Theresa Easton’s Broadsides and chapbooks is a new series of artists’ books and prints produced at Robert Smail’s Printing Works, a Victorian era letterpress printing works in Innerleithen operated by the National Trust for Scotland.
Theresa Easton is a well-known printmaker who has been making artists’ books for many years. Based at Ouseburn Warehouse Studios & Workshops in Newcastle, she spent six months as artist-in-residence at Smail’s in anticipation of its 150th anniversary this year. An exhibition of the works produced is on show now at St Ronan’s Wells, Innerleithen until 12 July 2016.
Easton’s practice involves community engagement, so it is natural that her residency featured the local community working with materials from Smail’s archive. Her show of broadsides and chapbooks – cheaply printed single-sided sheets and small pamphlets – has dipped into a treasury of tales from historical newspapers featuring refugees, suffragettes and activists.
Excerpts of these historical texts have been printed collaboratively, intertwined with handwritten responses from volunteers and staff at Smail’s. And of course, in the true spirit of the print works, the posters and pamphlets have been hand-set in traditional metal and wood type, and printed just as they would have been 150 years ago.
When I spoke to Easton about the residency she said how grateful she was for the time with professional printers and compositors, allowing her to develop her typesetting skills. She also managed to work with Helen Douglas at Deuchar Mill, home of Weproductions, and has come away from her time in the Scottish borders with a passion to incorporate these new skills into her future work.
Gen Harrison (Smail’s property manager), who worked with Easton, is delighted with the outcome and describes it as “a beautiful and engaging body of work that echoes the tradition of the jobbing, more ephemeral print forms that were produced for the masses” and a “vibrant celebration of Smail’s in its 150th year”.
She adds: “It was great to be encouraged to consider letterpress printing as a starting point to a creative rather than jobbing process and to explore it as an artistic craft.”
Images:
1. Ethel Moorhead, proof printed by Theresa Easton and Gen Harrison on the Vandercook at Weproductions. The broadside is inspired by a report in the 1914 St Ronan’s Standard, a newspaper printed by Robert Smail’s Printing Works until 1916
2. Mills and Mayhem, Theresa Easton, 2016. Photo: Theresa Easton
3. Tales from Smail’s, Theresa Easton, 2016. Photo: Theresa Easton
4. Mills and Mayhem, Theresa Easton, 2016. Photo: Theresa Easton
5. Woad, broadside, Theresa Easton, 2016. Photo: Theresa Easton
