Don't Be A Dancing Bear

Some rough drawings heading towards linocut stage

  Back in the 80’s and 90’s we used to do, and enjoy community arts projects. We would chase funding, run projects and then acquit the funding for the auditors. Pretty simple, and we got some regular pay for a while doing what we love to do - Art! Not so easy now. Often a director, curator, events manager, etc will soak up the money and you will be left with glib lines about how its good for the community etc, etc.  Working for a big nothing. This is a level of bureaucracy that has inserted itself between the art funding bodies and the artist.    Never stand between an administrator and a bucket of money, something I learned early as a college art teacher. The last person to get funded is the person at the edge - be it teachers, health workers, or artists. The middle soaks it up.

  I fell for this twice (putting work into “community arts” events locally) - never got more than a photocopy label, not even PR, or a web/media publicity plug, and then found out this was a publicly funded event.  I may have been less angry if everybody was in the same boat as volunteers but I felt completely ripped off.

  When I complained to our local arts committee I was treated to a display of complete rudeness from people who are not even professionally linked to arts - having made their collective living elsewhere and dabbling for a bit of a social life. Small towns!!

Don’t you just love working for nothing! We wouldn’t want wealth to spoil artistic imagination would we? Are artists just Dancing Bears?

  Seriously though, this kind of behaviour is not isolated. Its going on all over Australia. Its time to demand a fair go for artists. The National Association of Visual Artists is the peak advocacy body for artists and it is mounting a national campaign collecting signatures to push for paid fees for participation or use of their work. Artists need to reclaim control over their career in the culture of Australia.

  When you are thinking of any art event ask to see the funding sources. Ask about fees for services and use of work. If its not fair don’t do it. Remember something done for costs or free is actually being done at a loss. Intangibles don't pay the rent. In particular too, find out about publicity etc - just what are you getting for your involvement. Remember too that someones political connections to liberal or green causes doesn’t mean they will give you any better or fairer treatment.

  I was once asked to quote for printing (by offset) a very large run of leaflets - the paper for which had to be sourced from pulp processed in Sweden from regrowth pine. I asked what side of the hill should the trees have come from. At that point I bailed out but I did get asked to print by these groups for costs. That is, cost of materials but not my time! In other words Kodak got paid, paper companies paid, plate, ink and consumable suppliers paid but not the local monkey on the press handle. You can imagine what I said!

  We will be producing some campaign cards by Letterpress but you can help signing NAVA'S petition :  www.visualarts.net.au/ or http: //auxiliarymuseumtasmania.blogspot.com.au/p/fair-go-for-artists-now.html

The Mitre Cutter

  

   Another nice piece of equipment comes ‘home’! 
  This little hand, food, and occasionally small levels of alcohol operated machine will give us the ability to cut bevel edges so that boxes can be constructed around areas of type. Now, I don’t know how well this really happens. It has been said that prefect boxes of rules can only be made by using a block/plates. This means the rule is made in software these days. But I like the idea of printing using hand fitted rules that are slightly imperfect. Getting rules made in the first place will mean heavy packages from the US!
   It’s a really well build piece and after a bit of oil and some rubbing was working in top condition again! There is one about 30 kms from where we live, but no luck in trying to get it - so this one came from Idiana US  (I think). Shipping was twice the value of the machine. I love working with traditional ornaments and applying rules is a nice way of finishing a design. American industrial design in the early 20th century often looks clunky and over size casts but then when in use you find all the accuracy you need. It certainly works because here it still is maybe a century later.
  Still, its here no so away we go! I’m hoping to have a model small shop circa 50’s-60’s. I think that soon we will have a Ludlow machine ( a type castor) which will make our studio close to perfect. So there!

The scale on the straightedge is for rule length and the outer curved settings are for the number of sides (moving the cutting bevel).

Hard to find!

 The block of metal is a machined .918 reference to zero the device

 You can measure well into the block. A standard micrometer can only deal with edges

At lasting impressions we are still building our equipment list and supplies like type and paper. We use Van Son inks and slowly we are building the supplies as well. Occasionally I pick up a nice piece of equipment on eBay. But a warning - just go for Buy Now offers. Auctions are not true auctions on eBay - people use software to “snipe’ your bid in the last 5 seconds so that you can’t respond. Be warned! Nevertheless I always look at EBay for nice pieces of equipment. I did get this beauty recently.
 Type high gauges were prevalent in industry because they gave us the ability to have a rugged accurate micrometer in the press room. We use them because they can measure into the centre of a block (say), or various sheets of paper. Very handy, and much more useful than a simple micrometer or the newer electronic version, which can only measure in from edges. Letterpress works with the magic .918 (type high). Rollers are set to this height as are the platen packing surfaces. This device gives a a easy to use way of measuring that doesn’t depend on batteries. I have to leave my veneer gauge in the sun and let it warm up before using it to measure - but is it really?
 These don’t come up for sale very often but if your interest is in Letterpress try and get one. Another good example of German post war engineering I’d say. They generally turned up in any shop that had Swedish or German presses and they were the basis of quality control. You can measure paper thickness, measure blocks, type, etc, and underlay to get a level, perfect, set up.

Thanks John !

 

A few oiling points on this side!

An amazing booklet has been forwarded on by my friend John Lamp who is very able supporter of printing despite having a shocking back, not helped by my constant collecting of presses and bits and pieces over the years. He thought it would be interesting, but didn't realise that I had worked on these presses back in the 60's and early 70's. Luckily for John he relocated to Geelong and so he isn't rostered onto the moving team for the Ludlow moving! And these giants have been scrapped, although I was offered one if I could move it!

This is the biggest sheet fed Letterpress machine that I worked on. Starting out as a young probationary apprentice loading paper and oiling and watching each sheet delivered for 'spaces up' or running out of ink etc. Years later I worked one and then in 1984 Jo and I visited the printery on our honeymoon and saw the same press on its last week of its life. The last of 5 it was to be broken up. The Meihle Perfector was the mainstay of the government Printing Office in NSW (the largest in the southern hemisphere), and they ran night and day for four decades. There was also a 'Meihle Two Colour' - Similar but different! Two beds, two inking units and two cylinders. The sheet reversed for backup on the second cylinder but unfortunately because the backup was done wet it was not good on coated stocks and often looked slurry on any paper. The presses didn't register all that well either. They were great for printing Hansard, Bills and Acts for Parliament and were revered for their reliability. I couldn't handle the noise and it made me dream of being a hippy!! Notice the lack of a automatic feeder. We had them, but apparently these were chosen buyer the buyer. Ours had stream feeders with comb wheels. They had a speed of 1500 sheets per hour (3000 iph effective).

The four cylinders you can see here were the buffers. These helped the type beds reverse and had buffer cups fit into them as the bed went to and fro. Well, these cups were leather and I had to crawl under (with Neats Foot oil), once a week and wipe them. I was supposed to sing or whistle so that no-one inadvertently started up while I was under the machine. Instant mince! I sang "Yellow Submarine". Scary, and the oil stank. The rollers and runners supported the type beds. This is the base frame.

  This is number one cylinder end open for makeready, but also not showing a feeder. Makeready could take 3.5 hours and a washup was at least an hour. Hence there was a constant war between printers (the union), and management, who to cut costs used cheap greasy non drying inks and you guessed it, the quality dropped because the second side slurred because of greasy inks. The end result was mediocre work that as typical of most public sector bookwork. Most of these printers, under pressure, just added more 'weight' and ran with too much impression. I didnt like this end of the press room much, too many old printers for a young bloke like me and too locked into their ways. Most were alcoholics and incredibly noisy. They were like this from a constant machine noise and had a complicated sign language, to signal, around the press. They lead a boring and predictable life and I resisted being shifted into this area.

  These are the form rollers and number one cylinder exposed for make-ready. The rollers could be removed by one man but it was easier with two. When these presses went, the press hall was filled with MAN Roland's but not for long. By the 1980's privatisation overtook this great Australian printing office and they were all scrapped. These presses were Quad Demy but often ran Quad Cap paper size. They just might be the largest sheet fed Letterpress machines the world  has seen. The Government Printing Office was the first press in Australia being set up in 1803.

The ADANA 6x4 Press

A Nice Picture of a good press. Its a 1936 advert for a 6x4 press that launched many a young printer. Or so I am advised by many UK origin folks who visit our market stall and also the British Printing Society of which I am a proud member.

 Lasting impressions picked one up in a  second hand shop in 1986 for $40.00. We used it for years and made it work but couldn't quite work out why it had such primitive inking rollers. Years later when I replaced them I realised that the resourceful previous owner had slipped on some dairy milking hose over the roller stocks. I always wondered about the seam in the roller but somehow we made a lot of cash with this press.  Somehow!

Also, the weirdest Phallic design handle! We now use a 8x5 Adana and its vastly different. Notice how this ad features some sort of stirrup for foot operation.

This is the smallest press I have worked on if we discount the Japanese 'Baren'.

In the Pressroom

When I talk to younger printers starting out in Letterpress I'm surprised by the way they work. They seem to use computer tools as they were taught in university and then use letterpress as a delivery process. Often files are output as CYMK from Illustrator or Indesign/Quark and then the image is "locked in" using process inks and a platen or cylinder press to realise the image on paper using Photo plates.
 I have used Photopolymer and its not all that easy, as I'd be the first to admit. Photopolymer has a very shallow etch, so the lock up has to be perfect and the rollers set to the lightest possible setting. If not then non-image areas get inked and will often print. Its very frustrating and ultimately a fun day of press work descends into lots of cursing and frustration as the printer tries to get a plate to work.

This put me off using the material and sent me in the direction of using more traditional materials. Photopolymer is not all that sharp either. Nothing like new crisp type from M&H foundry or Dale GuiId with their amazing foundry types. Using woodcuts and Linocuts too gives a nice low tech picture which carries a beautiful rich layer of ink on 100 year old presses. they seem to enjoy these materials! It always pays to remember the age when these presses came into existence and work with them. Same goes for deep impression. Too heavy an impression is very wearing of the plate, press and type especially so I avoid punishing the materials. Simple materials puts it all on the creators. those who cut the blocks, set the type and mix the inks. The 'art' is in assemblage and making choices.

With my work, colour is one of the last steps. The right mood is important. I try to match the content of the block with a colour. Sometimes we will print a block in a range of colours - some cool, some warm, to convey different moods. On a platen press you can change colour in minutes. I do own a pantone colour guide (the industry standard) but usually I just flick through it to  get an idea of possibilities. We use just a basic range of rubber based non skinning inks and use opaque white and transparent inks. Incidently mix from very light. Mix by sight and intuition. Start light and very gradually add a darkening colour. Tap a small amount out on paper to check. If you go too dark, "can it" and use it for something else. Start again.

Real Master Printers

Recently we had the joy of handling some 19th century japanese prints. A friend had been gifted them as a bequest.

   These prints are made off carved wooden blocks, with a "Baren" (a pad of bamboo Leaves). Ink is made from soot (black) and various pigment sources, often vegetable. It is amazing to see and to hold closely such beautiful prints. They are printed on handmade paper and these ones obviously had been in albums and suchlike as the mounts were still attached lightly in the top corners.  They are printed in register from successive blocks of colour and were made in hundreds. Often very good copies were made and printers did forge each others work too as famous prints garnered better prices. These guys could really print!

  Our job was to encapsulate them in acid free archival mounts that effectively sealed them from hazards in the future. A good friend who practices these skills taught us how this is done. Core-flute backing board, Mylar, and museum quality materials are used throughout the process. The prints were then stored in a purpose made box. I have a feeling that these sort opportunities happen only once in a lifetime!