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.
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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
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12 comments:
It looks like fun... although I don't really get what they are doing, LOL!
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!
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.
Hey, thanks for sharing. Learnt something new today! The final product is simply beautiful!
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!
This looks like such a cool experience!!! Nothing boring about this printing :)
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!
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!
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.
Fascinating! I'd be to nervous to be the bulldozer driver.
A true Renaissance man. Refreshing.
How cool is that?!! A bulldozer printing press. awesome.
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