Impressed by letterpress

Hartman operates his studio Creativille in Edwardsville,  a small southern Illinois town half an hour’s drive from St. Louis. He curated the show to celebrate the studio’s tenth anniversary, assembling work from five celebrated letterpress artists from the nation’s core: Amos Kennedy (Gordo, AL); Ken Botnick (St. Louis); Jim Sherraden, Hatch Show Print (Nashville); Eric Woods, Firecracker Press (St. Louis); and Brady Vest, Hammerpress (Kansas City).

Amos Kennedy and Ken Botnick are what you might call Old School, trained in the European tradition that honors the sweet spot where the impression is only heavy enough to give it substance. By contrast, Brady Vest at Hammerpress and Eric Woods’ Firecracker Press celebrate the impression, finding new ways to make it artful. Both Vest and Woods seem driven by more contemporary modes of expression, and although both mine extensive collections of period art, they do it in different ways.

At Woods’ studio, final designs are always cut in wood. Stylistically, Firecracker’s posters hearken to the ’50s and ’60s, although in a refreshingly offhand, indie-band manner. In dress and expression Woods could be an indie musician himself, which may have to do with the fact that much of Firecracker’s output is for local music and theater. Showing an iconoclastic streak present in so many letterpress printers, he says he prefers collaborating with smaller, often struggling clients. “They’re easier to work with — they place fewer demands on a printer in terms of elements and information that have to appear,” he says. “When you show them the results, they’re delighted. They have no interest in tinkering with something that works.”

In contrast to the cheeky approach at Firecracker, Vest rediscovers the inherent possibilities of much earlier art in metal and wood, but is increasingly augmenting the abstract appeal of his assemblages with original art. Several music posters, including those for Beck and Neko Case, illustrate how the cross-pollination of eras in letterpress is enlivening the contemporary approach.

Then there’s Nashville’s famed Hatch Show Print, part of the Country Music Hall of Fame and printer of gig posters for many hall members. When it comes to period art and type, especially in wood, the century-plus-old firm’s collection is matchless. Among Hatch’s work here, stadium-scale letters are used to haunting effect in images by Jim Sherraden, manager, chief designer and archivist. Other pieces on wood are composed of woodcuts for quotidian enterprises like optometrists. The repetition of vintage cuts depicting eyes and eyeglasses simultaneously summons the era of the art, records it and comments on it.

The work of Botnick and Kennedy ups the fine-art ante, again in opposite ways. Kennedy left a comfortable corporate career in IT to devote himself to art in tiny Gordo, Alabama {pop. 1677}. Although he works in a variety of formats, his chosen medium is always letterpress, concentrating lately on small-format posters with pithy quotes from figures famous and obscure, often addressing issues like racism and sexism. These works sell briskly at the opening, which provides him great satisfaction. “I believe that affordable art, democratic art, is very important. Everyone should be able to buy a piece of art, and not everything has to cost thousands of dollars or even hundreds,” he says. His images emerge boldly and simply, but with great resonance.

Botnick trained in landscape architecture, studied papermaking and fell in love with letterpress. Now serving as director of the Kranzberg Book Studio at Washington University, his forte is the limited-edition handmade book, often with poetry from classic or contemporary sources. The Edwardsville show features subtle examples, including a spectacular animal alphabet and his numinous book Kamini, a selection of erotic poetry in ancient Sanskrit and English. It was a winner in the 2007 50 Books/50 Covers competition.

The exhibition, on view until October 3, is also a fundraising effort. All gallery and gift shop sales benefit the Center. Sales were brisk at the opening, and the Center is putting additional posters for purchase on their website. Contact steve@creativille.net or the Edwardsville Art Center (618.655.0337) to contribute.

In a coming post here, I’ll share some impressions on letterpress and its practitioners.

Tom Biederbeck writes and edits on art and design topics, including authoring the Academy of Art University Newsfeed. He is the former editor of STEP inside design magazine. Reach him at tbiederbeck@gmail.com.

Alyson Kuhn, the editor of Felt & Wire, also loves the ceiling fixtures at the EAC. So, she asked Steve about them and was instantly illuminated.