LETTERPRESS     STORY     PORTFOLIO     LINKS     PRESS     SHOP  

 

when once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward,

for there you have been, and there you will always long to return {leonardo da vinci}

Like most letterpress printers, I distinctly remember the moment I fell in love with letterpress. While shopping in 2007, a wine bottle with a beautiful label caught my eye and I had to buy it. Not for the wine, mind you, but the label [genius marketing]. I loved it so much, I phoned the winery to see if they had any posters. The winery referred me to the designer and printer, Hatch Show Print, the nation's oldest letterpress print shop. Clueless about letterpress, I phoned them in hopes of getting the wine label in poster size, or at a minimum, an electronic file that I could have a local printer print for me. Very nicely, I was told that they did not have an electronic file, but they would be happy to print a minimum of 100 posters for me, which I declined of course (I only wanted one!). Puzzled, I got off the phone, began researching letterpress, and there began my labor of love, not so commonly known as letterpress.


Today, my print studio consists of a Chandler & Price 8x12 built in 1891, and a retired US Navy Vandercook 4 dating back to the 1950's. At times I think I'm crazy (and I may be) for having bought literally tons of printing equipment without having a print or design background, but then I retreat to a land of ink and iron and make something simply beautiful with my hands, and I love it; and that's all that matters.


Why Pilot Press? The daughter of a private pilot, I grew up at the Palo Alto airport watching planes take off and land with my dad, cutting toilet paper mid air with the propeller over farms near Halfmoon Bay, and traveling across California in his Cherokee Six. More than any toy or gift I received as a child, these memories of flying with my dad are the most treasured. In hopes of continuing time above the earth's surface, I became a licensed private pilot in January 2007. From the smells of aviation fuel to the odors of press solvents; the buzz of a Cessna to the hum of my C&P; how gingerly you must be with the flight controls and with the press; the preparation and focus needed for both; each reminds me of the other; and so it is, Pilot Press.