The Frederick Book Arts Center’s goal is to keep the traditions and joy of creating prints and using printing presses alive and spread those to younger generations — and the nonprofit’s annual celebration for Print Day in May does just that.
On Saturday throughout the morning and afternoon, the book arts center held its own event for Print Day in May, a global celebration of the art of printmaking.
The center had multiple printing presses set up for visitors to watch artists as they demonstrated how to use the machinery and what kind of art each contraption could make. Their oldest press is from the 1850s, and the newest is from the 2020s.
There were ten demonstrations throughout the day and five stations where visitors could create their own prints and take them as souvenirs. Those stations included steel plate printing, gold foil stamping and stone lithography.
In addition to printing activities, there were other activities related to book arts, like book binding.
Print Day in May
Ruby Lancaster, 14, of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, uses a press to make a print during a demonstration Saturday, part of the Print Day in May event at Frederick Book Arts Center.
Several tables were set up in the main exhibit space of the center, which displayed a variety of prints and had small stickers on the tables describing how the prints were made.
The book arts center has held a Print Day in May celebration every year since it opened in 2018, according to Casey Smith, the center’s executive director.
This year had the largest turnout yet, according to Corrine Wilson, the director of planning and communications. Adults of all ages, teenagers and children watched artists demonstrate and created their own pieces on the various presses.
This year was also the first time the Print Day in May event featured an educational lecture. Historian Sean Considine spoke about the history of printing and early newspapers in Frederick.
Print Day in May
Various movable type blocks were available for visitors to incorporate into their design Saturday during the Print Day in May event at Frederick Book Arts Center.
Smith said the book arts center always tries to make Print Day in May an innovative event for people.
He said he hopes people get “an awareness of who are we and what we do at the Frederick Book Arts Center and an understanding of our inclusion, our desire to work with the entire community” out of attending the event.
“There have been a phenomenal amount of children here today. It’s been really joyful to see the kids getting kind of inky and learning about printing,” Smith said. “That’s kind of what we want people to experience, the joy of making something with our hands.”
Among the demonstrations were monotypes, solar plates, lithographs, oil printing and etching, done by local artists and artists from other parts of the region.
Ray Nichols and his wife Jill Cypher were teaching people how to make prints and encouraging them to experiment with typography.
Nichols and Cypher co-founded Lead Graffiti, a letterpress studio in Newark, Delaware. The book arts center was displaying art pieces from the studio in its exhibit space during Print the event.
Print Day in May
Rollers with various colors of ink were available for attendees of the Print Day in May event at Frederick Book Arts Center.
Nichols said he and Cypher are both graphic designers particularly interested in typography, the shapes of letters and what can be done with those shapes.
As an artist, “my general statement of my motive in working is to find a rule and then violate it,” he said.
“We’re not afraid to make something unreadable. We like finding the borderline between being able to read it and not read it, just barely let you read it, maybe,” Nichols said.
During the event, Nichols helped 6-year-old Gabriella Essmyer, of Frederick, make her own print. It’s always fun to guide children during that process, he said, because they’re so creative and have no sense of typography rules that they can bend or break.
Compared to adults, it doesn’t come as naturally to children to forego any rules as part of creating something.
“A lot of people come in, and they’re maybe interested. They’re creative people, they want to be creative,” he said. “I want to help them, help encourage that, and encourage the notion that being creative is a fairly effortless thing.”
Nichols said an event like this Print Day in May one is important to preserve history, something he said he feels is endangered right now. It’s also interesting to talk to other artists, see how good they are in their own medium and gain inspiration.
Many of the attendees weren’t familiar with printing presses or printmaking at all, and the event served as an introduction to the processes.
Siblings Owen Oedemann, 17, and Marly Oedemann, 12, came to the book arts center with their mother.
They both consider themselves to be creative people. Owen said he’s more musically inclined, and Marly has taken several art and theatre classes.
The siblings said they thought it was interesting to see how these old machines worked, and felt like they were putting themselves “in the place of the past,” Marly said.
“I think it’s kind of hard to comprehend the scale of the operations they would have back then,” Owen said. “… I find that very interesting, how large-scale things are now meant putting myself back then, imaging the amount of effort and work that was put into just making something that seems so small.”
