Enjoy a reading of selected poetry and experience the wonder of letterpress printing! Participants are invited into Sawtooth School’s print studio to hand crank our Vandercook–3 letterpress and take home a beautifully printed broadside. The broadsheet is designed, and the text is hand-set in advance, so all participants have to do is crank!
Interested in seeing some of our previous letterpress printed broadsides and books?
Invented by R. O. Vandercook in Chicago, the Vandercook presses were made between 1909 and 1960 and are a proof press for printing handset + hand-cast type and woodcuts. It became the standard for hand letterpress in the 20th century.
In 2019, Sawtooth School acquired the Vandercook letterpress and named it The Empress. The first Readings from the Press Bed event took place in March of that year, made possible by a generous grant from the Windgate Foundation and a donation from the Schupbach-Gordon Family. Sawtooth School is proud to be one of the only community-based art schools in North Carolina to offer letterpress printing courses and workshops.
