After searching for a way to continue printmaking after college, I stumbled upon this amazing process and immediately fell in love. I took a class, started printing and as they say, the rest is history. I established Paper Bird Press in 2009 in Providence, Rhode Island with a good friend. We share a love of letterpress and the satisfaction of creating a product that happily needs a stamp.

 

The process begins with a sketch, which is then rendered into digital file. From there, the design is printed onto a acetate film, laid over a special light sensitive polymer plate and exposed to the just the right amount of uv light. The plate is scrubbed, exposing the negative, laid onto the press and inked. Each piece is individually printed by me on a century old Vandercook press, one color at a time. This requires the same hand-fed sheet of paper passing through the press multiple times. For each different color, the press must be cleaned, re-inked, and the plate lined up perfectly.

 

As meticulous of a process as this is, I love every minute of it. The feeling you get when you pull the sheet of paper from the press and the color registration is right on is magic! Letterpress requires a long journey but to me, it's worth the wait.