Hands-on tour and demonstration of letterpress at Bona Fide Books

Tahoe Letterpress will open its doors for a studio tour and reception Friday, June 16, 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 pm. Located at Bona Fide Books in Meyers, the print shop will offer hands-on demonstrations and free hand-printed souvenirs to take home. The event is free and open to the public.

Tahoe Letterpress began informally in 2014 when letterpress printer Steve Robison moved from the Bay Area to South Lake Tahoe with his wife, the book artist Karen Cutter. Bona Fide Books publisher Kim Wyatt had an interest in letterpress, and partnered up with Robison to start the print shop and offer monthly workshops to the public.

Now a working print shop, the mission of Tahoe Letterpress is to provide a letterpress print facility to the public, teach interested people how to use it, encourage individual creativity and build a thriving print community in the mountains of Lake Tahoe. Fun vintage equipment includes platen presses dating to the 1800s, as well as more modern sign presses.

The centerpiece of Tahoe Letterpress is a collection of handset type housed in four wooden type cabinets. The type comes from the Virginia City “Territorial Enterprise,” the voice of the west during the Comstock era. “Mark Twain was a reporter and editor there and might have even touched this type,” says Robison with a smile.

The recent addition of a Golding Pearl flywheel platen press will expand opportunities for printers. Robison, who has been letterpress printing for more than 50 years, encourages anyone interested in letterpress to come out and “pull a proof.” The art of letterpress printing is over five hundred years old, and he believes the hands-on tactile experience of yesteryear is part of the draw to letterpress printing. “When people get involved in the craft of it, the pressures of the 21st Century just seem to disappear.”

Tahoe Letterpress will offer a four-hour introduction to letterpress workshop June 17, July 22 and August 19. In these workshops, students learn how to use a composing stick, set type and print cards or broadsides. The workshop fee of $50 includes open studio time to work on personal projects.

Sign up at http://www.bonafidebooks.com/tahoe-letterpress/ or call call (530) 545-1373. Bona Fide Books is located at 1069 Magua #4, Meyers, just west of South Lake Tahoe.