Letterpress & Bookbinding Update

Hey, look, a post that's not about writing! First, here's the finished poster I wrote about last time (this one's not quite registered right, which is why I still have it):

So lately I've been teaching an Intro to Letterpress class, focused primarily on metal type, for Extended Studies at NSCAD. We just finish week 4 of 7 (Thursday evenings) and I think it's going great. Everyone seems to be getting the hang of things, and we're at the point I like best--when everyone is working away on their own and I can drift around the shop and help here and there and advise as I'm needed, but I don't have to speechify in front of them and I'm not running around like a madwoman trying to be everywhere at once.

One project I'm having them do is setting a page--it can be anything they like, long or short, big type or small--that will go in a class book. We'll print lots of copies so that they each get 2 or 3 to take home (and I get a few, too), and everyone will have a nice souvenir of the class. With luck and time management, they'll each have a small project or two of their own as well (in fact, a couple of them already do).

Of course, I have forgotten my camera every single class. And I forgot my camera earlier this week when I did a four-hour bookbinding workshop for a foundation print and paint class. I showed them how to make a simple accordion book with a hard cover, that they can use for the small prints they're doing in class. And because it's so simple, it's also very customizable, so hopefully they'll be able to make them to their own specifications for other projects down the road. At the very least, I inspired several of them to run out and sign up for a whole credit class in book arts. Maybe one or two of them even signed up for my letterpress class.

For things coming up, I'll be helping an artist-in-residence (joint project between NSCAD's Dawson Printshop and the Eyelevel Gallery) to print some posters next week. It could be very hectic as time is short now. I also have a job printing diplomas, but time is also getting short on that and there are apparently some hang-ups on the design end of things (which I have no part in--I'm just the printer), so it could still fall through. They'll have till the end of next week to finalize everything or else there won't be time to process plates, print, dry and deliver to the other side of the country. I'm still hopeful that it will go ahead, but if not, that's how it goes.

And finally, more classes. Extended Studies at NSCAD has asked me to teach the Intro to Letterpress again in May/June (info here), since we had such a good turnout this time. And I'll be teaching the Intro to Letterpress credit class in the fall (info here) so Joe can do two Intro Book Arts classes in hopes of filling up an Intermediate Book Arts in the spring. It'll be my first credit class, but I hope the first of many. I'm very excited and hope I get enough registered for it to go ahead.

And that's it for me in letterpress and books this week. Next post should be on natural history things around my neighbourhood.