02/11/10

A couple of shots of Firecracker Press down on Cherokee Street in south city STL. I took a printmaking class here back in the fall, which was really fun. I have a few shots still to put up of that, but here's a view of the retail end of their shop (one half is retail, the other half is the printing workshop) along with some examples of their work. I really love the combination of the bold design sense along with the handmade quality of the work.

Letterpress is a labour-intensive technique that's fallen out of favour with more automatized printing processes, but there's still some small craft presses like Firecracker around who use it to create works of art. Now the class is over, but Matty (instructor and shop manager) mentioned an art co-op down on Cherokee that rents out blocks of time on their letterpress, that we can go to if we wish to continue the practice. I found their website, but it looks like they're still in the process of moving and won't be open again till March. I guess that gives me plenty of time to think of what I want to make and work on the printing blocks till then.