Please join us for the Letterpress Printers’ Fair this Saturday, August 14th from 11-5pm, presented by Em Space Book Arts Center and key members of the Portland letterpress community. This outdoor event will be located at 323 SE Division Place, down the road from Em Space Book Arts Center and near the start of the Spring Water Corridor Trail. It will feature local vendors and suppliers of letterpress equipment, foundry type, cards and broadsides, ephemera, rarities and more. There will also be demos and resources offered from various print shops.
Last year, the event, organized by Carye Bye of Red Bat Press and Ivan D. Snyder of the AAPA, was a huge success drawing hundreds of people interested in finding old type, a table-top letterpress, or a beautifully printed keepsake.

Date: Saturday, August 14, 2010

Time: 11am-5pm

Location: 323 SE Division Place, Portland, Oregon

Admission: 11am-2pm:  $2,  2-5pm: Free

Participants of the fair include: 23 Sandy Gallery, Alisa Walton, American Amateur Press Association, Autumn Attic Press, Bartleby’s Letterpress Emporium/Letterary Press, Bedouin Books, Buzzworm Studios, C.C. Stern Type Foundry, Container Corps, Crack Press, Ecanto Press, Cathemeral Press, Em Space Book Arts Center, Gann Printing Co., Green Grass Press, Ilfant Press, Independent Publishing Resource Center, Ink in Tubes, Keeganmeegan Press & Bindery, Liber Apertus Press, May Day Press, Ms. Starry Art, Monograph Bookwerks, Oregon College of Arts and Craft, Painted Tongue Studios, Power and Light Press, Reading Local, Red Bat Press, Rendij Studio, Scantron Press, Stumptown Printers, Tiger Food Press, Twin Raven Press, Weldon Teetz and more.

Where: Em Space Book Arts Center (407 SE Ivon Street, Portland)

When: 7:30-9pm

Cost: Suggested donation of $5
A Note: “ETAOIN SHRDLU” was formed by striking the first twelve keys on a Linotype machine keyboard. The operator hit these keys to quickly finish a line which had an error in it. The line was then discarded.

Board member Jeff Shay cast these slugs today for our stationery! It’s shiny AND jangly.

We’re working to establish the C.C. Stern Type Foundry in Portland to create a real working “museum”, and this conference was a working conference. Every day there was time spent working, teaching, learning, and sharing–it’s easy to forget in the two years between conferences how many people share our passion for preserving hot metal typecasting. Observing that passion reinforces my belief that this is worth doing.

This was a diverse conference. Hot metal typecasting appeals to a wide demographic, and it was wonderful to be in the company of people from all over the country, of all ages and backgrounds–this wasn’t a trade conference, even though some of the attendants there worked in commercial hot metal. By the same token, this wasn’t just a fan conference–people were serious about keeping these machines running and doing work (even if of the personal sort) with them. One of the things I’m most excited about, and impressed by, is Bill Welliver’s new scratch-built computer-to-caster interface. Six years ago, I remember Bill talking about he wanted to start on this project. He didn’t have a machine back then. In that time, he’s procured the equipment, and built a hardware and software system that’s in use around the country, and it blows me away.

It was wonderful to meet many of the new faces in typecasting–Micah is at the Dale Guild keeping the ATF tradition alive, and is really making a go of it, with a impressive casting program and some new approaches to getting type into the hands of printers. Jason, in British Columbia, is taking on the huge task of keeping and enhancing on the late Jim Rimmer’s insights and methods (I should say genius) in type design and engraving. As always, the young guys from San Francisco bring a perspective that is truly unique amongst young attendants–they do this stuff every day.

Part of what makes me so excited about the current state of hot metal typecasting is the relief that knowing that given the chance, a young generation will step up and take the time to learn these methods and understand these machines. The machinery is worthless without the knowledge contained in the hands of those that used it, and it takes face-to-face interaction, like what happens at a conference, or during a weekend visit, to enable that knowledge transfer. But that’s only part of it. The joy comes from the knowledge that more great things are to come. From Bill Welliver’s computer interface, to Micah’s revitalized Dale Guild, and the promise that new original metal typefaces will continue to be created by Jason–things are looking pretty bright.

We have volunteered to host the next conference in Portland in 2012 for exactly those same reasons that we walked away with high spirits just last month. In a very short time, we will be moving into a new facility, bringing these machines back from their sleep to share with others our passion for practicing hot metal typecasting. We do it as a way to inform others about our history, share knowledge with those who wish to preserve a wonderful craft, and inspire artists, craftspeople, and designers with the knowledge that comes from working with words with your own hands. We’re more than a little tickled to show off our wonderful town, too!

We’ve already set the wheels in motion, and we’re excited to get things ready. Two years isn’t a long time, and we’ve got work to do. We hope you’ll join us!

Many of you have asked what you can do to help us launch the type foundry. Right now, your help with rent money is top of our list. As soon as we’re moved and actively working on the space, we’ll post other opportunities to support the organization and mission. So, if you haven’t already done so, please subscribe to our RSS feed or Twitter account to stay up to date on our progress. Thanks to all of you for your excitement, encouragement and support!

I met Harold when I was working in San Francisco, working every day on Monotypes. He had invited me up to his house in Nevada County, California, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada range–I drove up Interstate 80 on that crisp day not knowing exactly why the old man wanted to meet me. Harold is known for a few things–writing the Miranda warning is one of them–the other is for his collection of Monotype casting machines and rare book faces. I remember arriving at his house, and walking through the then-dormant Type Foundry–regular operations had long since ceased–marvelling at the nearly new casting machines and matrices of beautiful faces like Bembo and Blado, its rare Italic. He was physically slow, but mentally sharp–his eyes had a piercing quality, and he never seemed to mince words–indeed, I imagine that being a lawyer and a printer would make one doubly precise about language.

I went up a few more times–always for lunch–he enjoyed being driven around those winding roads–and eventually I purchased 4 casters from his foundry. The large balance of the casting equipment and matrices went to the Offizin Parnassia in Vattis, Switzerland. It wasn’t soon after that I began to travel, and I visited him once more when I had time in California. The foundry room was bare. He was content–it was a happy visit.

I’m still not sure why he called me up there. I few images stick in my head. He was the District Attorney for Nevada County for many years–and he had this poster on the wall of a revolver whose barrel was tied in a knot–and his simple farewell when I left that first day: “peace.”

We’ll miss you.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, numbered and signed by Jim Rimmer, is available from Wessel and Leiberman Booksellers.  The book is made by Jim Rimmer, who drew and cut the blocks, designed and engraved the principal types, and did the binding. It is available in an edition of seventy-five copies.

Here’s an excerpt from an article in Parenthesis, The Journal of the Fine Press Book Association, Number 9, March 2004:

Then, on the morning of 31 December 2001, while ‘messing about’ in his workshop, Jim found an old flat mat of Goudy Thirty. He had nothing to do that day and decided to see if he could solder some brass to it and cast it on his Monotype composition caster. The experiment worked. If he could make one sort, he thought, he could make 80 — then he’d have a fount.

It’s worth noting that the Monotype composition caster has not seen a new typeface since Gauthiers Series 811 was cut by Monotype for the Imprimerie Nationale in 1978. Those familiar with Monotype machines and their myriad mechanical limitations will know that a homemade face for the Monotype comp caster is something that has never been attempted. ‘I was astounded when he told me what he was going to do,’ said friend and fellow typefounder Paul Duensing on hearing of Jim’s plans for Hannibal. ‘My feeling was that if it hadn’t been done before, it couldn’t be done.’

Jim, a perennial optimist, took the opposite view of the matter. ‘If you don’t know you can’t do it,’ he says, ‘you’re ahead of the game.’

We have “something enduring” in Jim’s gorgeous book and something ephemeral in his making Hannibal Oldstyle, the only known homemade matrix for the Monotype composition caster. There are many more creative acts that need a venue or a hands-on experience to spur them into being.  I hope C.C. Stern Type Foundry will be a place for folks like Jim Rimmer, Chris Stern, you and me to “mess about” and create things both fleeting and enduring.

Jim was a multi-talented type designer, graphic artist, bookbinder, printer, letterer, technician and a most generous teacher. He was never glory-seeking and turned down most speaking engagements offered to him, not out of vanity or indifference, but rather thinking that he was not worthy of being given a spotlight. Jim offered free typecasting instruction to anyone who asked and came to visit him in his studio in New Westminster BC. He took as much time as needed and was generous to a fault. Anyone who took him up on this open invitation can attest to the intense and elegant chaos of his studio and work habits.

I was fortunate enough to know Jim but for only a few years. What started as a business arrangement grew into a mutual respect and ongoing correspondence that I can only describe as life changing for me. His kindness and generosity were exceptional and his diplomacy even when given the opportunity to speak ill of anyone else was measured and kind.

Jim’s dedication to the craft of type design and related arts was beyond most if not all contemporaries. After his “retirement” from his professional life as a graphic artist and illustrator, he tirelessly worked on type designs for book projects where all aspects of his skills were applied. His book “Leaves from the Pie Tree” (I encouraged him to change the title from his original plan to call it “Droppings from the Pie Tree”…a truly self-effacing Jim Rimmerism) is the best single tome that summarizes his life and work. He designed the book’s typeface in Ikarus (as he had with the 200+ other type design he created), cut the matrices and cast the type, wrote the text using an autobiographical introduction and continued to explain the process he used to cut pantographic matrices for his metal typefaces. The multi colored lino cut illustrations, book design, individual tipped in sheets and attention to press work and binding would be impressive for one specialist to complete on each component. The fact that Jim did all of this himself is awe inspiring. A trade edition of this book has been printed by Gaspereau press but does not hint at the grandeur of the beautiful book that is Pie Tree. Jim’s follow up of his edition of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer (set in his Hannibal Oldstyle font designed for and fitted onto on a monotype composition caster) was recently completed and is equally if not more imposing as a fine press book, but with a sympathetic humor and humanity that would knock the stuffing of any other fine press attempt at the same material.

Almost two years ago I visited Jim for a week and filmed footage for a documentary on his cutting of the Stern typeface. For various reasons the finishing of the film has been delayed. I truly regret that Jim could not see the finished version. With the film and his Pie Tree book, Jim generously conveys information on making metal type that has otherwise been largely lost and previously limited to a now defunct protective guild system. It was his wish that the information and craft be kept alive.

Jim’s last email to me was in classic Jim form hinting at his tireless dedication to his work: details of a new type family for a new book.

He was one of the great ones. He will be missed.