learning letterpress

In the fall of 2019, I signed up for the print sampler class at SNAP, back in a previous building, the one on Jasper ave. I remember walking through the doors and past the flat lay cabinet on the right, only to look left and see what I now know as racks of letterpress furniture. It was like a step back in time and as if I knew what everything was meant for while also not having a clue how it all fit together. I was in awe. That meant that I had to think about it, and look at all of the machinery for another several years before hiring an expert to help me decode it all. This was Dawn Woolsey, and the time was now.

Lori with dawn woolsey in the snap workshop, letterpress division

Dawn showed up with a nineteen-page instructions set including the history of letterpress and several decades’ worth of design experience and hundreds of hours on the vandercook and challenge presses. She taught me to set type, prepare ink, calibrate the rollers, do the makeready, align the paper, and pull a print without smudging. (Did I miss anything?!) It’s the kind of work that I found myself both in a state of flow at and completely exhausted by afterward. As in, best time ever.

Video description: Dawn showing how to tighten a type line in the makeready.

Our Makeready

Video description: Dawn prepares the print surface and inks the type by tripping the rollers.

several sheets of letterpressed kitchen idoms printed and drying on a table

A newer iteration of the letterpress setup and furniture storage area

it has been a month already

Still in the blur of having packed and moved out of studio 5 at SNAP yesterday, I’m resetting my home studio space and taking a tiny pause. There are still saskatoons and raspberries to pick here, even though they are starting to finish up. Plus laundry: real life carries on.

Video description: a time-lapsed view of me packing up linocut blocks, screens for printing, paper, inks, and tools; then turning out the light.

printing red

Lori + Myken preparing to print linocut blocks at the SNAP workshop

The printing has started! Myken helped me to get reacquainted with the big blue relief press, as it had been a long time since I’ve used one. She helped me to crack some aging tins of oil relief ink that I had stored since. . . 2023, I think. So I mixed some very stiff Gamblin quinacradone red along with transparent base, tested the colour, liked it, and moved ahead with my gingham patterned tile. It’s used six times in the final panel, so an edition of four has me at 24 pieces.

giant roller, gingham styled + carved lino block, rolled out red ink and other supplies

roller deposits red ink onto linocut plate

Lori reveals paper printed with gingham pattern in red by lifting it off of carved linocut plate

six printed images of gingham style plaid on shoji washi in drying rack

The first day of printing went well! This shoji washi was really receptive to the ink, and the colour looks quite saturated. I’m pleased.

Meanwhile, I’m grateful for the space and support of the Society for Northern Alberta Print-Artists, the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and their travelling exhibition program, TREX NW, and my partner back home, taking care of the saskatoon, rhubarb, and raspberry picking, growing of the tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, etc, and generally looking after everything.

Carving

wood handled linoleum carving tools with lino strip in a ceramic cup

Coming into the residency, I had proposed an idea around local food and food security. Namely, expressing that community food sourcing and production is a method including multiple skills and that can feed many. Practically, I’m working through a story that tells the life of a jar of jam. In keeping to a literal storytelling style, I’m carving eight (or more) ten-inch square linoleum blocks.

For those new to the practice, I’m literally carving old fashioned smooth lino flooring. I use a simple clothing iron and pressing cloth to warm the lino a bit, and gouge into it the shapes I’m looking for. You’ll see that the lino itself is pink in the following images. I’ve washed it in this colour to make the design easier to see and carve out. Otherwise, the surface and carved areas are varying shades of grey and it’s easy to miss lines and hard to see what has already been carved.

partially carved linoleum block in varying shades of pink and grey on a bench hook with calendar and schematic in the background

Warming a lino block with an iron and then following drawn lines to carve it

The carving process leaves lots of space for mind-wandering and podcast listening. If you have any recommendations, please comment with them below! My long time favourite is Normal Gossip, and a new fave is Magical Overthinking. I like good stories (not so much true crime, but maybe) and a host with a fun sense of humour.

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residency plans

Sketchbook open in front of July 2025 calendar and stack of canning books

Today’s studio time started by meeting with Caitlin, SNAP’s director, about my greater residency plans. We talked about my concept: telling the story of local food/ local food security from picking through processing and on to canning and eating it. I went on to draw more faces of people who garden, wild harvest, jam, and can, bringing my near total up to twenty two. It’s tricky to talk about plans right now, knowing that they’ll likely change along the way. But really, I’d like to screen print the faces and cut them to 3” circles. These would most likely be used in a sort of hanging mobile way along with the jar canning lids, which I have been collecting for a few years. Telling the production story will likely happen in a long linocut carving. Maybe. Caitlin reminded me that this is meant to be a springboard, and that it would best serve me to work at techniques and procedures or processes that I can only do in the studio. Things like trimming and assembling can be done from home.

Meanwhile, I think of the Laena McCarthy quote that I read in her Jam On last week, about goods that one cans themselves:

“It’s like anarchy in a jar, and the revolution starts in your mouth”

— Laena McCarthy

It was a bit of a tired yet steady day, with the tiniest of catnaps with my head on the table just after lunch. Tomorrow: more sketches, and starting to figure out the best shapes to try to tell the canning story.

more loading in

After taking Sunday and Monday off to see MikeG and DBM, plus heal the knee, I got the two guys to help me bring more supplies back to SNAP. It was relaxing to be at home and rest in the garden space and all make and eat food together. Meanwhile, back at the studio, I’m looking at some screen and some lino work, and want to have everything close by should I need it. Including a county poster. . . in case I want to leak the best berry picking spots.

Image descriptions: photo one depicts trees against a sunny-white-cloud sky with a building and window in the foreground. The spruce tree has six ravens hidden in it. Photo two shows a saskatoon bush with berries starting to ripen. The hope is that our raven friends let us find the ripe ones first.

Image descriptions: the left hand photo shows screens, map, water bottle, and crate of supplies in the back seat of the car. The right hand photo shows MikeG driving a car and friend DBM in the passenger seat with the road in front, forest to the side, and white fluffy clouds through the sunroof.

SNAP residency beginnings

Image of room with tablet, books, and bottles on desk with fabric mural of two fawns hanging on the wall

My workspace for the next month at SNAP, studio 5.

This is a month-long residency to develop a new body of work to go towards a group exhibition at the Society for Northern Alberta Print-Artists (SNAP) and on the TREX NW WALL (Travelling Exhibitions Northwest) in Grande Prairie. Sponsorship has been generously contributed by The Art Gallery of Grande Prairie (AGGP) and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA) TREX NW program.

I’m honoured and super jazzed about the opportunity!

The first day had me basically loading in my tools and materials and quickly settling in. Days 2 and 3 were filled with drawing and scheming. . . and Day 4 was the annual Plein-air Printing (and general day-party-festival) onsite.

Image description: first photograph shows young boy with adult watching another adult prepare a small printing press with prepared LEGO block and paper coaster. Second photograph shows people of multiple ages using lino blocks to print on t-shirts and tote bags.

Video description: adult wearing pink safety vest drives small steam roller/ packer over large prepared linocut block.

Video description: two adults lift final fabric print from linocut block and present to a cheering crowd while other people look on.