We’ve been working with all of the wonderful videos our friends have made for and about us this year at the San Francisco Center for the Book, trying to get our YouTube Channel up and running. My favorite finds have been the interviews with the fantastically smart, interesting people who teach our workshops and really make the Center what it is. I’m sure you’ve seen these instructors at the center, but did you know what got them into printing, or their thoughts on the future of the printed word? Now is your chance to find out.
Rhiannon Alpers teaches Norm from tested.com how to make business cards
First on the bill is this is this interview that Rhiannon Alpers gave to the people from tested.com (also associated with Mythbusters). They stopped by the San Francisco Center for the Book to learn the art of letterpress printing, which Rhiannon was happy to teach them. She showed them how how modern letterpress practice uses a combination of century-old machines and new technology, and then helped them put those lessons to use – by making tested.com business cards! And hey, it doesn’t just have to be the Mythbusters who get to learn from Rhiannon; she’s teaching an introductory bookbinding class at the end of August.
William Davis, a talented filmaking graduate student at CCA interviewed Mary Laird, who speaks about the meditative process of choosing type, setting type, and (finally) printing. For her, the art of letterpress has so much to do with how wonderfully limited one is – the physicality of hand-setting a few lines of type at a time, the impossibility of downloading a new font and switching it out for the old one. Learn all this and more in her Letterpress Book in a Day workshop, August 12
Mary Risala Laird – Master Printer from William Davis on Vimeo.
Last but not least, an interview with James Tucker by Skill Exchange – a workshop series which aims to inspire the community to use their hands and learn traditional, hand making and self-reliance skills. Letterpress, with its intricate machines and lead type, fits the bill perfectly. James discusses the classes he teaches at Skill Exchange, the work he does with the Aesthetic Union and the Advanced Letterpress classes that he teaches at the San Francisco Center for the Book. Like his Foil Stamped Titles workshop which is happening in mid-August.
