SlowPrint and Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum

I’m very happy to say that I’ve been invited to relocate Slow Print to the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum as a permanent residency studio.
We need to raise a pile of cash to get the stuff moved, though… Before August!!!

Galena Design Foundation (an Illinois Not for Profit) will be the recipient of the equipment which will then be established as a “residency studio” at Hamilton. We’ll be right next to the Silver Buckle Press studio!

We are seeking corporate and angel donors. All contributions are through Arts Wisconsin, our fiscal Receiver, for 501(c)3 tax benefits. Please see http://frtd.eu/SlowPrintAtHamiltonWTPM for full details. Please share with your networks!

I look forward to teaching my Windmill Master Class as well as calligraphy and other letterform workshops at Hamilton! Many thanks to Jim Moran for the kind offer!

See http://frtd.eu/SlowPrintAtHamiltonWTPM for the whole story, and please share…

Thanks to this amazing worldwide letterpress family!
See you in Two Rivers!

image: Peter and the Goose @ 2014 Hamilton Wayzgoose

Peter and the Goose @ 2014 Hamilton Wayzgoose

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Hello friends of Slow Print and Hamilton!

I am awaiting revised quotes from riggers and truckers, and now considering whether I can somehow manage the move myself with rented equipment and volunteer or hired helpers.

I’d like to give a little background on the shop, and why Hamilton has made this generous offer, and why I’m hoping to find those generous patrons and angels that can help make it happen before August!

The shop we’ve had in Dubuque since 2008 began in my dad’s garage in 1979, rooted in a 1930s’ Evanston(Chicago) stationer’s shop that I’d acquired with a couple of friends. The only press left from that shop is our lovely little 10x15 C&P, but most of the cabinets and furniture are from there. I have spent the last three plus decades trying to keep the stuff from being thrown to the winds, and I hope this arrangement will finally do it.

When I saw that Silver Buckle Press was being moved to Hamilton in Two Rivers, I told Jim Moran that maybe I should figure out a way to get my press there, and he was immediately enthusiastic about the idea.

I’m particularly honored, since, indeed, Jim doesn’t ‘need’ the equipment (Well, actually the museum doesn’t have a functioning Miehle or Windmill at the moment. The presses on display are not in good repair, though of course he could find plenty). I look forward to assisting Jim and Stephanie in those longer print runs that are just not practical on a flat bed, or treadle run platen.

So it’s not really as much about the equipment, per se, but the fact that I (if I may say it) bring a rather unique set of perspectives along with the shop.

That is, as a printer, I’ve studied ancient, and revival, and modern letterpress from Gutenberg and Jenson and Aldus (at RIT with Hermann Zapf), the Aldine editions in my own small library, through Gryphius, and Plantin, to Baskerville and the beginnings of ‘modern’ printing, through the great fine-press revival of Morris and Bruce Rogers and on to Walter Hamady and other late 20th C book artists, and beyond.

My life in letterpress began in Nichols junior-high-school print shop around 1966, when my family moved to Evanston, and when combined with my love of letters (from my dad’s artistic birthday packaging—he put himself through the Chicago Bauhaus in the late 1940s partly as a signwriter for Marshall Field’s on State Street) and my exposure to ‘data processing’ in high-school, it’s made for an eclectic if erratic career!

Also my studies in calligraphy and type design from Jenson to Goudy with Professor Zapf, designing my own faces (fonts) with letterpress specific characteristics, as well as digital design experience going back to pre-Mac days in the early 1980s… and long practice in calligraphic design and a National Endowment for the Arts grants for studies in letter carving and calligraphy, and a second for developing my first typeface family, with a letter of recommendation to the NEA from Hermann Zapf.

So, having this equipment at Hamilton will enable me to continue printing from time to time, but more importantly, it will remain a place to call ‘home’ in my printer/typographer’s cap, a venue to offer my experience to the next generation of designer/printers, and a partnership with people for whom I have immense respect.

However, post-2008, I have no personal financial resources (zippo, nada, zilch) to put toward saving this facility which has been an anchor, in numerous metaphorical and literal senses, for most of my life. I won’t go into the bankruptcy, the countless hours trying to keep the rent paid, etc… but really, my pockets are empty.

While it’s not saving the world, saving this shop can become a lasting legacy to those who help to preserve it, and will provide a venue for teaching and an in house production press for the Museum.

Thanks for reading and for your thoughts!

Peter,
I can’t even imagine how exciting this is for your shop to join the Hamilton family! What an amazing place to be adopted by! All of your years of hard work and dedication to the craft have created a legacy of Slowprint and now you may step on up to be a part of Hamilton’s monumental legacy.

I have no doubt you will soon collect enough donkeys and trailer beds to move all the equipment. Onward to more adventures!! Can’t wait to see the work that will be made with the newly combined forces.

See you in Iowa in September!
Cheers,
Carrie Valenzuela

Thanks SO much Carrie! Can’t wait to see you all in Two Rivers!
P

Oh yes! and in September at Mt Pleasant, at #TOTC #LOLP :-)
I will be teaching on the C&P, ISO the perfect impression!

Posted a few more perks for our campaign to establish (and relocate) the SlowPrint Residency Studio at Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum

Rare 16th C & 17th C books, hand-carved marble tile, wood-type banner, etc.
Please see:
http://www.fraterdeus.com/slowprintathamiltonfundraiser/slowprint-at-ham...

These unique items are not “for sale”. I am donating them to the cause as gifts for our contributing angels. I don’t have much else, to be honest, so I’m trying to prime the pumps!
Please share!
We’re looking for a few good letterpress philanthropists!
‪#‎slowprintatHamiltonWTPM‬
‪#‎letterpress‬ #

image: Macrobius, Printed in Venice, Ioannes Gryphius 1560s

Macrobius, Printed in Venice, Ioannes Gryphius 1560s

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10153887776222843&id=27444187842
In preparation for the move to Two Rivers, we’ll be selling our 1950s Black Ball Windmill and 19” Challenge Hydraulic Paper Cutter
Contact me for details. Located in Dubuque Iowa, ground level no dock.