PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS

These in-person Wayzgoose Workshops must be registered for separately than the main conference. Remember you must register for the Wayzgoose to participate in one of our workshops. All workshops take place from 9am-4:30pm on Friday, November 3, 2023.

Pressure Printing for Color Separation

Instructor: Barbara Tetenbaum
Cost: $125

Using pressure printing to create rudimentary color separations, new life can be given to the many and miscellaneous zinc, magnesium and copper half-tone image blocks found in most letterpress shops. I learned this technique from Dikko Faust in 1985 at Artist Bookworks in Chicago but only began to explore it many years later. (Dikko has dubbed this technique “Purga-color”.) We'll walk through the basic steps involved before launching into our work session. Each participant will work with a half-tone block from Hamilton's collection and create a two color print. The prints will be editioned so that everyone comes away with examples from each of their classmates.

 

Hebrew/Yiddish Wood Type

Instructors: Lynne Avadenka and Shani Avni 
Cost: $125

Join us on a Hebrew/Yiddish printing journey and experience the Cary’s Hebrew wood type collection. The RIT Cary Graphic Arts Collection is one of the world’s premier rare book library and archive on graphic communication history and practices. Focused on telling the history of printing through original artifacts, the Cary acquired a collection of about forty fonts of Hebrew/Yiddish wood type in 2014. This collection has been carefully cleaned, restored, and cataloged in accordance with established archival practices, and serves its purpose as an accessible historical resource at RIT and online. To supplement this rare collection and accommodate additional printing, the Cary has commissioned new sets of Hebrew/Yiddish typefaces to be cut based on historical patterns. In this workshop, you will have the opportunity to print with these wood typefaces, along with selected Hamilton Latin wood type.

We will begin with talking about the unique story of the Cary’s Hebrew/Yiddish fonts: following the development of immigrant presses in the US and their profound cultural influence on the local population; the story of the Jewish communities and the development of the Hebrew and Yiddish languages; the Hebrew script and its transformation into movable type and the many constraints this entailed. After the presentation and discussion, there will be ample time to work with the type (compose and print) in the Hamilton Print Studio to explore the visual qualities of the Hebrew alphabet.

Knowledge of Hebrew/Yiddish not necessary.

Lynne Avadenka

Shani Avni

It Takes a Village

Instructor: Jen Farrell
Cost: $125

Metal type ornaments have been used to create elaborate illustrations for hundreds of years. Many of these clever images have been architectural, with details that lend themselves to representing the built environment. In this workshop, we’ll examine what various buildings in our neighborhoods look like and how to start breaking them down into elements that can be recreated with metal type. We’ll use the large collection of small ornaments in the Silver Buckle Press room to think critically about how representational materials come together, as well as the math behind developing successful type forms. Each participant will design and construct a building out of the ornaments available and pull prints of it. When all of the forms are perfected, we’ll then combine them to make a community print of all of the structures.

 

Altered Book: Collage and Block Printing

Instructor: Sarah Matthews
Cost: $125

Discover the magic of turning old books into one-of-a-kind book art through collage and block printing. This class teaches the basics of creating captivating spreads and carving blocks to add charm to your altered book pages. Suitable for all skill levels, join us in this immersive workshop to unleash your creativity and find inspiration in repurposing books as unique artistic expressions.