Big thanks to Elizabeth and Kelsie for showing the sweeter side of letterpress with Sugarcube Press! Check out their nifty videos here!

Earl Kallemeyn Featured in NY Times Article

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Cathy

Earl Kallemeyn, letterpress printer since 1974, talks about putting ink to paper in a recent New York Times article – click here to get the full story. And be sure to enjoy the short video featured with the Times article before you jump to Earl’s website!

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