Friday, May 13, 2011

Sunday at the Wayzgoose

Recently I went to the most interesting event I've seen in a while: Wayzgoose, an event hosted by King's Books &  held in downtown Tacoma, all about paper & printing.  How exciting can paper & printing be, you ask. Well, when the printing press is a bulldozer, it can be pretty interesting.
The "press" in action: a bulldozer is used as a giant press & is rolled over a hand carved linoleum block, covered with ink. Paper is carefully placed on the block & a piece of wood covers everything, before the bulldozer is set in motion. The trick is to make sure that nothing moves or there will be smearing & the print will be ruined, so people stand along the edges of the wood, moving out of the way when the bulldozer nears. The driver needs to be very careful to drive over everything straight, for the same reason.



Inking the plate: There were a number of plates, each carved by a team, in their own design & then hand inked. The  prints were raffled off (sure wish I had one)

 

Placing the paper: This had to be done very carefully to prevent smudges & fingerprints

Waiting for the press: A group standing on the edges of the wood, to prevent slippage & keep everything straight



Finished print: The wood cover is carefully removed & the paper picked up to reveal the finished print. This one said "Tacoma
Neither Beer nor Bears
 


 
Finished print: This one is of Tacoma's famous Ivan the gorilla, who spent most of his life as an attraction in the B & I shopping center, a beloved but controversial piece of Tacoma's history. The print is displayed here, in the window of King's Books.

There was more to the event: paper making, letter presses, paper makers, printer makers, a fez or two & even a tiny tiki god, but I'll save that for a part two...SAM






Unknown Mami


12 comments:

Susi said...

It looks like fun... although I don't really get what they are doing, LOL!

Debbie @ OtRD said...

What a great thing to experience. I've never seen anything like that and would love to see it in person! Can believe they used a bulldozer!

Unknown said...

Ok, so now I have duplicate photos. I think this is because Blogger is working to restore our posts. I'll wait a few days to try & edit this. Right now, if I try to delete the duplicates, almost everything is deleted. At least this is better than no images.

LionGirl said...

Hey, thanks for sharing. Learnt something new today! The final product is simply beautiful!

Lisa Taylor said...

Cool stuff! Now I'm wondering if anyone in my area does this -it'd be a fun "field trip".
Amazing they can do it without smearing!

Alexis of NorthOnHarper said...

This looks like such a cool experience!!! Nothing boring about this printing :)

Kim @ Coffee Pot Chronicles said...

Whoa! That's pretty cool! Not the fastest or most productive method but it stops and forces people to think of the art and creativity behind it. Always have to give props to my fellow artists no matter what we do -- write, draw, sketch, paint, dance, act, sing, anything. Love and appreciate them all.

Thanks for sharing!

Keetha Broyles said...

Very interesting indeed!

Paper is very important to my town - - - for YEARS the paper mill here was the main employer. They paid their workers well and gave them great benefits. The town BOOMED.

Then - - - as the story goes so often these days - - - it became too expensive to produce paper, and when profit margins drop - - - jobs are outsourced - - - and now we have a much smaller paper production here and many many jobless folks and empty houses.

Sad times.

So, yah - - - I'm real interested in paper!

Bibi @ Bibi's Culinary Journey said...

That is so cool!!!

My boys would love to experience something like that.

There is nothing like a smell of fresh newspaper....yes, I am sentimental like that,lol.

Claudya Martinez said...

Fascinating! I'd be to nervous to be the bulldozer driver.

Susan said...

A true Renaissance man. Refreshing.

Brad said...

How cool is that?!! A bulldozer printing press. awesome.