A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE LETTERPRESS. . . .

The Minerva “Cropper” appeared around 1867. Like the “Alligator” before it, these platens (also called “clamshells”) were no doubt named for their voracious consumption of fingers and hands! By 1898, the Gordon Challenge, precursor of the Chandler &Price, with its movable chase where the rollers are mounted, vastly deterred the appendage-eating aspect of the previous letterpresses. Modern newspapers and copy shops replaced these aesthetically pleasing machines with the high-speed technology of offset printing developed between the world wars. Today, the remaining letterpresses are used by specialty printers for die cutting and foil stamping, in third world countries, and by artisans and hobby printers. Letterpress printing these days can only be learned by an elder craftsperson, by old texts and trade manuals, and by the hands-on process. I learned mostly hands on. And I learned when to have my hands off!

AND WHY I CAME BY MANY NAMES PRESS

Hea, Hammahed, he would say to me, lets get these geahs in ohda on that old bike of yos... and out would come the crescent wrenches, screwdrivers, vicegrips, etc., etc.

Many years later, I was one of the first women undergraduates allowed in to the all-male University of Virginia, built by Thomas Jefferson. The University had to let women in because otherwise affirmative action laws would prevent them from receiving federal money. I was lucky: both my smarter older sisters couldn't get in because they were female. My student job was shelving British literature in the stacks. In the basement of the library, behind a square of chain-link fence, stood the University printing press. It was an immaculate Chandler & Price platen press; exactly the model I would come to own. I used to get goosebumps every time I passed that magnificent, dark, lonely enigma. How did it work? What made it tick? Not simple like a bicycle....

AND HOW I CAME BY MANY NAMES PRESS....

I moved to the Monterey Bay area in an effort to keep abreast of the printing world. I really was a tramp printer, working in several different shops, picking up skills I could never have learned in a school. I had many names for my own press, and in light of this, in 1992 I began my own business called Many Names Press. I named it so because I couldn't decide on any one name. It suits my desire to maintain a Pantheist's view of the earth and maintain its ecological balance.

When I moved to Santa Cruz CA in 1986, I worked at Community Printers and joined the Letterpress Chappel of Santa Cruz, which was an internationally renown group of artists and book designers, letterpress printers, fine hand bookbinders, and papermakers. After the Bookshop Santa Cruz building was destroyed in the 1989 earthquake, owner Neal Coonerty bought my old Gordon Challenge letterpress, put it on display in the bookstore, and I bought a bigger better one.

Maintaining an ecological approach, I bought an offset press too, and used soy inks and recycled papers in a garage in Capitola in February of 1993.

Quickly needing more space for more offset presses, a platemaker and a bindery, I moved next to a big ice storage facility in a warehouse. There was so much room I rented out the unused space to artists I knew and coordinated art happenings and shows which became very popular with the cultured set. I bought and sold more letterpress equipment. I printed a book with full-color plates (loved the registration on those presses!) for my artist Uncle Bill Stipe called Sam Hergo.

Eventually, the freezer compressor and freeway noise gave way to a foray into the action of downtown Soquel, again associating with artists and art galleries in the area. I printed letterpressed books in my studio in the quiet, sunny, bucolic orchard in Corralitos I called home for 27 years, with a platen, a 20x24 flatbed Asbern letterpress, and several cabinets of type. I printed the fine press book, The Woodcuts of Andrea Rich there, as well as many a chapbook and broadside.

Necessity is indeed the mother of invention, and I took up the computer to edit and layout books for my clients. This was a new, and very exciting tack into the book publishing world. I took courses in Quark Xpress, Photoshop and Illustrator, and with the help of books and the three year stint as a production artist at West Marine, I became very proficient on the computer.

In the summer of 2001 I sold the offset equipment and concentrated on the letterpress and computer graphic design and layout. In 2004 I traded in the big behemoth letterpresses for a sweet little pilot 6x9 platen and bookbinding equipment. My bookbinding teacher Constance Hunter and I often traded skills.

After a brief prelude as a graphic artist/photographer for a glass paperweight collector in Santa Cruz, I went to work for a weekly newspaper, and quickly realized I hated sitting down all day. I became a schoolbus driver for almost 15 years and drove a 25-year old, double-clutch 78-passenger Crown about 150 miles a day, picking up about 250 kids, who I have to say, are much more interesting and cooperative than adults are sometimes. With biodiesel - I am honored to have helped start the ball rolling on biodiesel in the schoolbuses - and new technology for efficiency and filtering, schoolbuses emerged at the forefront of reducing carbon emissions while using a renewable, safer fuel, and eventually have become carbon neutral. Parents should know that schoolbus drivers (as professionally trained) are the safest drivers on the road today and should consider letting their children ride the schoolbus whenever possible!

I recently returned to Humboldt County to write, make art with my letterpress printing, and publish more trade editions. I am today in a fortunate position indeed.

PRINTING BOOK OF KNOW-HOW-LEDGE: HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

1450 - Gutenberg (who may have learned it from the Chinese)
1860 - Platen Automatic Letterpresses

1. Oldest: wooden type, lead type, Linotype or Intertype (the most moving parts machine ever invented) slugs, wood and (more recently,) linoleum cuts.
2. Metal (zinc, copper, magnesium, aluminum) photo-etched engravings, plastic photo-etched (polymer) engravings.
3. Foil stamping (a type of embossing which uses mylar and a heated platen surface)
4. Die embossing (with "male" and "female" counterdies)
5. Die cutting, perforating and numbering are all done on a letterpress.

1817 - Stone Lithography
1906 - First Offset
1930's - Offset Perfected (W.W.II)

Use Aluminum Plates for highest resolution, with film negatives ("emulsion DOWN"). Long lasting and reusable, double sided.

Use Silvermaster Paper Plates for medium resolution but less costs, made in a copy camera with built-in chemical developer baths. Uses paper positives (Black image on white paper). For small presses only, good up to 5000 copies, not intended for tight registration (plate stretches). Very cheap, costing about a quarter as much as the combined metal and film negatives.

Electrostatic Paper Plates: Low Resolution. Made in a fancy copy machine from a paper positive. Not too many in use these days. Cheap. Not good for more than 500 impressions.

1950's - Electrostatic Copying
1980's - Digital Ink Jet
1990's - Laser, Direct-to-Plate

HOME INK JETS squirt liquid plastic ink onto the paper direct from a computer. Uses disposable (find a recycler!) plastic cartridges up quickly. Not good for long runs. However, there are quality archival inks that won't fade or run. Commercial print-on-demand (POD) and short-run books are made using computerized machines that take a formatted (usually using page layout publishing programs like Quark or Indesign) documents and spit out a book. I left a book out in the rain, and it held up just like an offset book, the ink didn't bleed or fade in the sun. Ask for samples from the printer if you produce your own book, so you can see if the spine looks well done - no goop or crackling when opening the book. Always ask for recycled and archival paper. Off white (not yellow) is easier on the eyes.

WHERE is it all going? By continuing to use renewable resources like soy inks and vegetable solvents, renewable paper resources such as Kenaf, a fast growing bush from Egypt, grass, hemp, cotton, and yes, even algae from the Venetian canals, I hope we can continue to (and the earth can sustain) print without chopping down more trees. I know for myself there is nothing like the tactile look and feel of ink on paper. As we bombard our eyes and brains with the likes of screens emitting light and plastic fuzzy lines, the more likely we are to appreciate the qualities of printing. There seems to me nothing more lasting and impressive.

• Please go to services now, for more information on printing for your business or publication.
• Please go to books, for a descriptive list of publications available from Many Names Press for sale.