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Movable Type Printing Press

February 10, 2012 by · Comments Off on Movable Type Printing Press 

Movable Type Printing Press, Kyle Durrie and her Moveable Type truck will roll into the Jaffe Center for Book Arts at Florida Atlantic University Thursday for a gallery talk, slide presentation and an afternoon of printing demonstrations, studio and truck tours, and tall tales about life on the road.

Durrie, 32, proprietor of Power and Light Press in Portland, Ore, a letterpress studio specializing in music packaging, posters, custom stationery and inappropriate greeting cards had been traveling with her boyfriend’s band when she got the idea for the cross-country adventure in a moveable type truck.

“I started thinking about the concept of touring and thought it was a fascinating way to make connections,” she said.

When Durrie moved to Portland after college, she enrolled in a letterpress class on a whim.
“I fell in love with letterpress printing,” she said. “I love printing. I love the tradition and craft of it. The precision and patience it demands. I love the sound and rhythm of the press. You can get lost inside these rhythms for hours and hours. And I love the idea of dragging heavy antique machinery around the country with me.”

The tour began in February 2011 in Port Townsend, Wash., headed up the coast of Oregon and began a cross-country adventure visiting schools, alternative and non-alternative art spaces, parks, music festivals, universities, parties and front stoops all in an effort to share her love of letterpress printing.

Durrie hopes to be back in Portland by the end of April.

Durrie, who graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine in 2002, studied art and printmaking and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine.

John Cutrone, the director of the Jaffe Center for Book Arts at the Wimberly Library at FAU, saw Durrie’s project on Kickstarter, a website that advertises itself at “the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects.”

“Letterpress printing is a niche printing art form and many of us know each other virtually, but rarely have the opportunity to meet in person,” he said. “There are letter press centers at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, in Iowa City at the University of Iowa, Minneapolis and of course, New York and San Francisco.”

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