Good Impressions - Sawtooth School for Visual Art

Keep In Touch

Signup for our e-newsletter here.

GOOD IMPRESSIONS: READINGS FROM THE PRESS BED

Good Impressions is a free event that shares the joy of poetry, letterpress printing, and community. Following a brief reading and discussion, visitors are invited to crank Sawtooth’s classic Vandercook No. 3–the gold standard for letterpresses in the 20th century–and leave with their own handprinted, hand-signed broadside.

The letterpress is set in advance, so all participants have to do is crank and marvel as their print is revealed onto a sheet of beautiful Hahnemühle Bugra paper–creating a frame-worthy piece of art that is theirs to keep.

Our next event is on Saturday, May 11, 2024, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. It is free and open to everyone, but we ask folks to sign up so we have enough materials on hand.

Click here to register online.

Join us on Saturday, May 11, at 5 pm for our next Good Impressions Event

Presented in collaboration with the North Carolina Black Repertory Company, our next Good Impressions event will celebrate the company’s 45th anniversary and recent production of Coconut Cake. The broadside will feature poetry by lauded Winston-Salem author Jacinta White and artwork by Sauda Mitchell.

This event is free and open to all! Please register on our website so we can make sure we have enough supplies on hand.

THE EMPRESS: VANDERCOOK NO. 3

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.