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Project Helps Student Press On

By Barbara Millman Cole
CORRESPONDENT

"Imagine you're Gutenberg in 1450 converting a wine press into the world's first letterpress, creating movable type. You print 200 copies of the Bible and change the world," Sarah Leonard, co-creator of Lafayette Arts & Science Foundation's Letterpress Printing Project, tells Stanley Middle School eighth-graders.

"Perhaps you're a Colonist, using your printing press to communicate, or a chronicler of the Civil War, printing broadsides (fliers posted on broadsides of buildings)," Leonard said. "You might be an apprentice typesetter in 1800s California, setting type by hand in a lamp-lit room."

"In 1998, Cathy DeForest asked herself what would interest eighth-graders," said Carla Gelbaum, printmaker and project coordinator. "She observed that teens often don't draw and many have never seen the inside of a machine. The letterpress project combines both, making learning history fun."

"This project lets kids produce the printed word sans computer and learn about the press' place in world history," Leonard explains, "tying into their studies of the Revolutionary and Civil wars."

With $3,000, the group bought materials and three letterpresses, one from an 80-year-old printer in Sacramento thrilled to pass his beloved vocation on to a new generation. A retired printer in San Francisco donated his family's 100-year-old press, originally used by the Chicago Tribune. The son of a late Vietnam War veteran with a passion for printing sold them a collection of lead type.

Five experienced artists work with Gelbaum. Parents volunteer during the relief block printing session. Labor-intensive, letterpress requires one-on-one assistance.

Would-be apprentices in Victoria Shegoian's class sit spellbound as Gelbaum tells of swifts, exceptionally fast typesetters and rushers, typesetters in the heyday of the Gold Rush, recording claim deeds and sending Gold Rush news back East.

Shegoian's students see how fast they can set type using a tray of small lead type (metal blocks with raised, reverse letters), a composing stick in which to place the type and mirrors to check spelling. They add lead spacers between lines, slide the line of type onto trays, position furniture (wooden blocks) around the type and tighten the chase (metal frame).

Previously, students created relief block prints on broadside paper. One student carved a steamship, another a bearded miner, and a third the British flag snipped by scissors.

LASF instructors guide students through the process on 1940s models that operate the same as presses used before the Revolutionary War.

Pulling a lever, a roller slides over a metal disk covered with ink and rolls over the type held by the chase. The paper presses against the type, picking up the inked image.

These would-be swifts admire their work. "Magic Boats," advertises one. "Western Riches!" shouts another. And "Got Power??" cries a third. Through the letterpress, their voices are heard.

02/08/06 Reprinted with permission. Visit the Contra Costa Times on the web at www.contracostatimes.com.

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