We were proud to participate in a print exchange to honor the first 100 years of Vandercook printing presses.  Organized by Paul Moxon of the ever-so-helpful Vanderblog, 100 printers pledged to each design and produce an 8.5×11″ broadside celebrating the Vandercook Centenary (1909-2009).

The deadline was August 16th, which happens to be R.O. Vandercook’s birthday — and funnily enough — our own Vandercook’s birthday!  According to the records, Ephemera’s Vandercook SP-15 test press was originally shipped on 8/16/1966 to the National Printing Company in Buffalo, NY.

A drawing of what our press looks like.  Ok… this one is a lot shinier.

Above is our submission to the print exchange.  Get it?!  No??!!  Then you must never have had the pleasure of printing on a Vandercook.  When printing, you continually switch between its “trip” and “print” settings.  I know, I know.  It’s a real knee slapper.  We used a combination of wood type and photopolymer plates, and printed it in 4 runs on lovely gray Magnani Pescia paper with a deckled bottom edge.  I absolutely love deckled edges.

The best part about having participated in the exchange is that sometime soon, I’m going to get a set of all 100 prints in the mail.  Paul has been updating the gallery on his web site as the submissions roll in.  Here are some of my favorites:

From top, left, submissions from: Uno in Los Angeles, CA ; Pellinore Press in Baltimore, MD; Studio 204 in Dallas, TX; and Parallel Press in Fairfax, CA.

You can view all the submissions here.  I am so excited to see them all in person, and have tons of new artwork for framing.

Yay, Vandercook!

Tara