Diary of a Printed Page

I must confess ~ each time a piece of paper goes into the printing press blank and emerges again filled with words, I am astonished. 

What still feels like the sudden epiphany of language out-of-nothing is not, in fact, miraculous. It is careful, collaborative craftsmanship by author and papermaker and metal-caster and printer, among others. It’s a strangely fluid movement of human and machine ~ an always-changing choreography of eye and iron, hand and fiber, thought and ink and breath. 

Joyous!

Here’s a little photo diary from today’s print run. I was printing the second color (in red) on the title page of St Brigid Press’s newest book, forthcoming in early February.

It all starts with sheets of beautiful blank paper...

This is "Ben," the 100+ year old iron handpress, and my workstation.

Here's what we're printing today ~ the title and decoration for the title page of our new book. It's all set up in metal, locked securely on the bed of the press, and ready for to print.

The first step is to place, or "hang," the sheet of paper-to-be-printed on the tympan. You can see the little metal guides that keep the page in the correct spot. (You can also see the words in black ink that I printed earlier in the week.)

Next, we fold the frisket over the top, so the paper is secure and any non-printing areas protected from ink.

Now to ink up, or "charge," the roller with that glorious red!

Rolling the red ink onto the type...

Now I close the tympan/frisket/paper assembly down over the bed of the press, on top of the inked type.

The whole bed then gets rolled back under the heavy iron platen.

Now we pull the bar ~ this lowers the platen onto the tympan, etc., which presses the paper into the inked type!

After gently releasing it, the bar is back in place and the platen has lifted up...

... allowing me to roll the bed back out...

... and unfold the tympan...

... and unfold the frisket...

... to reveal The Printed Page!

Whew! One down, 49 more to go. :-)

Thanks so much for joining us on this journey. All best to you all,

St Brigid Press