Tuesday 27 April
Chris, Jude, Louise, Patricia
Letterpress Demo am
Today we were introduced to the letterpress process by Rob Buchert and saw history brought to life by a master craftsman in suit and sandals. We were very worried for his toes as he worked the press!
We saw the physical activity needed to assemble blocks of text, the special relationships formed between type face blocks and the tactile nature of the sculptural letter forms. And we noted the personal interaction inherent in assembling the text block which is missing in our default habits with the digital text. Despite careful planning with the composing stick, the end print was still a big surprise and contained satisfying embossment which embedded the text into the paper. More thought was involved, making your choice of words far more important. The process creates a special quality, and seems to invest something significant into the meaning of the words.
After the session we taked about how we might incorporate letterpress into the project. Michelle suggested that it might provide a further opportunity to produce a collaborative piece involving not just WMC but the combined group. The result was an idea to produce a prose poem, with Louise's guidance, using text to record our personal observations or our impressions of Utah's astonishing landscapes.
We have made a plan to introduce the idea to the whole group tomorrow as a suggested partner piece to the collaborative litho plate we will take on our travels. We will get feedback from the group on what they think about this.
Lithography Demo pm
MFA Student Amy Royer introduced us to BYU's litho department and demonstrated the printing process with a print from a prepared litho stone.
Its a long and complicated process which both baffled and beguiled us. We want to do more but time is so short.
Our solution to make it acessible to us was to limit colour and to share plates, and also incorporate plate images from the group into our individual prints for the book.
Despite the complexity, Amy, succeeded in hooking us into the possibilities of the process and broke down quite a few barriers to its technical considerations and we are determined to give it a go.
