A Printmaker’s Response – Sarah Whorf

International Printing Museum’s Los Angeles Printers Fair
Saturday, August 29, 2009

A Printmaker’s Response
by Sarah Whorf

I’m home from two days of driving, and one day of attending, the first Los Angeles Printers Fair at the International Printing Museum in Carson, California.  It’s a good twelve hour drive down to Los Angeles from here in Eureka, but there are few other events that would have me jumping in my car quicker.  I had the availability of free lodging at my sister’s house only fifteen minutes away, and a date to meet-up with my long-time friend and letterpress printer, Myra Feely, so it couldn’t have been more do-able.  Still, I was wondering if just maybe I was being a bit crazy, deciding to go at the last minute.

My doubts vanished the minute I stepped in the door at 8:00 am last Saturday.  I had been to the International Printing Museum only once previously.  Jim Horton had told me to get in contact with Mark Barbour, the Founding Curator and Executive Director of the Museum, when I was looking for a proof press to print my wood engravings on.  I had done so, and have been happily printing on my little Vandercook .099 proof press ever since.  The change in the Museum was dramatic.  Easily three times the size as my visit five years ago, the displays were more complete, and there were three additional warehouse spaces out back.  Throughout the day I discovered more treasures:  a Book Arts Institute, a Windmill press running, volunteers hand-casting lead type and leading tours through the main building’s collection; vendors, printers and artists with artists books, presses, handmade paper, inks, polymer plates, type and beautifully designed and printed note cards, wedding invitations and fine art prints.

I was a little nervous showing up at the Fair before my letterpress buddy, Myra.  I’m a woodcut/wood engraving/lithographer/screen print/etching printmaker, merely a beginner letterpress person, and felt a little out of my element.   Of course, it was silly to feel that way, as everyone was eager to explain and chat.  Besides that I almost immediately saw two printmakers that I know well from Southern Graphics Council conferences. At one point, I ‘found’ etching and lithography presses and found myself feeling more comfortable!  That said, it was learning more about the intricacies of the Vandercook presses, and seeing a linotype machine in action that was most memorable.

The Museum was filled with volunteers and vendors setting out their wares and I made my way outside to where I knew the “letterpress swap meet” was.  I wanted to see the presses and type for sale, and had my shopping list of the point sizes and items that I needed to round out my small collection.  I knew I had a few minutes before the selling would start in earnest.

Huge paper cutters, Chandler and Price presses, galley cabinets and high stacks of type cases jostled on the pavement.  I took photos and “oohed” and “aahed” with the other early arrivals, and speculated whether I could fit a Vandercook #3 into the back seat of my Prius. (Probably not.)  Going up to the “Letterpress Time” vendor table I was just in time to see a woman buy boxes of beautiful wooden type, and realized I would have to make some purchasing decisions quickly.  I was hesitant to buy anything at the risk of paying too much, or of flatly getting the wrong thing out of ignorance.  However, I decided on a complete font of capitals, metal type, in Bernard Gothic Condensed, 72 pt, and had a chat with the couple from The Paper Studio, who had brought that, and their handmade paper from Tempe, Arizona.  Sure enough, not ten minutes later all rest of the large type was gone, and it turned out I had made a good buy!

In the back shop area, racks of fonts in strange wedge-shaped sleeves surrounded a volunteer, Luis Garcia, working a colossal Model 31 Linotype machine built in 1954.  References to “The Phantom of the Opera” rose in my mind watching the man dwarfed by the machine.  For a small donation you could have your name set in a line of type.  To watch the sliding, clacking machine work was exciting and only slightly bested by what happened next.  Carefully clutching my hot lines of type by the newsprint wrapped around it, I move to an adjacent proof press where a printer slid my line into the lock up and printed a souvenir sheet of my name, an engraving of Benjamin Franklin and some text about the press.  He printed it on an motorized inking and printing Vandercook proof press.  (Largest disappointment of the day is that they had no second press like this one for sale!  It wouldn’t have fit in my Prius anyway.)  I had a moment’s worry when I thought that all I would get was the newsprint proof and not the type, but I received both.  My mind was jumping ahead to the facility with which I could use these lines of type with my name, my husband’s and daughter’s to make this year’s Christmas card.  A later phone call to my Mother revealed that when she was editor of her high school paper, they had a printer come in and use a linotype machine to set the school’s paper each week.  She vividly remembers the size, noise and smell of the machine, and how they were cautioned not to come near it.

Everyone seemed to have permanent grins on their faces, or maybe it was just me.  Despite the brutally hot weather, there was a huge turn-out of attendees, and it got more crowded as the day went on.  I’m still digesting all the sights and sounds.   Letterpress vocabulary is banging around in my brain.  I came home with type, a set of small quoins with a key to fit, spacing and furniture, as well as a stack of samples and business cards.  I have information about workshops, activities and presses to share with my students.  I went back to the classroom yesterday, to start the second week of Fall classes here at Humboldt State University, far from rested, but with renewed enthusiasm for printmaking in all its forms.  The expertise and energy of the Museum volunteers was both impressive and infectious.  Please visit the International Printing Museum when you are in the Los Angeles area!  I’m so glad I decided to go, and I’m counting the days until next year’s Fair!

Sarah Whorf
Associate Professor,  Art Dept.
Humboldt State University