Who We Are

Laura Bentley attended her first letterpress class in 2008 at SVC, and it was love at first print. She was delighted to learn that her obsession with details that helped her build a successful career in technology could be put to use creating art. Laura is now the proprietor of Pinwheel Press in Seattle, where she produces social stationery and limited-edition prints. Her passion is printing from handset type and learning about the history of the objects used in this craft. Laura’s superpower is creating order out of chaos, so with Partners in Print, she is as likely to be found organizing numbers in a spreadsheet as metal type in a composing stick.

Sharon Chen is a Chinese American graphic and print designer from Queens, NY. She earned a BA in Communications, Graphic Design, and Journalism from Northeastern University, where she founded Illume Magazine, a publication devoted to the critical examination of Asian and Pacific Islander American histories, issues, and identities. Sharon is interested in creating meaningful experiences through physical media. It’s no surprise then, that you’ll find her at Partners in Print serving as the studio assistant, where she keeps the space welcoming and inviting to all!

Dave Ćwiok is a Polish American letterpress printer, motion designer, and graphic designer based in Chicago, IL. Dave was introduced to letterpress at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) with professor Cathie Ruggie-Saunders. Dave takes the “moveable” part of type very literally and will try to make an animation out of it, whether that be physically or digitally. When Dave is not at the press, he enjoys painting pisanki (Polish Easter eggs). Ćwiok was featured on the Spring 2023 Print Futures event.

Pardes loves all things paper and analog and is overjoyed to have found the world of letterpress via a bookmaking class at Colorado College. Though still learning the printing side of things, she can usually be found doodling, folding, & making zines out of “trash.” Pardes is thrilled to be part of PiP and its bountiful creative community. They find it fulfilling and a privilege getting to chat with people at Press Power events, pursue creative projects in the studio, and be part of a group that does good in the world.

Paul Oh is a mixed Malaysian-Chinese poet and printer who’s motivated by community development through artistic collaboration. Printing under the press name Rascally Sophist Press, he’s based in the Bay Area where he engages with the local print scenes (from zines to fine press) and works for the CODEX Foundation. Paul was featured in the Winter 2023 edition of Print Futures.

Jenny Wilkson oversees meaningful letterpress programs and partnerships that amplify voices, improve accessibility, and spark creativity at Partners in Print (PiP). Through PiP, she supports emerging letterpress artists and works to share the power of the press with more people. In her own Seattle studio, Jenny is future-leaning, with a penchant for laser fabrication, new and vintage wood type, and Vandercook cylinder presses. 

Laura Bentley attended her first letterpress class in 2008 at SVC, and it was love at first print. She was delighted to learn that her obsession with details that helped her build a successful career in technology could be put to use creating art. Laura is now the proprietor of Pinwheel Press in Seattle, where she produces social stationery and limited-edition prints. Her passion is printing from handset type and learning about the history of the objects used in this craft. Laura’s superpower is creating order out of chaos, so with Partners in Print, she is as likely to be found organizing numbers in a spreadsheet as metal type in a composing stick.

Lucky for PiP and for the mechanically impaired letterpress printers everywhere, David Black artfully applies his skills from his former career as a trained mechanic to his latest obsession: letterpress equipment. He cares for and operates his own printing presses in an Everett home studio while scouting dusty basements, warehouses, and stacks of ephemera for more pieces of letterpress history and artful applications of printing skills.

I am a storyteller. My love of text, image, ink, paper, cloth, thread has drawn me to this form. I am enchanted with the relative ease of multiples, the ephemeral quality of printed matter and the potential for viewer participation and interaction with the storyteller that the touch of a book invites. For the artist, work is an event of confession, an act of avowal. The knives used in carving, the bones used to fold the paper, the lead type or block pressing into the paper’s surface, the needle and thread piercing and joining, the lines drawn, and the hand, the valuable hand, these are the things I believe in. These are the tools I use to follow my curiosity and tell my stories.

Ben Blount is a Detroit-born graphic designer and letterpress printer. He loves books, type, and putting ink on paper. A believer in the power of the printed word, Ben aims to create work that has impact beyond the printed page. He has spent the last few years traveling the country (and the internet) teaching and talking about letterpress. Ben learned a lot about design at Washington University in St. Louis, a lot about printing at Columbia College Chicago, and filled in the gaps with mentors and lots of practice. He prints out of MAKE, his storefront studio in Evanston, IL.

Mary Bruno is letterpress printer in St. Joseph, Minnesota, where she runs Bruno Press, a print shop started by her father, design professor, Don Bruno. As you might expect, Mary’s love for printing and skill for the craft came from her father, whose memory she honors every time she carves linoleum, handsets wood or lead type, or prints a broadside. Mary produces an irreverent line of greeting cards that are sold nationally (via Bruno Press), and she has also been involved in organizing traveling exhibitions of letterpress.

Rebecca Chamlee is a self-taught naturalist and book artist who has published letterpress printed, limited-edition fine press and artist’s books under the imprint of Pie In The Sky Press since 1986. Her award-winning work is in prominent special and private collections throughout the U.S. and has been exhibited widely. Rebecca is an associate professor at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles where she teaches bookbinding, letterpress printing and artists’ book classes and heads the Book Arts minor program. She also holds workshops at her studio and book arts centers throughout the country.

Chris Chandler is an artist, printmaker, living and working in Portland, Oregon. He is currently exploring the endless possibilities of large-scale, modular, letterpress printing. His work is exhibited throughout the United States. Chris is the proprietor of Neu Haus Press, which he founded in 1996.

Evan Christie is the owner and head printer of Evolution Press, Seattle’s most prominent commercial letterpress print shop. A self-professed gear head, Evan discovered a passion for creative mass production as a studio art major at WWU. After being exposed to letterpress at SVC, Evan turned his love for printing and design into an internship at Evolution Press in 2010. In November 2017 he finally bought the shop, where he’s still hellbent on making beautiful things, one print at a time.

Since 1999, Jennifer Farrell has operated Starshaped Press in Chicago, with a focus on designing & printing everything from business cards to posters, as well as custom commissions, wholesale ephemera and limited edition prints & books. All work in the studio is created with metal and wood type, making Starshaped one of the few presses in the country producing commercial work while preserving antique type and related print materials. Jennifer’s work has been repeatedly recognized in books, magazines and design blogs, and has appeared in poster shows throughout the USA and Europe.

Kate Fernandez is a visual artist and cultural entrepreneur who has been spreading the gospel of letterpress for nearly ten years. She teaches printing throughout the northwest and consults for the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum in Two Rivers, WI. Fernandez is also the founder of the Abactors’ Hideout, a print shop at Smoke Farm in Arlington, WA. She received a BA in Comparative History of Ideas from the University of Washington and studied typography and design at the School of Visual Concepts.

Glenn Fleishman reports on technology, space, and design from his home in Seattle. A journalist for nearly three decades, Fleishman started his work life as a typesetter and graphic designer, and has worked for Kodak and Amazon. He appears regularly in the Economist, American History Magazine, Fast Company, and Macworld. He was the 2017 Designer in Residence at the School of Visual Concepts. 

Steve Garst is an artist, educator, and designer/owner of the Provisional Press project. He has been working in letterpress, printmaking, and book arts for the last 15 years and teaching for the last ten years at universities across the midwest. In response to the pandemic he developed a printing press kit that has been built by hundreds of people and is used by over 50 universities as a solution for students to print at home.

Jennifer Graves is a letterpress printer, book artist, and instructor based in Los Angeles. Since taking her first letterpress class in 2010 Jennifer has spent years growing, refining her own skills and learning from others. Jennifer chooses to primarily use wood and metal type, occasionally incorporating linoleum, pressure printing, and wood cuts. Much of her work addresses life and social issues through a lens of love and hope. Through type and vibrant, appropriate color, Jennifer’s messages resonate and invite audiences to be encouraged, ponder life and the life around them. In the summer she teaches an Introduction to Letterpress course through Extension at Otis College of Art and Design.

Jami Heinricher is the owner/operator of The Sherwood Press in Olympia, Washington, an historic letterpress print shop founded in 1940 by Jocelyn A. Dohm. In 1989, while studying at The Evergreen State College (’91), Jami began a fourteen-year apprenticeship under Jocelyn, inheriting the lovely old shop after her mentor’s death in 2003. The press has evolved into a full-service print shop centered around a fleet of beautiful Heidelberg presses Jami takes particular interest and joy in using and understanding along with her very mechanically-inclined and supportive husband Terry. Jami is also a graphic designer focusing on small business branding and packaging as well as stationery products. In 2016 she established WIND•EYE Handmade Paper, and has taught letterpress and paper making both privately and through Arbutus Folk School.

Michael Hepher is an interdisciplinary artist working as a printmaker, letterpress printer, illustrator, and oil painter. He founded Clawhammer Press in 2011 as an escape from website design, and has been printing since 2003 when a Chandler & Price platen accidentally landed in his garage. A versatile artist with a broad knowledge of the creative process, Michael has to his credit a wide variety of successful exhibitions, public art projects, and private commissions. Notable recents include work shown in the New Impressions exhibit at the Hamilton Wood Type Museum (2019 and 2017), and a feature profile in Uppercase Magazine’s PRINT/MAKER edition of the Encyclopedia of Inspiration. Recently he painted “All Kinds of Beauty,” a 16’ x 96’ mural inspired by his printmaking style (2019) and “Backroads BC,” a travelogue of oil paintings shown at the Fernie Museum Gallery (2018) and Smithers Art Gallery (2019). Currently, he’s touring a solo exhibition of prints and paintings titled “In This Together: an exploration of Canadian Rockies geography, lifestyle, and culture.” An elected member of the Society of Canadian Artists, Michael continues his diverse work from his home-based studio in Fernie, BC. Canada.

Heidi Hespelt has been letterpress printing since 2006 and opened HRH Press in January 2020. What does she love about letterpress? That she’s allowed to have fun with images, to be a little quirky or whimsical, and to design and create things that make her happy. But, she also has to solve problems, do some math, visualize things backwards, upside down, or stacked on top of each other. It is so manual–hands-on carving and setting type, mixing just the right color of ink, cutting paper with a 750 lb. Peerless Gem, rhythmically pressing the treadle on the Chandler & Price. And, it is okay to get inky and make a mess in the process!

Andrew Huot is a book artist, bookbinder, printer, and conservator in Atlanta, Georgia, where he operates Big River Bindery, a studio for bookmaking, letterpress printing, and book conservation. He holds a Masters in Book Arts from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and a BS in Printmaking from Portland State University. His artists’ books use photographs, linoleum cuts, and text to share the humorous side of everyday life around us. His artists’ books are in collections across the country, from the Art Institute of Chicago to Yale University. Andrew teaches online and in his own studio, at the University of Illinois School of Information, and workshops across the country at the John C Campbell Folk School, BookArtsLA, the International Preservation Studies Center, and the Guild of Book Workers, among others.

Demian Johnston is a printer, designer, and illustrator. He spent many years as the Designer and Pressman at Annie’s Art & Press, in Seattle. He first attended SVC in 2010, and has taught several letterpress classes at SVC. His design and illustration work has appeared in The Stranger, Seattle Weekly, City Arts and Beer Advocate. He is also the founder of the art and music label Dead Accents.

Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. (born 1950) was working a corporate job for AT&T when, at the age of 40, he discovered the art of letterpress printing on a tour of Colonial Williamsburg. Kennedy then devoted himself to the craft, earning an MFA at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and teaching at Indiana University. He now operates Kennedy Prints!, a communal letterpress center in Detroit. Borrowing words from social justice heroes Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and others, Kennedy layers bold statements on race, capitalism, history and politics in exuberant, colorful and one-of-a-kind posters. Kennedy has been featured in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine and the Economist, and his work has been exhibited by the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, New York and other institutions through the US. He was the subject of a 2008 feature-length documentary, Proceed and Be Bold!
Photo credit: Ann Madden

Dafi Kühne is a Swiss designer, letterpress printer and graphic design educator. In his studio, babyinktwice, he uses a wild mix of analog and digital tools to produce posters for music, art, architecture, theatre and film projects, and also for products. With one main rule in his studio— “No PDF ever leaves the studio as a final product”— he prints all his posters with letterpress printing presses. His mostly typographic posters have won international awards and been in exhibitions all around the globe. Since 2016 Dafi has been running his own intense summer program in Switzerland. His designer monograph True Print was published by Lars Müller Publishers in 2016. Dafi is known for his non-traditional yet precise approaches to letterpress printing using unconventional materials, which are entertainingly documented in his educational video series, The Dafi Kühne Printing Show™.

Dafi studied in the Visual Communication Department at Zürich University of the Arts and also holds a Masters of Research degree in Typeface Design from the University of Reading, UK.

Sarah Kulfan is a visual designer and illustrator who operates Gallo Pinto Press, creating limited-edition letterpress prints using traditional methods, including hand-carved linoleum blocks and vintage metal and wood type on a Vandercook Universal 1 press. She first learned the fine craft of letterpress printing from C. Christopher Stern and Jules Remedios Faye of Stern & Faye, Printers. Her freelance graphic design business, Beans n’ Rice, affords her the flexibility to opt outside often, where she gains inspiration for her letterpress work. Through reduction linocut techniques, she produces images of landscapes she has explored in the backcountry of her home state of Washington and beyond.

Annabelle is a professional unicorn skilled with managing people-centric projects. She’s coordinated several public printing events, (such as The Women’s March & Ending Family Detention). Annabelle is passionate about the ACLU & social justice issues, and reflecting it in her printing. She also loves experimenting on the press and breaking the rules. She runs her own tiny letterpress shop, Noted! Press, from equipment acquired from the wonderful community of printers in the Seattle area.

Tess LeNoir possesses the singular distinction of growing up in the apartment above a commercial letterpress shop—Day Moon Press—founded in 1976 by their mother, Maura Shapley. When the business officially passed on to Tess in 2023, they expanded the use of its resources in new, innovative, and deliciously painstaking directions.

Ellie Mathews is a partner with her husband in The North Press in Port Townsend. She spends much of her time designing and printing poetry broadsides, sometimes for Copper Canyon Press, and is herself a published poet. But there is much more to the Ellie Mathews story than poetry. She holds a degree in geography from the University of Washington, worked in design and software development, and is the author of four books. She has also won cooking and writing awards including the Milkweed Prize, a grant from the Seattle Artists Program, a Fishtrap Fellowship, and the Pillsbury Bake-Off grand prize (luck seasoned with a pinch of creativity).

Aimee Maychack is a printmaker focused on portraiture, letterpress, and storytelling. Their work is shaped by conversations with people across the United States, using traditional printmaking techniques to document lived experiences with honesty and depth. After a career in public service, they have dedicated their practice to creating work that builds connection and amplifies underrepresented voices. They currently travel between print shops, residencies, and temporary studio spaces — learning from master printers, meeting new communities, and gathering the stories that become the foundation of their work. This mobility allows the project to grow in real time, rooted in place, people, and the shared threads of our humanity.

Ryan Molloy is a freelance designer, artist, and professor of graphic design at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Prior to teaching at Eastern he was a visiting lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin’s Design Division where he also received his MFA in Design. He is an educator and inter-disciplinary designer having practiced in fields of architecture and graphic design. His creative work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and has received several awards including an Art Directors Club Young Guns award. In 2012 Ryan Molloy and Leslie Atzmon received a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Art Works grant for the Open Book Workshop, held at the Jean Noble Parsons Center, and the book The Open Book Project. Ryan Molloy and Leslie Atzmon also received a Sappi Ideas that Matter grant in 2017 for the redesign of Ypsilanti’s Riverside Arts Center visual identity and environmental graphics. His work exploring letterpress wood type has been featured in the Hamilton New Impressions exhibitions. 

Carl Montford is the proprietor of Montford Press in West Seattle, one of the few limited edition handpress shops in the Northwest. His area of expertise is wood engraving, which he has been perfecting since about 1970. Along with hand engraving, Carl is also regarded as an expert on the iron handpress having produced both broadsides and limited edition chapbooks. His most cherished possession in his shop is a Wm. A. Field Reliance handpress, an antique and an object of great artistic beauty in its own right.

Heather Moulder is a graphic designer, printmaker, and musician from Woodbury, Tennessee. She earned her BFA in graphic design from Middle Tennessee State University, and worked as a designer and printer at Hatch Show Print in Nashville for over a dozen years. Between Hatch and her home studio, Lordymercy, she has created artwork for the United States Postal Service, Aretha Franklin, Loretta Lynn, and Dolly Parton, as well as many dear local bands and businesses. She currently serves as the White Oak Program Coordinator at the Arts Center of Cannon County, where she organizes exhibits, events, and local programming for artists in Tennessee.

Sukhie Patel is a printmaker, educator, community organizer, and sole proprietrix of Saparia Press. Drawing from her family’s legacy of running politically dissident and anti-colonial print shops, she has an affinity for handset type, wood engraving, collographs and wood cuts. Sukhie is a letterpress teacher and is passionate about public art and literacy education, especially amongst marginalized communities. She believes printing–with its roots in labour and industry– should always be an accessible tool of the people. Born in India, and raised between East Africa, the Pacific Northwest, and the UK, Sukhie calls upon her diasporic South Asian experience to inspire possibilities for intersectional, collective movement.

Joanne Price has over 25 years of printmaking experience including teaching at University of KY, Augsburg College, University of MN, and Penland School of Crafts. Price is the founder and owner of Starpointe Studio, specializing in printmaking and book arts. She is also the President of the Wood Engravers’ Network, as well as an elected member of the Society of Wood Engravers. In addition to participating in national and international exhibitions, Price was a recent recipient of an Artist Initiative grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and has been an artist-in-residence at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and the Western NY Book Arts Center. Her work is included in the collections of the Guangdong Museum of Art, China; Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum, Two Rivers, WI; Yale University, New Haven, CT; University of Colorado, Boulder, CO; University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY; Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN and many more public and private collections.

Jules Remedios Faye is an invaluable asset to our Seattle area printing community who has mentored many printers. With husband Christopher Stern she established Stern & Faye Printers. After four decades of letterpress printing and fine-press publishing, Faye currently focuses on hand-bookbinding, working with book artists, poets, writers, designers, photographers, book lovers, & all manner of good folk, offering clients & students over 30 years of experience in custom binding, guidance & assistance in book-related creative work, & private instruction. 

Ernst Schaefer restored his first printing press not long ago—2021 to be precise—after a lifetime of collecting, tinkering with, and refurbishing anything from cars to espresso machines. A broken and rusted Vandercook No. 4 received a new life after Ernst disassembled, stripped, refinished, repaired and reassembled it piece by piece. This was the first of countless printing press rebuilds—his mechanical expertise combined with a German appreciation for precision and order has been a gift to contemporary letterpress practitioners everywhere. Ernst is famously generous with his knowledge and is happy to share best practices with the letterpress community. He lives in the Bay Area in California.

Thea Sizemore (she/her) has been a letterpress printer, artist and instructor for over 20 years. She holds BFA in printmaking with emphasis on bookarts from the California College of the Arts with additional studies at Cleveland Institute of Art. As founder of Kavamore Press, a custom letterpress and design studio in South Berkeley, Thea works with private clients and various artists to create ephemera for projects including some for the Carpenter Center for the Arts at Harvard, The Guggenheim and the SFMOMA. In recent years, Thea’s personal work has focused on projects that use the power of print to connect and engage community including a mail art project called Social Media Snail Mail, an ongoing series of free letterpress posters and public printing protest events.

Founded in 1999, Springtide Press is located in Tacoma, Washington. We design, print and bind artist books, broadsides and ephemera incorporating letterpress printing and handmade paper. Small finely-crafted editions and one-of-a-kind books explore historical topics, popular culture and typography from a unique perspective. Our shop motto, “where we always print damp” recognizes the Pacific Northwest as a fine place to print, where the damp climate helps make a good impression.

For Bonnie Thompson Norman, books are a passion and a profession. She has been proprietor of The Windowpane Press for almost fifty years. She learned to print at The Woman’s Building in Los Angeles where she took the class so often she became the teacher’s assistant and, eventually, the Studio Director. It was that community-centered environment which forged a lively and involved dedication to teaching letterpress printing and book arts to as many people as possible in an affordable and accessible atmosphere. Bonnie worked as a hand bookbinder in a commercial bindery for nearly twenty years and has taught classes in printing and book making in her home studio and elsewhere. Bonnie produces works varied in content, technique, craftsmanship and structure that offer challenging questions, provocative puns and inspiration about timeless and/or contemporary issues in the form of broadsides and artist’s books. Her work is in public and private collections, both nationally and internationally, and has been included in numerous exhibitions and publications.

Kristína Uhráková is a graphic designer and self-taught letterpress printer. In 2016 she founded Pressink studio, the first functional workshop dedicated to analog printing in Slovakia. Kristína works with a limited collection of metal and wood type and two German printing presses: a FAG Standard AP 510 and a Korrex Hannover. Apart from making use of traditional printing techniques, she also takes advantage of new technologies like laser cutting to create custom, limited-edition works of art.

A designer, artist, educator and letterpress printer, Brad began his letterpress career with the legendary show poster shop Hatch Show Print in Nashville. Throughout his eight-year tenure at Hatch, Brad printed over 500 unique gig posters for big name bands, worked with ad agencies around the world on larger scale design projects, helped teach workshops throughout the country, all while training printers at Hatch Show Print’s growing internship program. Brad left Hatch in 2012 to start his own letterpress and design studio in Louisville (Brad Vetter Design). Bouncing between 19th and 21st century technology and techniques, he continues to hand print rock-and-roll posters for the likes of everyone from Gregg Allman to Yo La Tengo.

Jenny Wilkson oversees meaningful letterpress programs and partnerships that amplify voices, improve accessibility, and spark creativity at Partners in Print (PiP). Through PiP, she supports emerging letterpress artists and works to share the power of the press with more people. In her own Seattle studio, Jenny is future-leaning, with a penchant for laser fabrication, new and vintage wood type, and Vandercook cylinder presses. 

David Wolske is a typo/graphic designer, artist, and educator. His hybrid practice combines the traditions of letterpress and printmaking with digital tools and design thinking. Wolske’s work is exhibited and collected nationally and internationally. He is a 2020 LHM Educator Fellow at the Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography at ArtCenter College of Design; the College Book Art Association 2018 Emerging Educator; 2016 Visiting Artist at Hatch Show Print; and a 2014 Utah Visual Arts Fellow. Wolske is currently an Assistant Professor in the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas. DavidWolske.com.

Born and raised in Tokyo, Yoshiko Yamamoto first studied sculpture at Tama Art University in Japan. After moving to California, she studied classical music and modern Japanese history at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1996, she founded The Arts & Crafts Press with her husband, Bruce Smith, and taught herself the crafts of letterpress and block printing. For her limited edition linoleum block prints, Yoshiko uses the flora and fauna she finds either in America or Japan – anything from fir trees to heron, or koi fish to crickets, and creates them using up to 20 blocks, each with a different color. She has her printing studio in Tacoma.

Ellie Mathews and Carl Youngmann are partners in The North Press. They acquired their first press on a whim early in their marriage. Carl had been a printer’s devil during high school, and Ellie had been working as a designer. Their backgrounds are in cartography and graphic software development. Ellie currently focuses on producing poetry broadsides. Carl keeps the presses running while adapting contemporary techniques of image making to letterpress. 

Laura Bentley attended her first letterpress class in 2008 at SVC, and it was love at first print. She was delighted to learn that her obsession with details that helped her build a successful career in technology could be put to use creating art. Laura is now the proprietor of Pinwheel Press in Seattle, where she produces social stationery and limited-edition prints. Her passion is printing from handset type and learning about the history of the objects used in this craft. Laura’s superpower is creating order out of chaos, so with Partners in Print, she is as likely to be found organizing numbers in a spreadsheet as metal type in a composing stick.

Kate Fernandez is a visual artist and cultural entrepreneur who has been spreading the gospel of letterpress for nearly ten years. She teaches printing throughout the northwest and consults for the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum in Two Rivers, WI. Fernandez is also the founder of the Abactors’ Hideout, a print shop at Smoke Farm in Arlington, WA. She received a BA in Comparative History of Ideas from the University of Washington and studied typography and design at the School of Visual Concepts.

Jenny Wilkson oversees meaningful letterpress programs and partnerships that amplify voices, improve accessibility, and spark creativity at Partners in Print (PiP). Through PiP, she supports emerging letterpress artists and works to share the power of the press with more people. In her own Seattle studio, Jenny is future-leaning, with a penchant for laser fabrication, new and vintage wood type, and Vandercook cylinder presses. 

Larry Asher is a creative director who’s a copywriter who’s a problem solver who’s an author who’s a teacher of creativity and writing. He does the former as principal of Worker Bees, Inc., a marketing communications firm serving the healthcare industry. He does the latter as director of the School of Visual Concepts, a professional development center for the design and marketing community. SVC was, in many ways, the birthplace of Partners in Print, as the school was the home of a thriving letterpress program under the direction of Jenny Wilkson until 2021. That’s when the shop and its equipment were donated to PiP, as SVC became an all-online school. Larry remains an ardent fan of letterpress, and is particularly smitten by the word, “manicule.”

Ben Blount is a Detroit-born graphic designer and letterpress printer. He loves books, type, and putting ink on paper. A believer in the power of the printed word, Ben aims to create work that has impact beyond the printed page. He has spent the last few years traveling the country (and the internet) teaching and talking about letterpress. Ben learned a lot about design at Washington University in St. Louis, a lot about printing at Columbia College Chicago, and filled in the gaps with mentors and lots of practice. He prints out of MAKE, his storefront studio in Evanston, IL.

Claudia Castro Luna’s roles include Washington State Poet Laureate (2018–2021), Seattle’s Civic Poet (2015–2017), educator, activist, and award-winning author. She is also the creator of the acclaimed Seattle Poetic Grid and was the Designer in Residence at the School of Visual Concepts for two years. Born in El Salvador, she came to the United States in 1981. 

Timothy Firth is an artist and the Executive Director of Common AREA Maintenance (CAM), a Seattle nonprofit that provides affordable space, tools, and public programming for artists and cultural workers. Over the past decade he has led the growth of CAM into a multi-site arts organization that operates studios, galleries, a printshop, and public programs serving hundreds of artists and thousands of visitors each year.

Firth’s artistic practice centers on participatory sculpture and experimental instruments that invite audiences to activate the work through touch, sound, and collective interaction. His projects have been presented in galleries, public programs, and collaborative performances that explore how shared creative experiences can build connection across communities. He is currently leading the redevelopment of the historic El Rey Building in downtown Seattle into affordable housing and residency space for artists and writers.

Rebecca has presented workshops and short lectures on letterpress printing, community-based business operations, typecasting and zine publishing at various educational institutions and info centers in the United States. She has been involved in founding and growing two small arts-based non-profit organizations in Portland, the Independent Publishing Resource Center (a community publishing workspace) and the C.C. Stern Type Foundry (a working museum dedicated to the art and industry of print); and is a Board Member of Marfa Community Print (an emerging community print space in Marfa, Texas).

Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. (born 1950) was working a corporate job for AT&T when, at the age of 40, he discovered the art of letterpress printing on a tour of Colonial Williamsburg. Kennedy then devoted himself to the craft, earning an MFA at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and teaching at Indiana University. He now operates Kennedy Prints!, a communal letterpress center in Detroit. Borrowing words from social justice heroes Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and others, Kennedy layers bold statements on race, capitalism, history and politics in exuberant, colorful and one-of-a-kind posters. Kennedy has been featured in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine and the Economist, and his work has been exhibited by the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, New York and other institutions through the US. He was the subject of a 2008 feature-length documentary, Proceed and Be Bold!
Photo credit: Ann Madden

Ed King is the Executive Director of Pottery Northwest in Seattle. As a former award-winning visual artist, art director, marketing manager, and arts administrator from Miami, Florida, he began his career in ad agencies honing his skills as a designer and art director. He later worked as an arts administrator for ArtServe in Fort Lauderdale and as the Chief Operating Officer of Creative Pinellas in St. Petersburg.

Ed is passionate about non-profit arts leadership and fiercely advocates for the financial vitality of working and teaching artists, the foundation of a thriving creative economy. He is intentional about creating opportunities for inclusivity and diversity and works to leverage the power of the arts as an agent for positive social change.

Annabelle is a professional unicorn skilled with managing people-centric projects. She’s coordinated several public printing events, (such as The Women’s March & Ending Family Detention). Annabelle is passionate about the ACLU & social justice issues, and reflecting it in her printing. She also loves experimenting on the press and breaking the rules. She runs her own tiny letterpress shop, Noted! Press, from equipment acquired from the wonderful community of printers in the Seattle area.

Gladys Ly-Au Young is a founding partner of Side x Side Architects—the firm that helped design Partners in Print’s new home at 402 Cedar Street. Gladys’ work is focused on the under-served population in the mission-driven sectors, including affordable housing, community and cultural spaces, K-12 education, and social supportive services. She holds a Graduate Certificate in Social Justice, an MS in Sustainable Design, and a Bachelor of Architecture, and has been practicing architecture at the intersection of design, sustainability, and equity for more than 30 years.

Sukhie Patel is a printmaker, educator, community organizer, and sole proprietrix of Saparia Press. Drawing from her family’s legacy of running politically dissident and anti-colonial print shops, she has an affinity for handset type, wood engraving, collographs and wood cuts. Sukhie is a letterpress teacher and is passionate about public art and literacy education, especially amongst marginalized communities. She believes printing–with its roots in labour and industry– should always be an accessible tool of the people. Born in India, and raised between East Africa, the Pacific Northwest, and the UK, Sukhie calls upon her diasporic South Asian experience to inspire possibilities for intersectional, collective movement.

Yuka Petz is an artist and designer. Working in media typically associated with text on paper, her creative practice centers around language and letters. Her work has been exhibited internationally and across the U.S., and her artist’s books are in numerous special and private collections. Yuka is a regular guest host for Artist’s Books Unshelved and teaches book arts workshops around the country. Before leaving New Orleans for the Pacific Northwest, she was an artist member of Antenna Gallery and a principal organizer of the Artist Book Collection at Paper Machine. Yuka is committed to collaborative and community-oriented projects that increase the accessibility of print and book arts.
yukapetz.com

Erin Shigaki is a fourth-generation Japanese American. She creates art that is community-based and often grounded in the World War II incarceration of her people. She is passionate about highlighting similarities between that history and systemic injustices communities of color continue to face. Erin’s activism includes work on the annual Minidoka Pilgrimage to the American concentration camp where her family was incarcerated; with Tsuru for Solidarity, a nonviolent, abolitionist project of social justice advocates; and for Look Listen + Learn, a television show that inspires radical Black joy and advances early learning in young children of color.

She is the recipient of grants and commissions from the Wing Luke Museum, Densho, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, National Academy of Design, and the Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, among others. She holds a B.A. from Yale University and believes that wielding art and activism can educate, redress and incrementally heal.

Rachel Simmons is a queer artist and educator specializing in book arts and printmaking. She founded and directs the Rollins Book Arts Collection and champions artists’ books through leadership in the Book Arts Guild of Central Florida, Orlando Zine Fest, and CBAA: The Association for Book Art Education. Driven by curiosity about creativity, astronomy, philosophy, and nature, she explores challenging questions through her practice. Her artist’s books are held in prestigious collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Newberry Library, and the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art. 

Founded in 1999, Springtide Press is located in Tacoma, Washington. We design, print and bind artist books, broadsides and ephemera incorporating letterpress printing and handmade paper. Small finely-crafted editions and one-of-a-kind books explore historical topics, popular culture and typography from a unique perspective. Our shop motto, “where we always print damp” recognizes the Pacific Northwest as a fine place to print, where the damp climate helps make a good impression.

David Wolske is a typo/graphic designer, artist, and educator. His hybrid practice combines the traditions of letterpress and printmaking with digital tools and design thinking. Wolske’s work is exhibited and collected nationally and internationally. He is a 2020 LHM Educator Fellow at the Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography at ArtCenter College of Design; the College Book Art Association 2018 Emerging Educator; 2016 Visiting Artist at Hatch Show Print; and a 2014 Utah Visual Arts Fellow. Wolske is currently an Assistant Professor in the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas. DavidWolske.com.