At the last barbecue we had, my dear neighbor mentioned that he had a letterpress in his garage. When his son was in high school some 30+ years ago, he had a letterpress business printing business cards, social note cards, and personalizing lunch boxes. "It still works," he said. "It just needs new rollers (for the ink)."
Well, lo and behold, he bought the new rollers (from a dealer in England!), dusted off the equipment and the type and invited me to give it a whirl. How could I resist?
He greeted me with a snazzy little hat that matched his own and an apron. And we were off. We worked on a prototype for menu cards. I LOVED setting the type together. There was something that was quite meditative about it. Centering and fitting the graphic with the border took some doing and my neighbor took the lead on that. And I learned some letterpress language.
After fours hours on the project, we called it a day. I can't wait to try it again!
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