Wai-te-ata Press
Learning Letterpress.
2022 - Present.
Nestled into the hills of Kelburn, Wai-te-ata Press is an interdisciplinary space with an impressive collection of historic printing equipment. The press was founded in 1962, and displays one of the largest collections of historic letterpress printing presses in the Southern Hemisphere.
I have been lucky enough to inhabit this space for four months, printing a collection of poetry by students of the IIML. Enjoy these entries from the beginning of my journey.
ENTRIES ARE ORDERED FROM NEWEST > OLDEST.
14 NOV 2022
A New BeginningWAI-TE-ATA PRESS
ENTRY ONE
The end of the year approached with far more haste and decisiveness than anticipated. Time-sensitive commitments to Symposia Magazine meant that I was required to prioritise Symposia and its accompanying website, while we prepared for and opened submissions in November. My degree also hurled towards its end in October, which consisted of the completion of Dailey Space and its reflection for my Communication Design Capstone.
All of this is to say that He Rotarota chapbook from CREW258 did not see its way to completion by the end of the trimester.
I had a conversation with Sarah Maxey in September, amid a cramming craze, that saw me take a necessary step back from this work, for the project’s (and my own) sake. One could say I bit off more than I could chew this year, trying to tackle two robust outward-facing projects for Capstone, but even still I refuse to stop chewing.
This project has so much life, so much labour, and care, and heart. My conversations and connections with the writers in the class were extremely valuable to me, and I am grateful for the time that both they and the course convenor James took to give this collection its life.
One of the most imperative considerations for this publication was the printing of it. I wanted this book to be limited edition, lovingly hand-bound, and distributed only amongst the poets. Instead of running a public distribution round, I wanted this collection to be a quiet, beautiful way to remember the course and each other by. While this did not end up being viable in its delicate hand-made scope within the constraints of Capstone, I wondered if it was possible for me to continue this project over the summer period.
My goal going into my final few months of university was to position myself in the world as a designer of books. On reflection, I realised quickly within these months that the process of learning and discovery within the broad history of print culture was an intensive, and ever-lasting, task. In the end, because of commitments to Symposia, I wasn’t able to immerse myself in the necessary research and artistic practice that this secondary project so sensitively required.
After Capstone finished, however, everything gently and reassuringly fell into place. Over the summer, I was enrolled in a paper running at Wai-te-ata Press: Text, Communication and Culture. In many ways, taking a summer paper was the least financially viable move for me. By this stage, I had fulfilled the requirements for my undergraduate degree, and like most students, I was sufficiently in debt – and, living in over-priced rental squalour. But I didn’t feel ready to leave my projects behind.
With Catherine Griffith’s typography class in 2021, I visited Wai-te-ata Press: a letterpress printing press nestled into the hill of Kelburn campus. Within the first ten minutes of acclimatising to the surrounding beautifully restored letterpress machines, bookshelves spilling over, cases of historic metal and wood-type, the hand-set and hand-printed artists books arranged with care on the benches – I felt then what I know now was an epiphany: that this was the moment I decided that this was the practice I wanted to pursue.
On this day, just over a year ago now, and not knowing quite what the series of emotions were that I was experiencing, I asked my friend Lara to take a photo of me in the workshop. Looking back on the goofy, nervous smile of this past-self now, I know for certain that Wai-te-ata is where I am meant to be, and that I wouldn’t change anything about the last year because it was those events that have led me here.
I write this as I sit now in Wai-te-ata Press, at my desk in the office-space that is already beginning to feel like home. Behind me, Sydney Shep: The Printer at Wai-te-ata works away on her own endeavours, and we have just sat down with a cup of tea to discuss the week ahead. I met Sydney again this year when I visited the press to enquire about the summer course. When I found this was no longer running, Sydney was beyond generous in speaking with me, and was open to discuss with key members of the design teaching staff to arrange a way for me to inhabit the letterpress space over the summer teaching period.
After the generous involvement of Dylan Horrocks and Sarah Maxey, we were able to develop a Directed Individual Study course that would see the artistic continuation of the poetry chapbook project from November to February. This presented the opportunity for me to immerse myself in the research and practice of historical letterpress printing and bookmaking; to experiment with the form of letterpress, with the form of poetry, and with the diverse works and voices that this collection offers.
Stay tuned over the next few months to see this wonderful project develop, and to follow along my journey falling in love with letterpress. Thank you for sticking with me!
21 NOV 2022
Working With Type
WAI-TE-ATA PRESS
ENTRY TWO
Finishing my second week in the workshop has consisted of directing and planning my course of study and getting stuck into the research process that I lacked in earlier phases of this project.
I have chosen a programme that in many ways mirrors the capstone schedule: research, produce, evaluate. One key distinction that I have set, however, is to extend production to the very end of the programme (this may also include publication / distribution), and to make evaluation inhabit every stage of the process - working through evaluative written entries on a weekly delivery schedule. The research stage will occupy the first three weeks of the course, with a research proposal produced on November 30.
Through this self-directed schedule, every Thursday I will be in the letterpress workshop working with type: typesetting and designing poetry by-hand through experimental tasks set by Sydney.
The first of these creative tasks was to typeset the longest line of one of the students’ poems by hand, using a range of different typefaces – firstly, to get a feel for the process, and secondly, to start thinking about executive decisions on typefaces for the collection. Whether this will be a continuous standardised typeface across all poems, or whether each individual voice should be expressed in a different visual style, may be discovered later on.
The first of these creative tasks was to typeset the longest line of one of the students’ poems by hand, using a range of different typefaces – firstly, to get a feel for the process, and secondly, to start thinking about executive decisions on typefaces for the collection. Whether this will be a continuous standardised typeface across all poems, or whether each individual voice should be expressed in a different visual style, may be discovered later on.
I chose to set the longest line in Rata Lee’s Perennial.
