When someone speaks with passion about their craft, you can't help but be excited to learn more.At our most recent NSBAG meeting, Katherine Victoria Taylor took us on her journey of becoming a letterpress printer and press mechanic, also touching on bookbinding and papermaking.
Crediting her 'apprentice' years to Joe Landry, Katherine's journey, overcoming working with intimidating large Vandercook presses, took her to workshops, internships, and artist residencies with expert letterpress printers, designers, and press mechanics in both Canada (Ontario & Nova Scotia) and the United States (Maine, Alabama, Georgia, Wisconsin, Illinois, New York). Katherine spoke about the techniques she developed in press mechanics, the willingness to spend extra time learning new skills, the all-important networking to meet and work with the experts, like Paul Moxon, and bringing those skills back to Nova Scotia. She also explained that printing presses were not just for printing books, but that letterpress printing was often used in making posters with political statements.
Although the names of most of the experts that Katherine mentioned were unknown to me, I was pleased to realize that because of Katherine's networking and invitation, I also had the chance to work with one of them, Amos Paul Kennedy, a well-known letterpress printer who participated in some of the Gaspereau Press Wayzgoose days where we created statement posters.
The slide show and talk was informative, and Katherine’s excitement about letterpress printing and press mechanics was contagious.
Submitted by Heather Loney