Printing in Kentville

As I mentioned, the bookbinding workshop was part of the annual Wayzgoose at Gaspereau Press. They are primarily concerned with printing, of course, and following the workshop there was an open house at their shop. They had several presses functioning and were allowing visitors to print keepsake posters and such.

Wood engraver, George Walker was visiting and helping visitors print a poster using this incredible 1830s Planten press. First of all, we had the poster's text printed on a Vandercook in another room. Then we brought the poster to George and he helped us print Marshall's picture in the middle - from one of George's wood block carvings.

George Walker operating the press
And my finished poster, here on the right, with the wood carving printed in the middle. George Walker is a fabulous wood engraver. There were many of his works on display and he also did an illustrated talk in the evening about printmaking.

They were also helping visitors to make little notebooks with our names on them. First we cast our name in lead. This is done on a Ludlow Type Caster - very old and very big, but very effective machine! I was at the Wayzgoose last year too and they cast my son's name and printed it on little cards. Great idea this year to take it a step farther.

So as you can see, we used that lead cast (a slug, is it called a slug?) on a Parlor Press to print the notebook cover and then it was stitched into a quick pamphlet.

The offset printer was also running, printing off posters for people. They were also making paper during this event. They have a small Hollander beater and they were beating denim jeans to make the pulp and pulling sheets of gorgeous blue paper. At first the entire facility doesn't seem very big, but they had a lot of things happening on Saturday afternoon! Many of their books were on display, including those with George Walker's gorgeous wood engravings. They also had their annual offcut paper sale... so, of course, I stocked up.

Bookbinding workshop in Kentville

Yesterday, Gaspereau Press held their 12th annual Wayzgoose in Kentville, Nova Scotia. As part of the event, they were offering a bookbinding workshop with Ruth Legge, a local conservator and bookbinder who I'd heard of but never met. I was looking forward to meeting her and taking part in the class. So I left home early and drove to Kentville for a 9am start.

It was a 10-person workshop, just the right size. Ruth provided a kit for each person, with pre-cut materials. This is a great time-saver, of course, when someone else does all that fiddly work in advance! We each made a blank book, with a basic case binding structure. Mine has six signatures sewn with a French link stitch and kettle stitch, sewn without supports. And, although I've done a tonne of case bindings over the years, I still learned many things from Ruth.

My finished book
First of all, I don't think I'd ever made a case binding with a paper spine before. She also showed me a new way of turning in corners, very simple and effective. The way she planned the placement of the cover boards and spine liner onto the spine covering, also different and very effective. She quickly mentioned her method of making wheat paste - which included an extra step that I'm going to try next time. I also learned about a Quebec paper marbler, Lucie Lapierre, whose marbled papers we were using on our books. There were a number of other little tidbits that I picked up as well; all great information. It was perfect way to spend the morning!

Everyone's books in the press

Gaspereau Press Wayzgoose

As I mentioned in the last post, I dragged my family to Kentville on Saturday to an open house at Gaspereau Press for their annual Wayzgoose. They also had other activities throughout the weekend like printing demonstrations, presentations, bookbinding workshops etc. I only made it to the open house. This is the first year that I have attended and they have been doing it for 11 years; maybe next year I'll get down to more of the events.

One thing I hadn't seen before, was this handy machinery that cast lead type in an instant. This is Andrew Steeves making a lead cast of my son's name - the whole process took only a minute and the lead was cool enough to hold when it came sliding out the front.


I also came away with a bundle of posters that were printed during the open house. Shown here top left, the BlUNT poster letterpress printed on a Vandercook proof press, then top right, a sample of some offset printing for the quotation from Henry David Thoreau. Bottom left, is the letterpress poster that Nicholas and Amos printed on another Vandercook proof press, and bottom right, a couple little cards printed on a parlor press using the lead cast that Andrew made a few minutes previously.


They also have an offcut paper sale, where you can buy offcuts of nice paper, and it's cheap. So of course, I brought home some paper too - bonus.

Visiting Letterpress Artist - Amos Paul Kennedy Jr

Amos Paul Kennedy Jr is a letterpress artist from Alabama. He has been visiting Halifax this month with his work exhibited in one of the NSCAD galleries coinciding with the recent city-wide "Nocturne" art event. He also presented a couple of public talks and attended some classes at NSCAD as a guest artist and teacher.

There is a gallery of some of his work on his website (www.kennedyprints.com). He designs and prints some terrific posters, including a great series on the virtues of coffee. Many of his posters are very clever and entertaining but many are also very serious in their message, dealing with a wide range of issues like racisim, civil rights, ecomonics, artistic freedom, etc. Apparently he served in the Peace Corps and also studied and worked as a computer programmer in previous lives, but left that behind to pursue the creative life of a letterpress artist. There is a very good article about him on the Daily Mountain Eagle website.

His visit to Halifax also happen to coincide with my last letterpress class earlier this week. He visited our class so it was nice to meet him and have a chance to talk to him a bit. And I saw him again today at the Gaspereau Press Wayzgoose where he was demonstrating one of their Vandercook proof presses and helping people print souvenir posters. I had packed up the whole family to go to the Wayzgoose, so my son got to print the souvenir poster - with some help from Amos.

A visit to Gaspereau Press

For the edition of poetry books that I'm working on (which I mentioned here last month), I had to take the book covers to Gaspereau Press to get the text foil stamped onto the spines since I don't have that kind of equipment here.

I got a little tour, and they have the coolest sewing machine!


Gigantic, though. I don't think I'll be getting one of those any time soon. Besides, I like sewing by hand!

Here we are setting up the foil stamping equipment to do my book covers.


Gary did all the work, I just "supervised." So after a couple hours, I came away with thirty foil stamped book covers. And they are all cased-in now. Although the project still is not complete since each book is going to have a Japanese-style wrap-around case, and those are still in production!